Author: Matthew Weinberger

Judging by the exhausted tweets and blog posts coming out of SDCC, it sounds like everyone there could use a Cup O’ Joe–which is good, because that’s what they’re getting as Joe Quesada, Jim McCann, Dan Buckley, Jeph Loeb, CB Cebulski and Steve Wacker revealed some of the biggest news of the convention. Special guests and announcements galore, all from the Marvel liveblog:

• Bob Gale is writing some Marvel.com Amazing Spider-Man stories in continuity — once every 2 weeks. You need to be a Marvel Digital Comics subscriber to read them
  
• Red She-Hulk will be appearing in Hulk, and is on the cover of #16.
• After Incredible Hulk #600, there are two Hulks, neither of them Banner, leading into World War Hulks.
• To kick off that event, John Romita, Jr. is doing a one-shot called World War Hulks Gamma, which kicks off with the death of “a major character.” It comes out in December.
• “We want to have digital plans, but not INSTEAD of, ” says Joe Quesada about a push towards digital comics.
• Within the next 6 weeks there will be news about the future of Marvel’s cosmic line of books.
  
• Thor is the next character to get a major push into the spotlight with the movie on the way.
• Dan Buckley said that there would be four or five Ultimate books a month, on average, beginning in January.
• Ultimatum #5 “should answer 90% of the questions that you may have regarding what we have been doing.” – Loeb
• Deadpool/Red Hulk with McGuiness on pencils, coming in August. Deadpool will be showing up in Hulk this fall.
  
• Joe Quesada revealed that the Dark Reign will last until December, but was otherwise mum.
• Charlie Huston and David Medina are doing 7 issues of a Marvel Knights Deathlok series.
  
• Quesada’s big announcement: Marvel has officially won the rights to Marvelman/Miracleman, and will be starting to publish stories featuring the character next year. It will be the CONTINUING adventures of the character, not a reboot. Mark Buckingham came on stage for the announcement. This is huge news, folks. Watch ComicMix for more.

For the blow-by-blow, and even more news, check out the Marvel liveblog. For more about the Marvelman announcement, don’t touch that dial, we’ll be following the story right here on ComicMix.com.

If it’s a major convention, it must be Mondo Marvel. Panelists included Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada, Jason Aaron (Wolverine: Weapon X), Dennis Calero (X-Men Noir), Matt Fraction (Invincible Iron Man), Paul Tobin (Models, Inc.), Frank Tieri (Dark Reign: Lethal Legion), Steve Wacker (Spider-Man editor), Jim McCann (New Avengers: The Reunion), and C.B. Cebulski (Marvel talent liaison) gathered to discuss Dark Reign, Marvel Adventures, and pretty much everything else the House of Ideas has on its plate. Newsarama’s got the liveblog, but here are some highlights:

• Black Widow: Deadly Origin by Paul Cornell and Rom Raney is four issues, starting in October. “Some deep, dark secrets from her past,” said Quesada.
• X-Men Noir: Mark of Cain is out in November, featuring the same team of Fred Van Lente and Dennis Calero.
• Captain America/Black Panther is a 4-issue series by Reggie Hudlin and Denys Cowan, involving Black Panther’s father.
• Paul Tobin talked about the “bold new direction” for the Marvel Adventures line, with Quesada saying that they’re bringing “cohesion” to those books.
• Andy Diggle and Roberto de la Torre on Daredevil, starting in September.
• Matt Fraction got a compliment for “giving Colossus his balls back.” Yep.
• Quesada said that Allan Heinberg is in the midst of writing a “massive” story involving the Young Avengers.

More One More Day discussion, the return of Fantomex, and true tales of cosplay gone wrong at the full Newsarama liveblog as well as Marvel’s own recap.

TheOneRing.net hosted a Hobbit movie panel at SDCC, and some interesting new details were revealed: first and foremost, they’re splitting it into two movies. The word is that they found a transition-point that seemed natural and would allow for them to add some extra details from the appendices from the book. They are looking at a holiday 2011 release (at least for the first film), and they’re 95% sure that Hugo Weaving, Ian McKellen, and Andy Serkis are returning to reprise their roles. In fact, Richard Taylor (from WETA) quoted McKellan as saying “Just tell them, I’m waiting for a phone call from Middle-earth.”

The first draft of the script is apparently still in the works, but with writers Philippa Boyens, Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro hard at work, many fans are already very excited for the release. Just who will be playing Bilbo Baggins has not been released, and many details about the films are still being kept secret. WETA has already been working on details for nearly a year, so one can speculate that the scenes and visual details will be as meticulously attended to as in the LOTR films. For those who want to get back onboard the Middle-Earth bandwagon right away, it is rumored that del Torro, the film’s director, frequents the chat boards at http://www.theonering.net/ (where you can also find some behind-the-scenes sneak-peaks of what WETA is up to in preparation for the films). There is apparently also going to be a cruise to Middle Earth in 2010, and a scavenger hunt (with nifty prizes from WETA) at Comic-Con.

For the more details on what happened at the panel, check out G4’s liveblog here.

(Jenifer Rosenberg contributed to this report.)

Good news for big fans like myself of Jeff Smith’s Bone. Comic Book Resources just posted a press release from Scholastic promising four new graphic novels, the first new story in that universe since 2002’s Rose. Don’t take my word for it:

First to be published will be “BONE: Tall Tales,” coming in Summer 2010, written by Jeff Smith and Tom Sniegoski, and illustrated by Jeff Smith, featuring new art and stories with favorite BONE characters. In addition, Scholastic will publish a highly-anticipated expansion of the BONE world—the Quest for the Spark Trilogy. Overseen by Smith, the trilogy will be written by Tom Sniegoski and illustrated by Jeff Smith. “BONE Quest for the Spark: Book One” (Fall 2010), “BONE Quest for the Spark: Book Two” (Spring 2011), and “BONE Quest for the Spark: Book Three” (Summer 2011) represent the first time Smith has continued the adventures set in the valley since the publication of Rose, the prequel to the BONE series.

It seems a little odd that Smith won’t be writing the characters that propelled him to indie stardom, but if you’re anything like me, next summer now can’t come soon enough. Go check out the press release for the full story, including some interesting sales figures and a little more background on Bone newcomer Sniegoski: Press Release via CBR

Not much to say about this one, folks, except that Viper Comics, of Middleman fame, is holding a talent search. What’s different about this one, you ask? Well, in addition to looking for artists, as most of these talent searches  do, they’re going to take writers off the street. What are they looking for in writing samples? Man, you’re just full of good questions today. From the horse’s mouth:

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p class=”bodyBold”>In order to have your writing accepted it must:

• be a self-contain story that runs no more than 5 (FIVE) comic-pages.
• be about an existing character in the comic book world.
• be presented in something resembling a professional comic book script.
• make sure you include ALL your contact information on your submission.

If you’re at San Diego Comic Con, they’ll accept samples and portfolios there. If you can’t make it out, they’ll accept a digital copy up until the convention ends, Sunday, July 27th at 5pm Pacific.
So what’re you writers and artists looking for? Get going!