Culture

Although eclipsed by the showbiz extravaganza's in the popular mind, the Masquerade may just be the most spectacular live event at Comic-COn with amazing costumes that people slave over all year. The winners of Saturday's main event are now up, and here's the grand prize winners, Project Runway All Star Wars

Bryan Talbot, author of one of the most diverse bodies of work in the contemporary comics canon (Luther Arkwright, Tale of One Bad Rat, Alice in Sunderland) is getting an honorary Doctorate of Letters for his body of work by Northumbria University at their annual degree ceremony in Newcastle. It's being presented in a ceremony tomorrow. He's already an honorary Doctor of Arts, having received it four years ago from Sunderland University. Bryan tells us this makes him the first British comic creator to be awarded a doctorate twice.

Check out Adventure Time creator Pendleton Ward signing comics for the kiddies at San Diego Comic Con

I suspect part of the rhetoric is an attempt to differentiate Marvel Now from the New 52, but in a video interview with Newsarama, Marvel EIC Axel Alonso sure does make it sounds like the only changes happening are fallout from AVX.

OK, so it's supposed to be the Iron Man 3 panel. And it is, but they started out by confirming a few thing for the second phase of the MCU. MCU? Marvel Cinematic Universe. What is there to be confirmed? Here's a handy list:

We always knew Shaq liked comics and it predated his turn as Steel on the big screen. Looks like he's going to publish them. Come to find out, Shaq has two comics lined up for the "Shaq Comic Book Company." This venture is a partnership between Shaq Entertainment and New Kingdom Entertainment. New Kingdom operates The Fanboy's Guide website.

Here are some visuals from Comic-Con... I'm taking a break.

Looking for a theme at Comicon isn't always the most sensible thing to do. It's a big show and there's a lot going on. I am, however, seeing some momentum being gathered -- in force -- from a trend that seemed to spin out of the Image convention this past spring. It's a little bit more than a movement back towards creator ownership, though that's certainly part of it. It's about the era of exclusive contracts dying and an age of , for lack of a better term, playing the field coming back.

"Given the artistic quality of Canadian cartooning, it's cultural importance, its centrality to an understanding of Canadian society and history, and its appeal to readers of all ages, a strong argument can and should be made that the Canada Council should support the work of Cartoonists and that of publishers interested in publishing their work. "

I fear we might have a little bit of type casting going on here. They've cast a new Q for Skyfall. Ben Whishaw is playing a decidedly younger Q than we're used to seeing, and definitely more on the nerdy side than the classical preoccupied professor, to look at the promo image:

Dave McKean, the British artist/polymath who has worked as a cartoonist, comics cover artist, illustrator, graphic designer and filmmaker, opened his panel by saying, “I’m not going to assume that people know who I am, which was greeted by a cheer from the crowd, trying to let Dave know how many people in the packed room DID know who Dave is (at least 25%, if you’re keeping track).

The Cup o' Joe panel had a few announcements and has taken the first step to solving some of the solitication mysteries spinning out of "Marvel Now." A lot of it seems to be spun out of AVX.