San Diego Comic-Con

San Diego Comic-Con 2008 Report

News
July 30, 2008

So… how was San Diego Comic-Con?

I’ve been asked that a lot in the last 48 hours, so here’s my best attempt at wrangling the bucking, spitting beast that was this year’s Comic-Con International in San Diego. It’s a long one, so consider yourself warned.

First off, it’s worth pointing out that I didn’t arrive until late Thursday night after a series of travel problems that included (but were not limited to): canceled flights, one missed connection, a sprained ankle (not mine), an hour spent standing in place during a "security breach" situation in the main Charlotte airport, and a pair of storms that seemed quite capable of ripping the roof off a house or sending various farm animals across the road in an airborne state.

Once I was actually in San Diego, however, there was a slightly more manageable form of chaos to deal with. Here were some of my thoughts on the whole affair, as well as some of the highlights from my chats with publishers, creators and various other groups around the show:

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SDCC: Leaked Comic-Con Movie Trailer Round-Up

News
July 29, 2008

As many know, Comic Con International has become more about showing off secret footage of upcoming TV and Film projects than about actual comic books, and for those unable to attend this year, or the attendees who weren’t fortunate enough (or patient enough) to make it into the major halls for the presentations, we’ve put together a small round-up of the leaked footage from this year’s show.

NOTE: This footage was not taken by anyone on the ComicMix staff, and we are only linking to previously published video files, so don’t sue us.

Starting it off is the biggest of the projects: the trailer (in two parts) for X-Men Origins: Wolverine:

I’d apologize about the unsteady handicam work, but it beats flying across the country and waiting in line for four hours to get a seat, trust me. This seems to be all the footage that has made its way onto the web so far, keep checking back for updates, plus our exclusive Comic Con ’08 video coverage!

Comic-Con Photo Gallery: Creators, Sights and Swag

News
July 29, 2008

As the Comic-Con chaos winds down and everyone deals with the last of the canceled flights and catch-up time, I figured it was a good time to dump the rest of the photos off my camera and provide a final hodge-podge of sights from the show floor (and beyond). Here, then, in no particular order, is the contents of my camera.

Oh, and keep an eye on ComicMix later today for my round-up of the show and the general San Diego Comic-Con International experience. It’s a big one!

By the Power of Hefty Marketing Budgets! It’s the Mattel Booth!

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SDCC Interview: Mike Mignola on the Hellboy Universe

News
July 29, 2008

Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy has certainly been a star in the comics scene for some years but the spotlight must be shining a little brighter now that his franchise includes two hit movies. We were lucky to get a chance to talk to him briefly at the show this year about the future of his book, the impact of the movies on his own storytelling, and the difficulties of letting go of the art chores on the book.

“If I get hit by a bus tomorrow, I don’t know what’s going to happen to the book,” said Mignola about the notion of passing the book off to other creators. He said he couldn’t imagine letting go of the character the way Todd McFarlane has let other people work on his most popular creation, Spawn.

When asked if, given that, it was hard to stop being the artist on the book, Mignola said it was at first — but he really likes the look of the book these days and he’s fond of the work Duncan Fegredo has done for the book. “Besides,” said Mignola, “if I was still doing the art it would take forever.”

Readers of Hellboy are undoubtedly aware of the way Mignola uses real-world mythology, so we asked him what we should be brushing up on for his upcoming books. He said they were going to be doing a take on some British mythology and that the content would be similar to the second film in a few ways.

We also asked if he was concerned that Guillermo del Toro’s film franchise seems to be building to a very different conclusion than his comics are. “The only thing that worries me is that the third movie will come out too soon,” said Mignola. Adding that he had a very firm plan for the comics and that this plan might take 15 years to be realized in the comics.

SDCC Interview: Robert Englund on Horror Films and ‘V’

News
July 29, 2008

Unless you’ve lived a very sheltered life for the last twenty years or so, you know all about Robert Englund and his most famous character: the knife-fingered Freddy Krueger of Nightmare on Elm Street fame. The films featuring the iconic villan were some of the most successful of all time and spawned several sequels including a cross-over film featuring not only Freddy Krueger, but another well-known and popular character and star of a hugely successful franchise: Jason Voorhees of Friday the 13th fame.

More recently, Englund has taken turns both in front of and behind the camera with roles and directing gigs on films such as 2001 Maniacs, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer and Zombie Strippers, which also features the acting talents of former adult film actress Jenna Jameson. ComicMix‘s Matt Raub and I caught up with Englund during San Diego Comic-Con and talked with him about, among other things, how hard it was to get to the convention, his latest projects, his involvement in the new V television series. and what he thinks about the future of horror films.

COMICMIX: So have you had a chance to check out the Con?

ROBERT ENGLUND: Not yet. We got messed up with the traffic. So many accidents, closures, people throwing themselves in front of trains, it took us forever to get here.

I think Comic-Con is jinxed. [Laughs]

CMix: So what brings you to the Con this year?

RE: I’m here with the company Anchor Bay which really responds to the kind of horror-comedy kind of stuff that people like Sam Raimi with the Evil Dead films used to do. I don’t know if it’s a response to the number of big-budget horror failures of late or that there’s so much homemade stuff on YouTube now, but fans really seem able to watch something like a Hellboy 2 or a Dark Knight, which I love, but they also have room for movies like the ones I’ve been involved with lately such as Zombie Strippers, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer or Hatchet.

It seems they can tune into a big $200 million blockbuster film one day and then also enjoy a little $2 million film we made mostly for fun. They’re what I like to call "cheap thrills." I think there always has to be room for cheap thrills. I don’t know if its political or if there’s too much CGI or something but maybe that’s what movies like Saw or Hostel are tapping into — people’s need for something more simple and fun.

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SDCC: Mortal Kombat Versus DC Universe Explained

News
July 29, 2008

The biggest North American comic convention wraps up another show. The hall is closed and the lights are off. But the videos from the show floor live on.

Way back when Mortal Kombat Versus DC Universe was first announced fans worried that Superman would be a horribly unbalanced character. A veteran reader of many Silver Banshee attacks Superman storylines, I speculated that since the Mortal Kombat universe was steeped in magic, this would explain how Sub-Zero could freeze Superman or Scorpion could set him on fire. Turns out I was right.

Midway has released the video shown (seen below) at San Diego Comic-Con where creator Ed Boon explained to fans how his guys can beat up their guys. And it looks amazing! The video also explains new in-fight mechanics: close combat and free fall combat. Also in the video were fights featuring Batman, Flash, and Catwoman.

No word yet if the villain from the Superman Returns movie shows up: A rock. A really big rock.

SDCC: ‘Scott Pilgrim’ Fights the Universe

News
July 29, 2008

The big news out of the Oni Press panel at San Diego all revolved around Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim, with an announced title and release date for the fifth book.

It’ll be Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe and it’ll come out at next year’s New York Comic Con. Other than that, all the news was of other books from the publisher.

Newsarama has some coverage.

James Lucas Jones moderated Oni’s panel, which featured a packed room of fans and at least a dozen Oni creators who Jones invited to the podium to talk about their titles as he announced them.

The panel kicked off with artwork for Billy Smoke by B. Clay Moore and Eric Kim. The book is about an elite hit man who’s nearly killed during a botched assignment. He decides his only path to redemption is to kill his former hit man associates.

Jones called it an “adrenaline-fueled thrill ride about an assassin on the path to redemption.” It debuts in early 2009. Matthew Fox has signed on to star in the film adaptation and was at the Oni booth some of the weekend signing autographs.

SDCC: All the Manga News

News
July 29, 2008

We at ComicMix didn’t get to too much manga news coming out of San Diego, if only because of the explosion of happenings and announcements coming out of the convention center.

The folks at ComiPress come through in spades, compiling a thorough listing of manga news.

Read up to your heart’s content right here.

SDCC: ‘Spider-Man: Web of Shadows’ Trailer

News
July 28, 2008

The rush of Comic-Con slows to a trickle, with some of the late news including a trailer for the upcoming video game Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, which features an invasion of symbiotes and the apparent Venom-ification of Wolverine.

Watch below.

Comic-Con Photo Gallery: Costumes (Part 3)

News
July 28, 2008

Sometime tomorrow I’ll post a general gallery of some of the creators, sights and swag that made this year’s San Diego Comic-Con memorable, but for now, here’s yet another gallery of some of the costumes that are such a big part of the Comic-Con scene. As I mentioned with the first and second galleries, you have my apologies for the blurriness of some of the photos — it was a wall-to-wall experience on the show floor and not the most ideal environment for photography.

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Tagged: San Diego Comic-Con