SDCC '11

The Douche Army has packed up their Desigual and headed back home, leaving Sunday for comics here at Comic-Con. It's been an action packed week of parades, parties and panels. The big news from the show? Was it Andrew Garfield at the Spider-Man panel? Was it Tintin? Was it Paul Pope and Matt Wagner joining Frank Miller at Legendary Comics? Was it Fantagraphics adding EC to its reprint line-up? Or was it just the "Angoulême of Pop Culture" feeling of the town all week? From the Conan O'Brien Art Gallery to Tr!ckster to Marvel's Monster Truck display, the entire Gaslamp has become one big festival of pop culture, more so than ever before. Last night the klieg lights were on star power with the COWBOYS & ALIENS premiere -- Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig, Steven Spielberg and Jon Favreau did the old school red carpet for the premiere while the E!/SyFy party had the block closed down for arrivals.

Fantagraphics announced at their panel Saturday that they will be republishing two comics classics which so far have yet to receive the deluxe treatment: the EC Comics Library and a complete collection of the influential early indie anthology Zap Comix.

Saturday brought a boatload of news from DC, which isn't surprising, given the number of comics panels they held.

MacDonald chaired a Comic-Con panel on Legendary Comics, the new comic book offshoot of movie powerhouse Legendary Pictures.

At Image's Creator-Owned panel, Image did what Image does best - original books by independent creators. Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard will be releasing a series of original graphic novels called Album.

Manga publisher Viz has just announced VizManga.com, a digital comics site which immediately went live during the con. Viz's wide variety of manga titles are now available there in an array of digital formats, with first chapters available free, and first volumes available at 40% off for the first month.

Showing, not telling, as I post selected photos from around the Web.

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

All around the world, everyone is pacting with Stan Lee! From Japanese jpop sensation Yoshiki to Pamela Anderson to Boom! Studios to Morgan Spurlock, everyone had done it becuase it's so fun! The legendary Man is the king of pacting -- he's got deals in place with just about every entity out there.

And now you can win your OWN chance to pact with Stan Lee via MTV, which is holding a talent search for creators to work with lee on a NEW series, THE SEEKERS.

MTV Geek, the news site/comics portal is announcing their new comics content this morning, including The Seekers. Other new comics properties include SEPTEMBER MOURNING with M Lazar, a music/comics hybrid. And also two more tarditional webcomics: Divination, written by Eisner nominee Val Staples and Gina Iorio and illustrated by Julia Laud, and Department P.U.L.P. by Tony Lee and Dan Boultwood.

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!

Well, the second full day of Comic-Con is coming to an end, and there's been lots of amazing stuff announced! I've diligently sat deep in Stately Beat Manor, watching the news feeds, so you don't have to! Read on!

In an effort to compete with the huge ad-supported pirated manga aggregator sites, the Japanese Digital Comics Association has announced that this August they will be unveiling Jmanga.com, a new English-language digital manga site with free content.