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While Heidi slumbers after surviving yet another Preview Night, I am ensconced at Stately Beat Manor, monitoring the Internet for all sorts of info which might get eclipsed by the myriad millions of memes occurring this weekend.

(Yes, I woke up at Five AM.  Yes, I had a “blogger’s breakfast” (double-stuffed Oreos and Mountain Dew) to power my posting.  Yes, I read too many Stan Lee Soapboxes as an impressionable lad.  Just be glad I didn’t read that many Hostess ads.)

So… there’s not much comics news yet from CCI:SD (yes, that’s the official abbreviation, and doesn’t it sound like a crime show?), because that will happen at the panels which commence today.  Items of note from yesterday and Tuesday were:

* DC now has an Android app and store.

* Lego has signed licensing agreements with both Marvel and DC.  There’s a promotion running now at the DC link, encouraging fans to produce videos of DC superhero minifigures.  (Love Superman’s hair!  Now I can make an Elvis mini-fig!  And yeah, he’s not too happy, but the heads are interchangeable, and possibly reversible, with another face on the other side.)  The Marvel figures will feature three lines: Spider-Man, the Avengers (to tie-in with the movie), and X-Men.  Both the DC and Marvel lines will have both mini-figure sets, as well as the larger “action figure” sets seen in the current “Hero Factory” line.

Adult Fans of Legos will note that Lego has produced superhero sets for both DC and Marvel in the past, licensing the Spider-Man and Batman movie franchises.  (Lego also has licensed: Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, Pixar, Prince of Persia, Star Wars, Sponge Bob, and Ben 10.  So feel free to mash-up and slash-up your favorites, just like Robot Chicken!  Extra points if you use Belville.)

* Remember the days when your teacher would confiscate those comics you were reading in class?  Now, chances are, that teacher is reading those comics as part of the curriculum!  The Imperial Valley Press showcases a local comics literacy project, the “Using Sequential Arts Project“.  Michael Bitz, founder of the Comic Book Project which coordinates similar projects around the country, will head the panel, which will also include a middle-school student who participated in the project!  (How cool is that?!) This panel is part of the Comics Art Conference, #15, scheduled for Sunday, at 1:30 PM in Room 26AB.

* Lois Lane has a new boyfriend. (No, that isn’t Kevin Keller, he’ll be appearing in the “Life With Archie” marriage magazine, and he’ll be married.  But not to Archie.)

* Back in the day, when I was a young sci-fi geek in Omaha, if anyone spoke of costuming (“cosplay” was never mentioned, those were considered “hall costumes”), someone would always mention the overweight Orion slave girl (my generation’s “Slave Leia”) as a “don’t”.  Well, DrJays.com has collected some of the most…questionable cosplay outfits ever seen.  A family in yellow face as the Simpsons.  Men dressed as female characters (including a bearded Sailor Moon).  The “Hello Kitty Vader” pic is probably the least eye-cringing.  (I wonder what color his light saber blade is?  Anakin was quite the “gay blade” in his youth…)

* Most Con-goers are eagerly awaiting the black-and-white artist’s edition of Walter Simonson’s The Mighty Thor, debuting at the show.  Well, IDW has just announced the third volume in the series, a collection of Wally Wood’s EC stories, shot from the original art!  144 pages, oversized, it is not known which stories will be featured, as Wood produced an amazing amount of art for EC!  However, it should be noted that Wood did draw a few stories adapted from the work of Ray Bradbury, as well as early work of Harry Harrison.  On sale in October.

* KPBS, the local public television affiliate, reports on the economic impact of Comic-Con:

  • $68 Million spent inside the convention center (geez, I knew those pretzels were expensive…)
  • 126,000 room nights.
  • $162 Million in economic activity
  • $3 Million in tax revenue to the city

* And… continuing the tradition I started last year, here are some interesting exclusives!  (Click to be redirected to the CCI:SD page!)

1 COMMENT

  1. So that’s what cosplay means. I’ve gotten all sorts of friends’ requests on facebook with the last name cosplay and I thought it was reference to something to do with cosmetics- but what the hell do I know?

    ~

    Coat

  2. I love all the bullshit on the wall of the Wally Wood art! I could stare at it for hours. This book definitely goes on my shopping list along with the Alex Toth book edited by Greg Sadowski.

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