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.

So once the doors opened to the exhibit hall tonight, I made a beeline to the IDW booth for a press conference they were holding to announce Darwyn Cooke’s new series of Parker graphic novels, which are adaptations of the crime fiction novels by Richard Stark (a.k.a. Donald Westlake). Newsarama chief Matt Brady was there and covered the announcement already, so I won’t repeat the details of it. But as you can see from the picture above, we all stood in front of Cooke as he spoke, holding out our tape recorders and scratching down notes … I think Maggie Thompson from Comic Buyer’s Guide even filmed it. Afterwards, when talking to Heidi MacDonald of The Beat, she commented that with all the big movie, TV, video game, etc. press conferences going on in San Diego this week, it was pretty cool to have a comic company doing a press conference about a comic book at Comic-Con. Sure, there are panels to cover and one-on-one interviews set up and stuff like that, but a good old fashioned press conference really seemed to work here. And IDW did a nice job with the collateral material as well, handing out Cooke artwork with a disc, as well as Parker T-shirts to the press. Well done, guys.

One more note, this one a bit more on the personal side … afterwards, I got to chat with Heidi, Maggie and blogger/retailer Chris Butcher, all of whom I’d never had a chance to meet in person before. CBG introduced me to the concept of fandom and comics journalism well before the internet was around, and of course Heidi is one of the pioneers of the whole comics news blog idea, so it was awesome (and maybe even a bit overwhelming) to get to meet them. Chris took a picture of us, which is up on his Flickr account.

Cartoon Network announced today that they’re working on animated movies of Phil Hester’s Firebreather and Mike Avon Oeming and Bryan Glass’ Mice Templar, both of which are published by Image. In addition, they’re also adapting Chuck Dixon’s The Vanishers, published by IDW, into a live-action film. No air dates have been announced yet.

Check out the complete press release after the jump.

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The New York Times’ politics blog spotlights Presidential Material, IDW Publishing’s “graphic biographies” of Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama.

The two 28-page comics will be released on Oct. 8. The Obama book is by Jeff Mariotte and Tom Morgan, and the McCain book by Andrew Helfer and Stephen Thompson. J. Scott Campbell drew both covers.

“There have been comic book biographies before, that’s not new,” IDW’s Scott Dunbier tells The Times. “But we’re talking about a story that isn’t finished: two views of the candidates, two men who are both vying for what is arguably the most important job in the world.”

IDW’s press release can be found after the break:

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FEARnet has debuted its second 30 Days of Night web series, Dust to Dust, co-produced by Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures. The series revolves around events that follow FEARnet’s movie prequel, Blood Trails.

• Viz Media sends word that Marc Weidenbaum, vice president of original publishing, and Eric Searleman, senior editor, will perform the publisher’s first Comic-Con portfolio reviews from 2 to 4:30 p.m. Sunday, July 27.

• The Venture Bros. creator Jackson Publick reveals that production has begun on the show’s fourth season. [Publick's blog]

• Apple profiles Dark Horse Comics, with a focus on the company’s network of 145 Macs. The feature includes a sidebar that details the production process for an issue of Hellboy – from initial discussions between Mike Mignola and editor Scott Allie to lettering to press — and a publisher timeline. [Apple.com]

• Speaking of Hellboy, Mignola talks about his collaboration with Guillermo del Toro on Hellboy II: The Golden Army: “It’s my job to take del Toro’s idea, which nobody else can make heads or tails of unless he’s drawn it in his sketchbook, and decipher it. Even though I don’t speak Spanish, we speak the language of monsters and we have very similar tastes in artists so I can usually understand what he’s going for.” [Underwire]

• The talented artist Kristian Donaldson updates his blog with news that the second edition of the Supermarket trade paperback from IDW will get a new format — 6″ x 9″ — and a new cover (above). Also, he’ll be reteaming with Supermarket writer Brian Wood for Issues 35 and 36 of DMZ, which sport covers by John Paul Leon. [Donaldson's blog]

• I’m enjoying Kyle Latino’s illustrated summaries of the comics he reads each week. [This Week in Comics, via Super Punch]

I was going to wait and include this in one of my round-ups, but in the words of James Sime, “Perhaps I’m just a big nerdy nerd, but this made me giddy with excitement!”

So what are we excited about? This part of IDW’s big San Diego Comic-Con press release:

Eisner award-winning creator Darwyn Cooke (DC’s The New Frontier) will be announcing an all-new project through IDW and signing an exclusive signature card when he speaks at IDW’s panel on Saturday July 26.

I covered the Darwyn Cooke spotlight panel at last year’s SDCC, when he announced he was leaving The Spirit and would be working on two new creator-owned books. Specifically, from that write-up:

Cooke revealed that he has two graphic novels planned over the next two years - one an all ages fairy tale, and the second, more in the vein of his Catwoman work, centering on a man who’s life is unraveling as he deals with modern life. Bone will be working on his own graphic novel, called Jett Vector. “You want to take your own shot and see what you can come up with yourself,” Cooke said. “A lot of the focus is on that right now.”

Now maybe we’ll learn what at least one of those projects is …

The complete press release, which includes a list of all the cool stuff IDW will be selling at the show, can be found after the jump …

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– The Chicago Tribune’s Red Eye blog is hosting one of those “Which hero is better?” tournaments you’ve probably seen on message boards. Not that there’s anything wrong with pondering if Iron Man is better than Elektra or if Thor can beat Buffy, mind you; I’ve done it many times. But I’m looking forward more to the New York Times’ “Who should be in the JLA?” quiz or the Wall Street Journal’s “Which super heroine is hottest?” poll.

– Can Swamp Thing fill the Martian Manhunter’s shoes in the JLA?

– “Make some comic books like you fucking mean it.”

– Calvin Reid profiles Keith Knight.

– Grant Morrison has updated his Web site.

– Here’s some good news: IDW is going to reprint Bill Messner-Loebs’ Journey.

– Yet another New Yorker caption contest cartoon is being accused of plagiarism.

– Viz has acquired four new manga.

– Mike Sterling collects stories about the fates of the Peanuts characters.

Compiled by JK and Chris

Since Rich Johnston, or possibly Wizard, let the cat out of the bag — too soon, apparently — about veteran writer Larry Hama’s return to G.I. Joe for IDW’s reboot, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Chris Ryall started a message-board thread to answer the first 10 questions about the new title.

Topics range from the inclusion of specific characters and where the team will be headquartered to how much “free rein” IDW has with the license and confirmation that, yes, this series is a reboot:

Are we doing a reboot? The answer is, we’re starting at the beginning. A New Beginning. But we’re doing it in a way akin to what they did with James Bond last year. The movie stripped away a lot of the things that had made the franchise feel bloated and ridiculous and started over. Not necessarily scrapping what was to come in the characters’ future movies, but resetting things, losing the bloat, making the character stand out again, and reminding people why it was once great.

That’s what we’re doing. And doing it with Larry, where he’s a two-decades-better storyteller than he was, and with the wisdom of years to think about what worked and what didn’t, is immensely exciting to me. Before, he was essentially making it up as he went. Now, he know what he wants to do, and is being given the freedom to do it.

– Freddie Mercury vs. Darkseid.

– Todd Allen looks at alternate modes of distribution.

– John Byrne talks to Van Jensen about a possible Next Men revival.

– Wil Moss interviews Simone Lia about her upcoming book, Fluffy.

– British cartoonist Martin Rowson wonders who he’ll be able to kick around once Dubya leaves office.

– Todd Klein and Neil Gaiman’s “Before You Read This” print goes on sale this Friday.

Compiled by JK and Chris.

Green Lantern movie will tell Hal Jordan’s origin, producer says

Ever so slowly, more details are coming to light about the much-discussed Green Lantern movie.

Last week director/co-screenwriter Greg Berlanti gave fans hope simply by mentioning that, yes, he’s working on the script. Then yesterday at Newsarama, co-screenwriter Marc Guggenheim spoke enthusiastically about the movie, even if he didn’t really reveal anything.

But now there’s some firm information: Producer Donald De Line tells CHUD that Green Lantern will detail Hal Jordan’s origin and, in the website’s words, feature “all the heroics and action inherent with that character.”

Also … no Jack Black. That’s about it. Hey, I said “ever so slowly.”

UPDATE: Collider now has a Q&A with De Line that fills in some of the details. The producer notes that delays with the Justice League movie won’t affect Green Lantern, which is “very much a kind of stand alone about the origin of that character.”

Zak Penn gets sole writing credit on The Incredible Hulk

Despite Edward Norton’s well-publicized rewrite, Zak Penn will receive sole screenplay credit on The Incredible Hulk.

IESB reports that Penn, who wrote the original draft, is credited with story and screenplay — a determination made by the Writers Guild of America.

“WGA determined the writing credit not Zak or Edward or Universal or Marvel,” a Universal Pictures representative told the website. “WGA always determines final writing credit for our films right before the film comes out. Up until that time, we include the writers on the project to date.”

As The Los Angeles Times detailed back in August, Penn wrote three drafts between early 2006 and spring 2007, but had to promote his movie The Grand before the screenplay could be completed to the satisfaction of Universal and director Louis Leterrier. With three months left before shooting was scheduled to begin, Norton signed a deal to turn around his draft in less than a month.

The Incredible Hulk opens on June 13.

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Steve Niles’ Wake the Dead lands at Holding Pictures

Holding Pictures has acquired the rights to Steve Niles’ IDW Publishing miniseries Wake the Dead, a modern-day retelling of the Frankenstein stories.

Jay Russell (Tuck Everlasting, The Water Horse) will direct from a script by James V. Hart (August Rush, Bram Stoker’s Dracula). Visual effects will be provided by Peter Jackson’s Weta.

Released in 2003-2004, Wake the Dead originally was snatched up by Dimension Films, with Michael Dougherty (Superman Returns) set to adapt. However, it never made it out of the development stage.

“Me and Jay have been working for three or four years now to get this going,” Niles tells ShockTillYouDrop.com. “All through him doing The Water Horse. And we’ve just been steadily hammering away at it. He’s always had a consistent vision and he knows this is a modern re-telling of Frankenstein. It’s grim death. It’s about as far from My Dog Skip as you can get.”

Platinum and Valhalla team up for Final Orbit adaptation

Platinum Studios’ comic-book thriller Final Orbit won’t be released until early next year, but it’s already winding its way toward the big screen.

The company is teaming with Valhalla Motion Pictures for the adaptation, with Russell Gerwitz (Inside Man) writing the script. Valhalla chair Gale Anne Hurd and Platinum Studios chairman-CEO Scott Mitchell Rosenberg will produce.

In Final Orbit, a lottery provides winners with the chance to vacation aboard the newly completed International Space Station. The trip turns bad when the station is damaged, trapping the tourists on board with no astronauts around to help.

The Ticker

• The fire at Universal Studios didn’t stop the MTV Movie Awards. Transformers rode away with Best Movie, while Iron Man won Best Summer Movie So Far. No slight to Iron Man, but that’s the worst category ever. [Reuters]

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Blogger Chris Sims shares an “excerpt” from Conbraganda: Winning Hearts and Minds In America’s Second Cold War over on his blog, and includes several well done G.I. Joe-inspired propaganda posters.

Our friends at First Second have declared May to be Vampire Month, and we thought we’d play along by presenting some of our favorite vampires from pop culture (but mostly comics). So sit back, grab a warm glass of the red stuff and sink your teeth into these undead fiends …

Dane from 30 Days of Night: Dark Days

I was a big fan of the initial 30 Days of Night mini-series, so I really looked forward to the sequel Dark Days. Especially since Steve and Ben were going to get six issues to stretch out and develop their story. I was looking forward to watching Stella get her revenge on some vampires for what happened at the end of the first story, but I had no way of knowing how hard I was going to fall for her and some of the other new characters. Particularly Dane.

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– Before moving into the second major story arc, Northlanders will feature a two-parter on Lindisfarne, which Brian Wood says is “the raid that kicked off the whole Viking Age and introduced the larger world to the Norsemen and their nasty habits of rapine and slaughter. It’s importance can’t be overstated.”

– PWCW profiles Lars Martinson’s Xeric-winning graphic novel, Toonharu.

– They also look at IDW’s series of art books.

– Remember Cold Cut? They’re back and now called Haven Distributors.

– Marc Mason interviews Neil Kleid.

– The Daily Cross Hatch has part 2 of their Gerard Way interview up.

– Here’s a nice round-up of the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention.

– Peter David steps up for charities who want to use his characters in money-raising auctions.

Compiled by JK and Chris.

– Tom Spurgeon interviews Tripwire editor Joel Meadows.

– Fantagraphics store manager Larry Reid is profiled.

– Blog@ columnist Neil Kleid is going to be at the People’s Improv Theater for Comic Book Club in New York Tuesday night.

– Gelatometti has video from the Image Seven signing on Free Comic Book Day.

– San Diego Comic Con teasing has begun.

– France needs superheroes.

– American Psycho meets The Dark Knight.

– Roger Ebert talks about the forefathers of blogs — fanzines.

By JK and Chris

IDW publisher Chris Ryall announces on his blog that IDW will publish the first trade paperback collection of Thom Zahler’s Love and Capes:

Harlan Ellison, of all people, called me up and encouraged me to give the book a look, raving (not ranting, but raving) about the sweetness and humor of the story. When a guy of Ellison’s standing talks up a comic that he really likes, it definitely deserves a look. So I contacted Thom, we had a nice chat, he sent me the comics… and then began my usual near-impossible task of simply finding time to read them. But finally, with Thom patiently waiting, I gave one a look, and was hooked. It really is a great, charming story. In the press release, I mentioned that only Tom Beland’s comics feel like they’ve got as much heart and good humor as these comics. But where Tom’s are based on his life, Thom’s are a full-on romantic comedy with superheroes. Not like that painful Uma Thurman movie, but more like THE INCREDIBLES.

Hopefully this will drive more people to check out the book, which definitely deserves a wider audience. Visit Thom’s site to read the press release. The trade comes out in November.