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It was another busy weekend for comics around the globe, as the MoCCA Fest in NYC saw indie crowds gathering to buy the latest literary comics. Meanwhile in London, it was the inaugural Kapow! festival, organized by Mark Millar and his friends. From all accounts, although the show sold and had a capped attendance of only around 5000 people, it did achieve some of that “Movie-con magic”:

Amid tight security and a packed presentation hall fans were read an apology for the absence of “Thor” director Kenneth Brannagh but were treated to 20 minutes of footage of the upcoming movie, together with several other clips. The footage didn’t disappoint as fans saw the protracted scene featuring actor Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye in a movie that deftly mixes subtile humor and the action we have seen in “Iron Man.”

Following the footage, “Thor” stars Chris Hemsworth (Thor) and Tom Hiddleston (Loki) were welcomed on stage and took questions from the audience. While avoiding questions relating to the upcoming “Avengers” film, the pair confessed to having only seen the final edit of “Thor” the night before and talked about how they prepared for their roles, amongst other things. Genuinely enthused to be a part of something as huge as “Thor,” both actors and the footage were well received by convention goers.


But there was also a bit of comics news. Mark Millar announced four new titles and he’s doing at least one them, with Frank Quitely, at Image instead of Marvel’s Image-like Icon label. There’s also his much-teased title with Dave Gibbons; Super Crooks, a supervillain heist yarn with Leinil Francis Yu; and. surprise surprise, a Hit-Girl spinoff with Leandro Fernandez which will be published at Icon. The Quitely project will be another superhero epic, he told CBR:

“Frank Quitely and I are doing a new project – a huge, 12-issue superhero epic for Image,” Millar said. “We’re not giving all the details yet because it’s not coming out until around January [2012.] It’s going to be a massive, massive series – probably the most ambitious thing I’ve ever tried..[snip] I created this thing that was a huge superhero epic with a mythology as rich as ‘Lord or The Rings’ or ‘Star Wars’ but along the lines of ‘Crisis On Infinite Earths.’ It’s a whole cast of 100 characters in a big epic together. It’ll be like a Marvel or DC summer event but with new characters and with the gloves off. All the things you can’t do in Marvel and DC books, we’ll be able to do.


Marvel also announced that Nick Spencer and Emma Rios would be relaunching CLOAK AND DAGGER.

In the “Harry Potter! What are you doing!” category, a wee teaser for THE LADY IN BLACK, a horror film starring Daniel Radcliffe was released. The filme will be released in 2012 in the UK — the US release date is unknown.


Not many independent reports are in, but Forbidden Planet’s Danie Ware( from whom we took the photo above) seemed to think it was cool:

This is a stronger event, brighter, more dynamic. This is big; this is shiny. Under the sunshine coming through the roof of the Design Centre, there’s a heaving, mobile statement about the modern changes in Geek Culture. Cybercandy are here, and the London Rockin’ Rollers. This is cool – and it knows it. The audience is younger, hotter, better dressed – and there are more girls than ever.


Oh yes, and Mark Millar:
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Finally, they gave out something called the Stan Lee Awards, but we can’t seem to find the winners anywhere on the web, although Stan Lee tweeted that he won one, so that’s probably how that was supposed to go down.

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