News

The Smurfs shocked everyone by tying the much hyped COWBOYS & ALIENS at the box office this weekend and we dig into Platinum's stock filings to see what's up at the company. Plus: Who is Ervin Rustemagic?

WHAT? Yes. In the UK anyway. The UK Supreme Court has ruled that because the iconic garb was created as an industrial prop, the rights expired after 15 years.

Founded by Cory Jones (ex Blizzard), John Nee (ex DC) Scott Gaeta (ex Upper Deck) and some other folks, Cryptozoic Entertainment is a newish company with strong roots and, from what we heard at SDCC, lots of things in the works. They're putting out a Walking Dead board game, and have signed with Diamond for distribution. Could there be more products in the works? Keep an eye on them.

This year's Bronze medalistAbby Denson alerts us to the call for applications for the 5th Annual International Manga Awards, presented by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

A sad day for those who hoped, perhaps against hope, that Jack "The King' Kirby's heirs would get some of the money their father's creations have made over the years. Characters including Captain America (created in the '40s with Joe Simon), The Hulk, Iron Man and Thor-- you know, if they called next year's potential biggest-movie-of-all-time THE AVENEGRS "JACK KIRBY'S AVENGERS" they would not be far from the mark. Deadline has analysis, seeing it as a big setback for lawyer Marc Toberoff, who has won many unlikely IP cases against giant studios in the past:

We heard of a couple of car break-ins at Comic-Con, and one of the worst was artist Brent Anderson's :

"Brent Anderson had a lot of art stolen in San Diego. His car was broken into at the San Diego Zoo and the following original art was stolen: 50 pages from Astro City Vols. 1 & 2 & Local Heroes; AC: Dark Age Books 1 (#s 1-4), 2 (#s 1-4) & 3 (#s 1-4) (50 pages). Green Lantern and Rising Stars artwork was stolen as well. Please share this to as many venues as possible, to get the thief caught and the art returned."

One red-eye flight from Burbank later, and I've had the most uninterrupted sleep I've gotten in two weeks. It will take another 10 hours to really get normal, but for that I've got to hang on until the weekend. YOU CAN DO IT! I'll have more emblematic con thoughts tomorrow, but for now a few shout outs:

Here are the biographies of the 2011 inductees into the Will Eisner Comic Awards Hall of Fame, found at: http://www.comic-con.org/cci/cci_eisners_11halloffame.php

Hooray we are here at the Eisners! It's festive and glamourous here at the Indigo Ballroom at the Hilton. Bill Morisson comes out thanking everyone for coming out out joking that thry have 52 awards to give out, this year called "First issues." Haha!

As the temperature outside hits 312 degrees Kelvin, I sit here in the cool subterranean basements deep in Stately Beat Manor, keeping watch over the reportage coming east from San Diego. While scanning the umpteenth cosplay photo, I got to thinking... perhaps our readers would care to look behind the curtain and see how we actually conglomerate the myriad data feeds which stream into our data center.

Tonight's Eisner Award ceremony will be a bit different: the con has hired a producer to help tighten up the show and keep things moving along. Previous Eisner Award ceremony, although a much loved comics tradition, have been, shall we say...lengthy. The new producer, who has a background in television and live events, is familiar with live awards shows and plays. According to con spokesman David Glanzer, there won't be monumental changes, but "by tightening things up, we'll see thigns run a littlr smoother, and hopefully help make it the event that people really do want to attend." Plans call for some trimming from the obituaries and other staging elements that will cut as much as a half hour from the show.

Seven amazing comics retailers were nominated for the Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer award, including stores from all over the United States. We have personal knowledge of many of these retailers and can testify that they all exemplify the passion and love of comics that is the heartbeat of the industry The winner will be announced tonight at the Eisner Awards.