The Orlando MegaCon has announced their guest list for their big event, coming up next Feb. 27-March 1. You can check out the complete press release after the jump.

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– Big Shiny Robot has a preview up of SLG’s Pirate Club.

– C.B. Cebulski and the Immonens shares pictures from this past weekend’s Fan Expo Toronto.

– G. Willow Wilson begins her own guerrilla marketing campaign for the recently released Air.

– Congrats to our friend Rick Marshall, who is the new co-editor of MTV’s Splash Page blog.

– A Distant Soil creator Colleen Doran shares a tale about how not to make friends in the comics industry … it ranges from annoying to creepy. And apparently one of the folks involved really doesn’t have a clue.

–BusinessWeek takes a look at Marvel and DC’s recent online comics ventures, and in the process asks retailer James Sime what he thinks. I’m going to guess that this isn’t the answer they were expecting:

But James Sime, owner of the Isotope comic book store in San Francisco, isn’t too worried about the impact of digital comics on his business. He says he believes there’s a great opportunity for comics retailers and publishers to learn from the mistakes of the ailing music industry.

According to ICV2, a trade publisher that monitors the business of comics and pop culture, trade paperbacks (collections of single issues in one book) generated $375 million in 2007 and single issues did $330 million that same year. Although Sime doesn’t think single-issue sales will go away, he envisions a scenario in which they are moved from print to online as promotion for the trade paperback. “I’m all about it,” said Sime. “People are excited about comics. The more people get them into their hands, the more they read them—the Internet is a great facilitator for that.”

– Marvel.com has a Q&A up with Zak Krefting of Shaba Games, the outfit working on their upcoming Spider-Man: Web of Shadows video game.

– The Daily Cross Hatch interviews Swallow Me Whole author Nick Powell.

– The Walrus chats up Seth.

– Dick Locher will soon draw his 10,000th cartoon.

– Here’s a video of Chip Kidd talking about his upcoming Bat-Manga book.

– Speaking of videos, here’s Cold Heat Video Special #1, courtesy of Frank Santoro.

– Oh, and then there’s this.

– Electric Politics talks to Robert Crumb.

– The L.A. Times spoke with Act-i-vate creators Joe Infurnari and Molly Crabapple at Comic-Con.

– How to make a stained-glass Spidey.

– Apparently women in England want to be like Willow.

– Henry Jenkins talks to two Comic-Con “newbies” who attended for the first time this year.

Compiled by JK and Chris.

The World Science Fiction Society will add a Best Graphic Story category to the prestigious Hugo Awards, which honor science fiction and fantasy.

The new category will need to be ratified at next year’s Worldcon before it can take effect. However, organizers of the 2009 convention in Montréal have included Best Graphic Story as a temporary category. According to ICv2.com, “Any science fiction or fantasy story told in graphic form appearing for the first time in the previous calendar year” will be eligible.

Although this will be the first time the Hugos have had a category specifically for comics, in 1988 it honored Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen in the Other Forms category. And in 2000, Neil Gaiman and Yoshitaka Amano’s illustrated novella The Sandman: The Dream Hunters was nominated in the Best Related Book category for a work that “is either non-fiction or, if fictional, is noteworthy primarily for aspects other than the fictional text.”

While this letter was being passed around the internet this week, some of the brains at Girl-wonder.org got together and said “How can we solve this problem and help others solve this problem?” In less than 2 days, they’ve created the Con Anti-Harassment Project:

The Con Anti-Harassment Project is a grass-roots campaign designed to help make conventions safer for everyone. Our aims are to encourage fandom, geek community and other non-business conventions to establish, articulate and act upon anti-harassment policies, especially sexual harassment policies, and to encourage mutual respect among con-goers, guests and staff.

The convention experience is often a fun and rewarding one; we want to do our part to make it fun, rewarding and safe for everyone involved. Conventions can’t eliminate harassment, but they can reduce it, have ways to deal with it when it happens, and make it clear that it’s unacceptable in our fun con environments. Our campaign is based upon a three-part action plan we encourage con committees to adopt and adapt for their own con atmosphere and environment.

The site includes tips for letter campaigns, a FAQ, and a list of genre conventions with contact information and their policies on harassment.

– Joëlle Jones draws some X-Women.

– An entire blog devoted to Ronald Searle? I’m so there.

– Eric Bogosian to recite Art Spiegleman. There’s a pairing I never expected to see.

– PBS Newshour does a profile on Jeff Smith.

– Pantheon will publish Dash Shaw’s Bodyworld.

– Scatalogical Hulk joke alert!

– Ryan Kelly shares Northlanders character designs.

– Here’s a map in case you ever get lost in Springfield. Via.

– Vulture previews Burma Chronicles by Guy Delisle.

– Das Gamer wonders why the Halo comic is taking so long to complete.

– Larry Marder teases new Beanworld. Wohoo!

– Neil Kleid is doing a series of articles on the Dark Tower for Marvel.com. Here’s the first one.

– Bill Kahler and Mark Yturralde, the treasurer for Comic-Con International, are contestants on the Amazing Race this fall.

– The Hero Initiative has more Hulk covers up for auction. This week’s covers are by John McCrea, John Romita and Fred Hembeck, among others.

Compiled by JK and Chris.

– The upcoming Image anthology Liquid City gets a website.

– Registration for the 2009 Comic-Con International is now open.

– Amazon is offering monthly comic book subscriptions now. Via.

– Doug Wolk on Blake Bell’s Steve Ditko book.

– Frank Santoro muses about Big Numbers.

– Tom Spurgeon on the modern comic strip.

Compiled by Chris and JK.

Beginning today some 500,000 people will descend on the Tokyo Big Sight for the 74th installment of the twice-yearly Comiket, the world’s largest comic convention.

Yes, half a million people. That includes about 35,000 “circles,” or groups of people who self-publish manga (dōjinshi). About 70 percent of the circle members are women.

The winter installment of Comiket, also known as Comic Market or Comike, will be held from Dec. 28 to 31.

The Japan Times has a brief preview of this weekend’s event.

The extended Just Past the Horizon hiatus will be broken this week for a guest post by John DiBello, best known as the human companion of Bully the Little Stuffed Bull. John noticed serious problem at SDCC, and asked some of his friends to post the following article on their blogs so that it could reach the widest audience possible.

Overheard at San Diego Comic-Con while I was having lunch on the balcony of the Convention Center on Sunday July 27: a bunch of guys looking at the digital photos on the camera of another, while he narrated: “These were the Ghostbusters girls. That one, I grabbed her ass, ’cause I wanted to see what her reaction was.” This was only one example of several instance of harassment, stalking or assault that I saw at San Diego this time.
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Editor’s Note: DC Comics President Paul Levitz discusses The DC Vault project and memories from this year’s San Diego Comic-Con.

by Paul Levitz

A few months ago, Steve Korte sent me off on an archeology mission. For those of you who don’t know the name, Steve is the long-serving Group Editor of our Licensed Publishing team. His crew packages content for everything from calendars to coffee-table books like last Christmas’s MAD’S GREATEST ARTISTS VOLUME ONE: THE COMPLETELY MAD DON MARTIN. Odds are you have a few of their beautiful projects like Alex Ross’ MYTHOLOGY on your shelf, and equally likely you never heard of the steps they take to help introduce new readers to our heroes (there’s more than one way to create a fan).

Anyway, Steve looked at the 1970 “thanks for writing” postcard sitting in lucite in my office, showing off (quietly) my personal connection to the DC offices from when I was 13, and he asked “Any more at home like that?” He didn’t want the similarly-lucite-sealed hard-won Marvel No-Prize resting in front of my bound 30-year Marvel run; just more DC “stuff.”

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– Project Rooftop and Harris Comics have teamed up for a “Vampirella ReVamp” contest.

– David Lasky’s doing a book about the Carter Family.

– The Daily Cross Hatch talks to Jamie Hernandez.

– Our own Tim O’Shea chats up Dirk Deppey.

– DK plans to keep making funnybook-related coffee-table books.

– How to play Calvinball.

– How much more black could this be? The answer is none. None more black.

– Cripes, I completely forgot that Otakon was last weekend.

– Good lord, people are still griping about that Kramers Ergot volume? Buy it or don’t buy it, just stop complaining about it.

– Not Comics: Clue is being updated. Now you can kill people with a baseball bat.

Compiled by Chris and JK.

Paramount Pictures has updated the official Star Trek movie website with high-res versions of the new posters released over the weekend at Creation’s Star Trek Las Vegas convention. Like the character posters released last month at Comic-Con, these four images combine to form the familiar “delta emblem” from the original TV series.

These teasers showcase Simon Pegg as Scotty, John Cho as Sulu, Karl Urban as McCoy, and Anton Yelchin as Chekov.

The other three posters can be seen after the break. J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek opens on May 8, 2009.

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Invincible Iron Man writer Matt Fraction posts a downloadable image for the “Tony Was Right” T-shirt he wore at Comic-Con.

– Stephen DeStefano shares a Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend commission.

– The Hugo Awards were announced this past weekend in Denver.

– As were the Doug Wright Awards (though not in Denver).

– Tom Spurgeon talks CCI with David Glanzer.

– Alley Oop turned 75. I didn’t even know it was still around.

– A Matt Bors’ cartoon makes it all the way to Gitmo and the hands of Salim Hamdan.

– Own an iPhone? Like comics? Bookmark this site.

– It’s not comics, but I liked this MTV story about fan reaction to Diablo III screenshots and the developers explanations as to why they did what they did.

– Arvid Nelson and Jesse Falcon join the Comic Book Club this Tuesday.

– io9 picks the VP candidates. Yes, it’s comics related.

– Cartoons for grown-ups.

– Trent Reznor thought about turning Year Zero into a graphic novel. Instead, he’s talking to HBO.

– Mike Sterling presents “Things not to say to a comic book shop employee.”

– Where were you?

Compiled by JK and Chris.

Vaneta Rogers was nice enough to send over one last round of pictures from the San Diego Comic-Con, which took place 100 million years ago. Or maybe it was yesterday? I’m still having a hard time remembering.

Anyway, enjoy the pics and her commentary …

*****
Jenna Dewan from Step Up signs Magdelena posters at the Top Cow booth, promoting the movie in which she’s slated to star as Patience.

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Charlie Chu has a nice Flickr set of portraits taken at SDCC this year.

– I really don’t need any more tote bags, but if I did, I’d snag this Adrian Tomine-designed one The Strand is selling.

– Here’s the cover for the next Kramers Ergot. And here’s the cover for the next issue of Kevin Huizenga’s Or Else.

– Wow, Franklin’s 40 years old? Now I feel really old.

– Danny Fingeroth picks his favorite comics evar.

– Will no one save the Aquaman hoodie?

– Missed it: Phoebe Gloeckner talks about her current project.

– This just in: Publishers like Comic-Con.

– Chris Arrant profiles Tiki Joe Mysteries.

– The greatest double-page spread in comics history. In my book, anyway. Bully has a few more.

– If Charles Schulz drew Sandman. Via.

– Action Figure Insider has a bunch of toy pictures from the San Diego Comic-Con.

– Time looks at The 99, a comic-book series “based on characters that each personify one of the 99 qualities that the Koran attributes to God.”

– Chris interviews Cul de Sac creator Richard Thompson.

Compiled by JK and Chris.

Meant to mention this last week … I want to throw a big congrats out to Take That! author Neil Kleid, who had a good week last week. Not only did his Rorschach’s SDCC Journal column receive praise from one of the folks working on the film, but the IDW panel in San Diego included the announcement of a new series from IDW called POP! Darlings of America that he’s co-writing with Dan Taylor. Congrats to Neil!

Brave New World, a comic shop located in Santa Clarita, Calif., was presented with the Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award in San Diego last weekend. You can check out their entry video below: