Daniel and Jason of AFI interview Jim Mallon (Gypsy) and Trace Beaulieu (Crow T. Robot and Dr. Clayton Forester) of Mystery Science Theater 3000 about their recently released 20th Anniversary Boxed Set from Shout!Factory.

This was a near, life long dream for me (Daniel0, as I have been a HUGE MST3K fan, and have watched and own hundreds of hours of episodes.   You can see the goofy grin on my face through the whole thing.  And to have the real logo planet and Crow puppet in the same room with me… was almost enough to make my head bust open!

MST3K 20th Anniversary Interview

Retailer and commentator Chris Butcher returns from vacation, and revisits a pair of heavily discussed Comic-Con-related issues from earlier in the summer.

The first is John DiBello’s widely circulated call for Comic-Con organizers to create and enforce a policy addressing harassment — sexual and otherwise. It’s a reasonable and, apparently, necessary suggestion. Still, some argued that efforts to curtail verbal abuse would infringe on their First Amendment rights. (They wouldn’t.)

But Butcher, who attended the recent Penny Arcade Expo, comes back with the gaming convention’s seven simple rules, which are written with humor and, it seems, posted without protest. He notes that they appear at all of the entrances to the exhibit hall, and in the convention booklet.

“Why is this so hard for comics?” Butcher writes. “Why all the hand-wringing and endless debate about nothing?”

He also links to a San Diego Union-Tribune article about the other big Comic-Con issue. No, not the 900th incarnation of “Is SDCC Still About Comics?” I mean the pre-convention debate about whether to boycott the Manchester Grand Hyatt because hotelier Doug Manchester donated $125,000 to support an anti-gay marriage initiative.

The newspaper reports that, despite assurances by the hotel that boycotts by various groups haven’t affected business, the company’s chief financial officer warned Manchester in July that he could lose millions of dollars and alienate the gay community. Manchester asserts that the hotel has actually picked up business since the boycott began.

– 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 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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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:

Over at io9.com, our old friend Graeme McMillan posts on the Marvel fashion show at the San Diego Comic-Con:

Marvel say that these costumes will be available in time for Hallowe’en this year, with their official letter of apology to signficant others of superhero fetishists who were forced to wear said costumes by their partners being available the next day.

Marvel.com also has a report up.

Last week Tom Spurgeon interviewed IDW president Ted Adams, who said IDW is thinking about not exhibiting at the San Diego Comic-Con next year. To quote Adams:

I think we’re likely not to be at San Diego next year. There are people that work for me that think that’s not the right decision. I’m trying to weigh what they’re telling me, think hard about what they’re telling me. Certainly for the freelance community that works for us, it’s important to them that they have a place at this show. I’m trying to think about how can I accomplish those goals with drastically reduced cost to us. Not so much the financial cost, but the opportunity cost. How can I have a place where Ash Wood can meet his fans at San Diego Comic-Con without it requiring all this time?

Tom also posts comments from fans, media and other publishers on the IDW interview, which you can find here.

Tom also asked IDW about their press conference with Darwyn Cooke, which I attended Wednesday night. Hopefully even if they do elect not to have a booth, they’ll still look for opportunities like this to get the word out on their announcements, because I thought the press conference went over really well. Which is kind of funny, if you think about it … the idea of a good old-fashioned press conference is old hat, but use the concept to publicize comics, and it’s something unique and different.

Artwork for this post, BTW, is the press envelope and what was inside … three pieces of Darwyn Cooke art and a CD that contained more artwork and background info on the project. You can get a better look at the three pieces after the jump …

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Warner Bros. finally has released the seven Watchmen character posters unveiled last week at Comic-Con. The collaboration between director Zack Snyder and Watchmen co-creator Dave Gibbons recreate the artist’s 1986 house ads for the comic.

You can view the other posters after the break.

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As the vendors’ booths go back into storage, and the sights, sounds, and smells of a hundred-thousand conventioneers fade into memory, let’s consider some of DC’s announcements from this year’s Comic-Con. Obviously these aren’t presented in any particular order, nor do they represent all of DC’s Big News over the weekend.

Anyhoodle:

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Caleb Monroe, writer of The Remnant, decided to see how many steps he’d take during the San Diego Comic-Con:

So, since my feet sure feel the mileage every year, this year I thought I’d find out just what that mileage was. So I bought a pedometer to count the number of steps I took during the con, and therefore approximately what distance I traveled. I forgot to get one before leaving for my train, but after walking the few blocks from the train station to my hotel and dropping off my bag, the first thing I did was walk another couple blocks to Long’s Drugs to buy a pedometer.

Click the link to see how far he walked.

Oni sent over today the artwork they showed during their San Diego presentation on Saturday. I posted the cover for the next Scott Pilgrim book already, and the main site has my Oni panel report up in the comic section if you’d like more details on each project. I’ll try to add some extra commentary, though, in my post here.

So let’s see what they have coming up …

First up, here’s Billy Smoke:

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Well!  Now that Comic Con is over and the cats are roaming free out of their respective bags, what can we really say besides … GO TEAM MARVEL!  Sure, the Distinguished Competition let some things slip and seem to be doing well for themselves, but as a True Believer, I just gotta say how awesome it was to watch the next year or so unfold at panels, hear word of exclusives, catch hints and secrets and yes, see ‘Stan The Man’ Lee cruising down the halls on his way to his next panel.

The con is sort of a surreal experience with so much happening all at once, it’s hard to take in.  I know I missed a bunch of panels and events waiting in one line or another, so here’s just a bunch of things that caught my eye that might have gone under your radar, what with all the Stephen King mobile video episodes, exclusive contracts, Marvel movies and assorted madness.

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One of the most popular attractions on the exhibit floor this past weekend was the Owl Ship from the Watchmen movie that Warner Bros. brought wth them. TVGuide.com was given access to the Owl Ship; check out their video tour:

They shot a lot of other Watchmen-related videos, which you can check out here.