DC’s big shake-up in September has inspired plenty of reaction across fandom, both positive and negative. Someone squarely in the latter camp has decided to get organized, starting a Facebook event called “Walk to protest against the new awful designs,” thus far inspiring 163 spurned readers to join in on the demonstration.

The event is scheduled for Saturday, July 23 at next month’s Comic-Con International: San Diego, though the exact location is “TBA.” Here’s what the event description, credited to Laura Hornack, has to say:

Are you utterly baffled, disappointed and just ANGRY to see how DC ruins your favorite character’s design and wipes decades of comic history out of the mainstream universe? Well, you’re not alone! And why not make some noise at the biggest pop-culture event this year, where creators, artists and writers appear in person – show them how fans – the fans of the classic characters, the (nevertheless slightly changing) designs, the character’s history and personality – really feel about it!

The comments on the wall are pretty split on the whole idea (762 are currently marked down as “not attending”). Many of comments are along the line of Joe Kontor’s: “How about you read the first damn issue before you decide you don’t like it?” though some are supportive. If the protest does go indeed go down, we’ll do our best to be there and see who shows up.

Wish that Fox has picked up the TV version of IDW’s Locke & Key? Going to San Diego Comic-Con? Then you’re in for a potential treat, as IDW will be screening the entire pilot at the con as part of its Locke & Key panel on Friday morning. Deadline Hollywood broke the news, noting that the screening comes from IDW themselves, and not producers 20th Century Fox. The studio is said to have loved the pilot, however, and started looking for another home for the show (Syfy is potentially in the mix); could this screening end up selling some potential new network on picking up the show for a try-out? Keep your fingers crossed.

Every year, Comic-Con International: San Diego has become increasingly important to movie studios looking to promote their splashy new genre features. Except maybe this year.

According to The New York Times, Warner Bros., Disney, DreamWorks and The Weinstein Company are all skipping Comic-Con this year, at least as far as major presentations go. The article states that even Marvel Studios is “on the fence” about their level of involvement, despite The Avengers coming in 2012. (And yes, that would presumably mean no Dark Knight Rises panel, but there wasn’t one for The Dark Knight, and that movie seemed to do OK.)

To borrow a phrase from Norm Macdonald — what the H? The article (while making the customary Ewok cosplay jokes) describes Comic-Con as a “treacherous place” for movie studios. Two main reasons: while good buzz always help, bad buzz from Comic-Con can irrevocably tarnish a product in the early going. Plus, promoting at Comic-Con is expensive, with the article citing the example of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World — a critically acclaimed and beloved by fans film that had a huge presence at San Diego last year, and nonetheless ended up earning $31.5 million domestically off of a $60m production budget.

Of course, there will be solid studio representation this year — Sony and The Amazing Spider-Man, 20th Century Fox and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Universal and Cowboys & Aliens, and in what folks are surely already either lamenting or rejoicing, Summit and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1. So it’s not like Hall H is going to be a ghost town, and given where the event falls in the calendar, it’s still a definite priority for TV networks. But is Comic-Con’s exponential growth and influence starting to taper off a bit? Probably not a question that can accurately be answered for years — certainly it’s a hotter-than-ever prospect in terms of attendance — but will be interesting to see how things play out in the future.

For your approval, from this weekend’s Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland, OR:

Before you write that pic off as just another cosplayer doing their cosplaying thing: Underneath that helmet is Portland, OR mayor Sam Adams, doing his bit to support a local organization called p:ear, which supports homeless kids through education and arts-based programs by agreeing to appear in a costume that is the result of an online contest held by the Alter Egos Society. Adams has also declared that April is officially Comic Book Month in Portland for the last few years, in support of Stumptown and the local comics community in general. Consider the nerd-politic bar raised, just a little bit.

(Photo from Flickr, by Sarah Mirk).

Brian Michael Bendis is a busy guy. He’s writing “the Death of Spider-Man” in Ultimate Spider-Man, plus Avengers, New Avengers, creator-owned titles Powers and Scarlet, just released a new original graphic novel called Takio, is working on development of both the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon and the Powers live-action pilot, and the screenplay for the Fire adaptation, starring Zac Efron. That’s only the stuff that’s publicly known, and the writer also said there’s a “big Icon announcement” coming up at this weekend’s C2E2 convention in Chicago.

So yeah, busy. So it’s not entirely surprising that given all of this, Bendis has declared on his message board that C2E2 would be his last convention “for a while, maybe for years,” adding that he’s also got “some amazing game stuff yet to be announced” in the works. So, if you’re a Bendis fan and you’re going to be in the Chicago area this weekend but have been on the fence about attending C2E2, let this be motivation. And fresh from his board, his convention schedule (signings, panels, y’know) is after the jump.

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Ok, this is just too awesome for words. Up for bid on Ebay for the next six days, a custom tattoo designed personally for you by comic artist Cliff Chiang and inked by artist Brian Stringer at C2E2. The best part? Proceeds go to the Hero Initiative.

Here’s the gist: “The winner will have the unique opportunity to have Chiang draw, in advance of the show, any character of their choice or any other subject matter that can be agreed upon, as an 8″x10″ illustration. Then, this artwork will be tattooed by Brian Stringer at C2E2.”

And not only to you get the tattoo of your choice out of it, you get to keep the original illustration too. Of course you must have a valid state ID and be 18 years or older in order to win. Also, according to the listing, “The tattoo will be black and gray, any color work at tattooer’s discretion. No cover-ups, text, or logos. Any character head shot, bust, or action pose, up to 8″x10″. Up to 4 hours of tattooing. No neck or face tattoos.”

I’m planning on bidding but I’m worried it’s going to get too rich for my blood by the time the six days are up. I will try though. This is such a cool, original idea and a rare opportunity. Not to mention a great deal. And as I mentioned, 100% of the proceeds go to Hero Initiative so it’s a good cause too.

Many politicians use “going green” as a platform these days but in his State of the City address this morning, Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell wasn’t talking about his city becoming environmentally friendly, he dropped one hell of a geek reference.

“If New York is Superman; and Chicago is Batman; and Los Angeles is the Flash; then Austin is the Green Lantern,” said the Texas politician.

We all know the fictional home of Green Lantern Hal Jordan is Coast City, usually compared to real world California cities like San Diego or Los Angeles, but Leffingwell is staking the claim for Austin.

Anyone can name superheroes in a speech but it seems Leffingwell really knows his stuff. “We are a city without fear,” he continued, “We are a city that can create anything we can visualize, through sheer force of will. We are a city with a special charge to shine a light into the darkness and lead the way to a new and better day.”

The mayor also spoke of his cities inhabitants as, ”smart, driven, courageous and compassionate people. People who make things happen. People who keep moving forward no matter what.”

So he messed up the real-world correlation for where the Flash lives but I think we can forgive him after that amazing speech, don’t you?

In his speech, Leffingwell also mentioned breaking ground on a new 800-room hotel in downtown Austin in the next year. His goal? ”We will rock it to the top of convention destinations,” he said.

Build it, and geeks will come.

via Big Shiny Robot and KXAN.com

Well, that image pretty much says it all — after going on sale Saturday morning, tickets for this year’s Comic-Con International: San Diego are completely sold out. That’s four-day passes and singles, all as gone-zo as the chicken-loving Muppet himself. As convention organizers note, more tickets will likely go on sale at a later date as refunds are processed — which will likely not be that many, and go even faster, but we’ll be sure to let you know either way.

Were you able to get through today? Congrats! Were you not? Total bummer. Feel free to let us know your stories, either way, right here in the comments.

Simple enough, here’s your friendly reminder that Comic-Con International: San Diego registration opens up at 9 a.m. Pacific time tomorrow morning — Saturday, Feb. 5. The registration process has had a couple of false starts late last year, but we’ve got a good felling about it this time around.

So yeah — take it easy tonight, don’t sleep in; 9 a.m. Pacific, noon eastern, tomorrow. Here’s the site. Looks like you can actually access the TicketLeap site an hour before registration officially opens up, to ready your registering. Good luck!

The New York Comic Con has been getting bigger and bigger each year, and this October, it’s expanding to four days: Thursday, October 13 to Sunday, October 16. The convention says that while the movie is an expansion, it’ll allow the show to “better manage and limit crowds” on each individual day.

In the past, the first part of Friday at NYCC wasn’t open to the public, only professionals and exhibitors — now Friday, Saturday and Sunday will be open to all, while Thursday will be open for “academic programming” beginning at noon, with the floor open to professionals and for a San Diego-style “preview night” from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. There will be 10,000 four-day passes sold, starting at noon eastern time on Feb. 7 on NewYorkComicCon.com.

More information is on ReedPOP’s official blog, Medium At Large.

Will the… third? time be the trick? We’ll see as Comic-Con International: San Diego registration opens up at 9 a.m. Pacific time, Saturday, Feb. 5, after a couple of unsuccessful earlier attempts. The fact that it’s happening on a weekend seems to give more of a sporting chance to folks who work Monday through Friday. The last couple of times they opened things up, the servers got too slammed for anyone really to get through and order passes — hopefully things work out more smoothly this time around. A four-day adult pass — which doesn’t count preview night, as those tickets sold out at 2010′s show — is $105, with single-day passes available as well.

With the Kapow! Comic Con now official, we can most likely look forward to a steady stream of news and announcements circulating the Mark Millar-promoted show before taking place April 9 and 10 in London.

Such as this: producer Andrew Macdonald will be in attendance on the 2000AD panel, sharing with fans early details of the 2012 Dredd film. It makes sense — the convention seems to be centered around bringing the “San Diego Comic-Con experience” to London, which means movies and TV integrated with comics; plus Judge Dredd is one of the most prominent British-created comic characters.

The full press release follows after the jump.

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It’s happening: Mark Millar is launching a comic book convention in the UK called Kapow! Comic Con, happening April 9 and 10, 2011 at the London Business Design Centre (a month after C2E2 in Chicago, a week after WonderCon in San Francisco, and more than three months before Comic-Con International in San Diego). Guests include Andy Diggle, Jock, Steve Dillon, Duncan Fegredo, David Hine, Simon Furman, John McCrea and Kieron Gillen, plus Frank Quitely, Lenil Francis Yu and Dave Gibbons, with the latter three showing up alongside Millar in this video:

Kapow! Comic Con Trailer from kapowcomiccon on Vimeo.

It’s endearing how genuinely excited Millar comes across in the video, especially when when delivering lines like “the only thing missing is you,” but such earnestness is still a mite bit disarming coming from the writer of The Unfunnies.

Update: Here’s some more info, courtesy of Kapow! Comic Con’s Facebook page: the event will host the first-ever Stan Lee Awards (honoring comics and movies, there’s no indication yet if Lee himself will be there in person), plus, fittingly, the premiere screening of Millar’s directorial debut, Miracle Park.

Registration for 2011′s Comic-Con International: San Diego may be a giant error message-shaped question mark at this point, but here’s some positive convention news: Chicago’s C2E2 has announced their initial crop of guests, and named the always-active Brian Michael Bendis (currently writing Avengers, New Avengers, Scarlet, Powers, Ultimate Spider-Man and soon Moon Knight and Takio) as their first guest of honor.

Also attending C2E2: Art Baltazar, Franco Aureliani, Geof Darrow, Katie Cook, and Tim Seeley. C2E2 debuted this past April, and is put on by Reed Exhibitions, the same company that produces New York Comic Con. 2011′s event is scheduled for March 18-20, 2011.

Second verse, same as the first: Comic-Con International: San Diego 2011 registration has closed once again, due to overloaded servers of Epic, the registration company contracted by the event. The same thing happened three weeks ago when they originally tried to open it up. As has become abundantly clear and is worth repeating again: Comic-Con is really popular.

Here’s the latest, rather contrite, word from their website:

REGISTRATION IS CLOSED!

Once more, unfortunately, there have been issues with Comic-Con registration. So we have again decided to close it down.

We are well aware that many people have taken time from work, school or other activities and others woke up very early. There really is no way to convey our level of regret for this turn of events.

We are currently researching our registration options.

Unlike last time, we don’t even have a date as to when to expect more information on when registration might open up again. So keep reading for updates. And feel free to speculate on what “registration options” might work — an outlet like Ticketmaster? — in the comments.

More convention news for your Monday: after a false start last week, Comic-Con International: San Diego registration is opening up for 2011′s show at 6 a.m. (!) PST on Nov. 22. To give an idea of demand, four-day registration including Wednesday’s preview night is already sold out from sales at this past year’s show, so west coasters might want to double up on alarm clocks that morning.

The 2010 installment of the long-running Mid-Ohio-Con took place this past weekend, but the biggest news coming out of the event may be regarding the show’s future: on Sunday, Comics Worth Reading blogger Johanna Draper Carlson found a now-pulled listing on convention magnate/magazine publisher Wizard’s website advertising the 2011 show as as one of theirs. That spotting was picked up by The Beat, who has details here.

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File this under: “should have seen it coming.” In the latest testament to Comic-Con’s ever-growing popularity, registration for the San Diego event (coming July 20-24, 2011) shut down today shortly after opening up at 9 a.m. west coast time, due to overloaded servers.

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You’ve heard of Comic-Con, right? Huge event, happens in San Diego every July, sells out earlier and earlier each year? Well, if you’d like to get in on the fun, get ready to act now. Er, well, soon — like this coming Monday.

That’s when registration opens up for the 2011 edition of Comic-Con International: San Diego, with passes available for all four days and just one day (which really isn’t enough but remains an option nonetheless). Things open up at 9 a..m. Pacific time on Monday, Nov. 1.

How important is it to act as soon as possible? Passes that include admission to Wednesday’s preview night are already sold out, tickets having disappeared Chuck Cunningham-style during sales at this year’s con. Comic-Con advises, though, that “more four-day passes with Preview Night may be released closer to the show, depending on returns or cancellations.”

Comic-Con has also announced the initial slate of special guests for the 2011 show, including Jonathan Hickman, Alan Davis and David Finch. Full list after the jump; descriptions are Comic-Con’s, not ours.

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The annual Alternative Press Expo was held in San Francisco earlier this month — October 16 and 17. It’s been running in the Bay Area since 1994, and is run by the same organization — Comic-Con International — that puts on the massive Comic-Con in San Diego every July.

Despite that, they’ve vastly different events — APE is a fraction of the size and, as you’ve probably figured out, focuses on non-mainstream publishers and creators. Fantagraphics, Top Shelf and Drawn & Quarterly were among the companies exhibiting, with the show boasting special guests Tony Millionaire, Daniel Clowes and Lynda Barry.

It’s also an amazing opportunity for comic fans to see something totally unique that they wouldn’t come across otherwise. There’s dozens of self-publishers showing off their work, and as thoroughly cliche as it sounds, there really is something for everyone. It was fun to discover Amazing Arizona Comics, which wackily takes on the many issues plaguing my home state, and though it’s not comics, but I haven’t shut up to my friends about the work of Brandon Bird since coming across his stuff at APE. (With pieces like this, who could blame me? I can think of no better reason to become really good at painting.)

There was plenty of other great stuff. Don’t worry, we brought back pics.

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