If you’ve ever been to San Diego and you’ve walked around in the downtown area, then you’ve probably been asked if you wanted a pedicab ride. I think at least 30 of them asked if we needed a lift yesterday. If we were going to pay $30 to have one of them take us to the convention center, this is the one I would have taken.

The A.V. Club talks with brothers/collaborators Jonathan and Joshua Luna about their series Girls, Ultra and The Sword, their work process, and gender issues:

AVC: You work in an industry that’s still heavily skewed toward adolescent male power fantasies, with women as fantasy objects. And yet you consistently focus on female protagonists who come across as very real people. Are you consciously fighting the tide in the industry?

Joshua: No, I think the fact that we did get out of comics for a while meant we weren’t really in tune with mainstream comics when we started making our own. We seriously are making comics from our point of view. We don’t consciously say “Let’s make something different.” It’s just how we see, or what we enjoy, or things that we want. We basically just make what we want to see.

There’s a rising concern in some quarters that Comic-Con International has sold out in ways that go beyond the lack of on-site registration. What once had been an educational community seems to have morphed into a PR-palooza, with the celebration of an art form giving way to corporate hype and celebutards.

For an event such as Comic-Con, complaints like this aren’t just idle chatter. San Diego Comic Convention is a tax-exempt educational charity and, as Blog@ reported last year, leading charity watchdogs have raised serious questions as to whether Comic-Con continues to deserve its 501(c)(3) status.

Does rampant marketing compromise Comic-Con’s charitable mission? A quick legal overview after the jump:

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On the heels of the recently announced DC Comics and Invincible “motion comics,” Marvel is expected to reveal a similar initiative today at Comic-Con: It will adapt a never-before-released Stephen King short story as an animated series.

This is the “Marvel to the Nth Degree” announcement the publisher has been teasing: The story, called “N,” comes from King’s upcoming short-story collection Just After Sunset.

The Wall Street Journal reports the 25-episode series will be distributed online and via mobile channels in advance of the book’s Nov. 11 release. Beginning Monday episodes will be released daily, five times a week, through Aug. 29. iTunes also will sell pass for all of the two-minute episodes for $3.99.

This is the fourth venture between King and Marvel: The publisher previously has released two miniseries based on his Dark Tower books, and a 30-issue adaptation of The Stand debuts early next year.

You can see a teaser video for “N” after the break.

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One of the best items to come out of the “Mondo Marvel” panel is the announcement that the quirky and wonderful Agents of Atlas — comprised of characters from the 1950s Atlas era — will get an ongoing series beginning early next year. The team, which debuted in a 2006 miniseries, last appeared in Secret Invasion: Who Do You Trust?

“I want to keep up the ‘modern pulp’ approach we used in the mini,” writer Jeff Parker tells CBR, “where sometimes you’re in an espionage story, sometimes it’s sci-fi, and it can easily go into mystery and horror very quickly. And we have much inner space of our cast to explore.”

Although Leonard Kirk drew the Agents of Atlas miniseries, he’s now working on Captain Britain and MI:13. The name of the artist for the ongoing is expected to be announced soon.

Bryan Singer’s Bad Hat Harry Productions is teaming with Radical Pictures to develop of live-action adaptation of the mecha miniseries Freedom Formula.

Radical Publishing is introducing the five-issue series this week at Comic-Con, and will release the first issue in August. (Newsarama spoke with Radical’s Barry Levine about the title last week.)

The comic, created by Edmund Shern, is set in a future in which racing exo-suits have replaced fighter jets. The story centers on Zee, a genetically engineered racer who transforms himself into the hero of a dying city.

Singer and Levine will produce. Jesse Berger, Edmund Shern, Alex Garcia and Michael Zoumas will be executive producers.

This is the second comic-book adaptation this week for both Bad Hat Harry and Radical. On Tuesday, Warner Bros. announced it has optioned Rob Liefeld’s upcoming comic Capeshooters for Singer to produce. That was quickly followed by news that Hancock director Peter Berg will produce and develop Hercules: The Thracian Wars for Universal, based on the Radical miniseries.

Landscape Entertainment has grabbed the film rights to the Image Comics miniseries Pretty, Baby, Machine, by Clark Westerman and Kody Chamberlain.

The comic, which debuted in May under the Shadowline umbrella, is a crime thriller set during Prohibition as gangsters Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson and Machine Gun Kelly unite to challenge Al Capone.

Landscape president Bob Cooper will produce, while Brian Truman will oversee the project. Rodney Wilson and Westerman will be executive producers.

Disney has renewed its first-look deal with Stan Lee’s POW Entertainment.

As part of the two-year agreement, which covers TV, movies, games and other media, Disney has greenlit Time Jumper for distribution across multiple platforms.

The project revolves around an agent of a secret government organization called H.U.N.T. — Heroes United, Noble and True — who has a cell phone that doubles as a time machine. When his brother is lost in time, the agent must find him before a criminal cartel does.

Disney Interactive Media Group’s Disney Online and Disney Publishing Worldwide also will develop their own content based on Time Jumper. A comic is planned, too.

Lee set up three other projects with Disney in April: Blaze, Nick Ratchet and Tigress.

One of the things I appreciate about new Superman writer James Robinson is his possessiveness / protectiveness of Jack Knight, the character he co-created and wrote from 1994 to 2001 in Starman.

During DC’s “Superman: Man of Tomorrow” panel earlier today, Robinson was asked by an audience member whether Jack might appear in his Superman run. His answer?

“When you retire a character, you open him up to the potential that he might appear in books that you don’t want him to appear in, or be handled by other writers. Long answer short, no. But I have brought back Krypto.”

One bit of news that came out of Marvel’s X-Men panel this afternoon is the next X-event: X Infernus.

Or perhaps it’s “Ex Infernus”; I’ve seen it both ways already. Marvel Marketing Manager Jim McCann referred to it as Inferno 2, so make of that what you will. (X-Men: Inferno was a company-wide crossover in 1989 that involved a demonic invasion of Earth, starting with New York City.)

The five-issue miniseries, which debuts in December, finds the horrors of Limbo unleashed upon San Francisco — new home of the X-Men. The focus this time won’t be on the entire Marvel line; instead the spotlight will be on the mutants and Illyana Rasputin, aka Magik.

“She wants her soul back and she’ll kill however many demons and people as it will take to do so,” Editor Nick Lowe told CBR.

C.B. Cebulski is writing the miniseries, but the artist hasn’t been revealed. David Finch will provide the covers.

MoviesOnline has the Comic-Con teaser poster for Robert Rodriguez’s Red Sonja. Announced last month, the movie stars Rodriguez’s financee Rose McGowan.

Although initial reports had Red Sonja set for a 2010 release, the poster clearly says 2009.

Update: A second teaser poster can be found after the break.

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Spurred by a game of telephone involving Joel Silver’s supposed comments on a German radio show, rumors circulated last week that Keanu Reeves will star in the Wachowskis’ long-discussed Plastic Man movie.

It’s nonsense, of course. This afternoon at Comic-Con, Reeves told MTV’s Splash Page that while he’d like to work with the Wachowskis again, it won’t be on Plastic Man.

“In fact,” MTV’s Josh Horowitz writes, “it was pretty clear that Reeves had never even heard the rumor.”

Meanwhile, just days after speculation emerged that I, Robot director Alex Proyas would be helming a Silver Surfer movie, he denied the rumor to a Comic-Con crowd.

But nature, and the rumor mill, abhors a vacuum. So, Superhero Hype asked Torchwood star John Barrowman whether he would be playing Captain America in the upcoming Marvel movie. Barrowman apparently said he likes the character and would love to play him: “Clearly, though, the notion did not take him by surprise and he ended up admitting there had been discussions with his agents and meetings on that very issue.”

Today at Comic-Con, Lionsgate revealed artist Timothy Bradstreet’s poster for Punisher: War Zone.

The movie, which opens on Dec. 5, stars Ray Stevenson, Dominic West, Doug Hutchinson, Colin Salmon, Wayne Knight, Dash Mihok and Julie Benz.

• Hugh Jackman’s appearance at the tail end of this afternoon’s 20th Century Fox panel sent the 6,000-seat Hall H into “pandemonium,” according to The Hollywood Reporter’s Risky Biz blog and EW’s Popwatch. Jackman, there to promote X-Men Origins: Wolverine, left the stage momentarily to shakes hands with Wolverine co-creator Len Wein. (The panel apparently was delayed because scaffolding supporting drapes collapsed in the rear of the room.)

• On Tor.com’s new blog, David Moldawer reports that in this morning’s “75 Years of Doc Savage” panel, producer Michael Uslan “let slip” that there’s a Man of Bronze movie in the works.

• As predicted, Twilight devotees were out in full force, jamming Hall H for the Summit Entertainment panel. MTV Movies blog says that, “Thousands of fans stretched nearly a mile, many of them lining up Wednesday evening.”

• This is either some strange harmonic nerd convergence, or a WTF moment: Watchmen director Zack Snyder tells MTV’s Splash Page that My Chemical Romance — fronted by Umbrella Academy writer Gerard Way — will cover Bob Dylan for the movie’s soundtrack.

• Scott Robins, who used to write the All-Ages blog, is covering Comic-Con for Good Comics for Kids. Welcome back, Scott.

Wildstorm moved further into licensed comics as Electronic Arts announced today at Comic-Con that the DC imprint will produce a limited series based on the upcoming Mirror’s Edge video game.

The first-person action-adventure game features moves inspired by parkour and free running as the playable character Faith moves through a mirrored city, trafficking packages for the criminal underworld while trying to free her sister from a corrupt government.

The six-issue miniseries is written by Rhianna Pratchett, who wrote the game’s script, and illustrated by Matthew Dow Smith. The book will introduce Faith and her fellow “Runners.”

The first issue is being distributed at Comic-Con.

Related: The Los Angeles Times looks at EA’s first comic-book miniseries Dead Space, which launched in March.

Virgin Comics and Perspective Studios at Comic-Con today announced a collaboration with writer Grant Morrison called MBX, an animation franchise based on the ancient Indian epic the Mahabharata.

The re-imagining of the epic tale of two families at war is the flagship title of the joint venture between Virgin Comics and Perspective, a producer of digital animation. The two companies plan to develop several MBX animated projects, including a feature film and video games.

The animation for MBX will receive its public unveiling later today at the convention.

The press release can be found after the break.

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Apparently Twitter is having issues and dropped a bunch of our feed’s followers. I understand they’re working on the problem, but thought I’d throw up a link to remind folks we’re still out there:

http://twitter.com/NewsaramaBlog

Traffic in front of the convention center is murder. The bus driver said they’re diverting all cars to the stadium now, as parking here is completely full. She almost took out a couple of petty cabs on the way in .. she wasn’t something you wanted to dally in front of. Folks on the bus and in the Grant Morriosn/Stan Lee panel (which hasn’t started yet) are very enthusiastic and just seem happy to be here, despite any inconveniences caused by traffic, crowds, etc.

More later …

• The Hollywood Reporter spotlights the “10 most influential forces in the comic book movie universe,” from Kevin Feige and Paul Levitz to Frank Miller and Mike Richardson.

• Speaking of comic-book movies, USA Today looks at how Comic-Con “treats filmmakers as royalty.”

• To The Hollywood Reporter, a busier Preview Night apparently signals an apocalyptic tipping point for the convention.

• MTV’s new Splash blog has the first look at the cover of the Heroes, Vol. 2, graphic novel.

• AICN gets a sneak peek at art from Marvel’s upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand.

• Cinematical has a good shot of the X-Men Origins: Wolverine teaser poster, while Slashfilm gets upclose with the Owlship.

• Although Doctor Who and Torchwood showrunner/writer Russell T. Davies is supposed to be on a panel today, he never got on the plane in Cardiff. A BBC spokesperson told The Los Angeles Times’ Geoff Boucher that Davies was busy working on Torchwood and just couldn’t leave. Cue disappointed fans …

• The LA Times’ Jevon Phillips rides Fox’s City of Ember “publicity train” from Los Angeles to San Diego.

• I love these branded room keys some Comic-Con hotels are using.

• As JK pointed out earlier, blogger/retailer Chris Butcher is uploading tons of convention photos to his Flickr account. (It has 45 images already!) JK, of course, already posted a bunch of Preview Night photos; Blog@ has a San Diego-specific photo gallery, too.

Although Wednesday morning began with a flurry of movie options, the big news from Comic-Con International’s “Day 0″ came from comics publishers. And curiously, two of the announcements involved crime fiction.

DC Comics teased next summer’s launch of Vertigo Crime, a “subimprint” devoted to mystery and crime stories. The line, headed by Will Dennis, will debut with titles from 100 Bullets writer Brian Azzarello and Scottish crime novelist Ian Rankin. More details are expected today.

Not to be outdone, IDW Publishing opened Preview Night with a press conference announcing that Darwyn Cooke (DC: The New Frontier) will adapt Richard Stark’s first four Parker novels as a series of graphic novels. The first title is expected in late 2009.

Going in a decidedly different direction, BOOM! Studios announced a deal for it to produce a line of comics and graphic novels based on Disney/Pixar and Muppet properties. The first title, a four-issue Incredibles series, will be written by Editor-in-Chief Mark Waid and debut next year. Cooke will provide the cover art.

Other convention-related announcements:

• Wildstorm has acquired the comics rights to Summit Entertainment’s upcoming action-thriller Push. The DC imprint will release a six-issue prequel, by Marc Bernardin, Adam Freeman and Bruno Redondo, with covers by Jock.

• Cartoon Network will produce animated movies based on Phil Hester’s Firebreather and Mike Avon Oeming and Bryan Glass’ The Mice Templar, both from Image. The cable network also is adapting Chuck Dixon’s IDW title The Vanishers as a live-action film.

• Writer Ed Brubaker (Captain America, Criminal) has teamed with White Rock Lake Productions to produce Angel of Death, a live-action series for Crackle.com, Sony Picture Entertainment’s online-video network. The weekly crime/revenge series will debut next year.

• Warner Bros. will release a pair of downloadable Watchmen video games, with more installments possible.

• And that flurry of movie news? Warner Bros. snapped up the rights to Rob Liefeld’s forthcoming Capeshooters, for Bryan Singer to produce. Hancock director Peter Berg will develop Hercules: The Thracian Wars, based on the Radical Publishing miniseries. Jenna Dewan and Luke Goss will star in an adaptation of Top Cow’s The Magdalena. And Summit grabbed Virgin Comics’ one-shot The Leaves.

You can follow our complete Comic-Con coverage here.

Sorry about the headline, but there’s a HUGE Pikachu balloon hanging up over one of the booths, so …

Anyway, these four have brought their “A” game to their latest collaborative effort, Pixu:

If you’re at the show, go pick it up. If not, call a friend who can get it for you, or order it from khepri.com.