Conventions

The NY Times business section profiles the Valiant relaunch and explains that it's trying to become a mini-Marvel as far as movies go. It also follows the money and names the investors—led by former Marvel exec Peter Cuneo— who have powered the company to hire a killer elite of editorial and marketing from top editor Warren Simons to marketing's Atom! Freeman:

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Peter Jackson unveiled this poster for The Hobbit over at his Facebook page. It's one of two posters—Pacific Rim is the other—that WB will be giving away at some point, so add this to your con logjam list.

By Matthew Petz -- For most of my adult geek life I’ve know about the San Diego Comic Convention. It' s essentially the Superbowl for comic fans. So whether it was money or just being an east coaster all my life, I’ve always done this from a far...but not this year...Oh no...this year, I’m actually going. God help me.

Okay here's one of the more interesting booths if you're into art and South Park...and they sent along a fun graphic as well.

For the past week or so we've been getting emails about Neocomimi, a product which offers electronic cat ears which purport to be activated by our brain waves to show emotions. Like, when you want more Fancy Feast they go down, and when you hear the Fancy Feast can being opened they perk right up. That kind of thing.

As the urgent tide of con-related PR flows into the small hours, it seems like we already know everything about the upcoming show, which kicks off in a here 2 and a half days. Gleeps. Anyway here's our picks for what people will be taking pictures of and tweeting the most on Preview Night:

Well so much for our J.D. Salinger moment.This being the internet and all, not 30 minutes after I'd posted my mystery of the great 2011 Comic-Con Food Truck Burrito, someone on twitter had identified the truck and posted a picture of a half eaten lunch.

Only this morning we were congratulating actor/entrepreneur Zachary Levi for setting up Nerd HQ, a Comic-Con offsite that's essentially a mini comic-con in itself with panels and signings with major nerdlebrities -- with proceeds to go to charity. Well, it turns out that running even a mini-comi-con gives you major comic-con sized problems: when tickets for the event went on sales this morning, it resulted in complete server meltdown. Here's a bit of the increasingly desperate tweet trail:

Yet another carnival! This one, as we understand it, is set up next to the Gaslamp Hilton in that area where the Scott Pilgrim Experience once stood. It's a video game arcade set up by ShiftyLook. Details below, but the pr notes that the Shifty Look panel will feature Scott Kurtz and Kris Straub and an announcement so...add it up.

How a stop for a bit of hearty breakfast can change your life.

While the mental journey to Comic-Con 2012 started on the very last day of Comic-Con 2011 for some of us, an actual physical journey is kicking off this weekend: The Course of the Force, an Olympic-style charity relay run from the Santa Monica Pier to the gates of Comic-Con — with a Lightsaber as the torch — begins its real-life epic journey this Saturday. To kick off the kick-off, a new short film featuring Nerdist Chris Hardwick shows the origins of the journey— and reveals that the ILM lot is inhabited by real Ewoks, Boba Fett tools around in a van and one particular comics superstar likes to see people on their knees singing "Yub nub."