July
22 Fast Burn

Officially underway Thursday, Comic-Con Intl. was crammed with more sights and merchandise to take in than ever. And it still felt like it was just getting warmed up.

Among the more unusual sights on the floor were the “manga money” booth at Viz and the preponderance of videogame booths. Marvel was back on the floor this year after a few years of minimalism, sharing a booth with Activision, which featured X-Men and Spider-Man based games. DC Comics’ booth was its usual mob scene with constant streams of fans filing through for autographs from artists, writers and editors. Everything from cheap minicomics to expensive original artwork from the best artists in the industry was on display.

But as usual, the best things are the small surprises you find in an unexpected corner, such as “Hellboy” creator Mike Mignola in artists alley signing sketchbooks and doing quick drawings. Mignola says he was very gratified by the positive reviews the “Hellboy” movie received and that he and director Guillermo del Toro have a story for a sequel, though Toro has another film to shoot before getting back to “Hellboy.” And then there was Catherine Bach – Daisy Duke from “Dukes of Hazzard” – signing photos at a small booth to a very appreciative crowd.

Further proof that booths don’t have to be big to be impressive was Comedy Central’s simple showcase for its upcoming “Drawn Together,” an “animated reality show.” A small booth with a large TV played a hilarious preview of the show’s diverse characters, from a Betty Boop type and a macho superhero to a Disney princess, square off in a “Real World” setting. While animation is obviously far from spontaneous, the show goes for the comedy jugular and should make a good match with its lead-in, “South Park,” when it bows in the fall.

Programming began to take off in the afternoon, with cult favorites “Donnie Darko” and “Freaks and Geeks” getting extensive panels. “Geeks” aired the final episode of the short-lived cult series and then creator Paul Feig and cast members including John Francis Daley, Samm Levine and Martin Starr answered questions from fans. Feig said the success of the DVD set was gratifying in the wake of the show’s much-publicized struggle to stay on NBC in the face of great reviews and low ratings. He says Shout Factory, the company that released the Freaks and Geeks DVDS, is working on a set for Feig and Judd Apatow’s other youth series, “Undeclared.”

A DC Universe panel on the Justice League and Justice Society of America titles revealed plans for an upcoming Justice League Declassified series that will allow creators to play with the characters outside of continuity. The first arc will see writer Grant Morrison return to the series.

Perhaps the most surprising example of how Hollywood has influenced Comic-Con came in a packed panel in which producers of Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim offered advice to the audience on how to pitch shows to them. The panel included descriptions of what to submit, from series bibles to character designs, as well as advice on what sort of material to avoid. Revamps of defunct superheroes and shows featuring zombies are out; just about anything else that’s creative, visual comedy will get a look. The block’s program development chief, Nick Weidenfeld, who got his job after doing an article on Adult Swim for Esquire and impressing the Atlanta-based toon factory, says the fans at Comic-Con are creative, know the shows and have great ideas. They just need to know that unsolicited pitches are accepted and some tips on what to do with them to make them work for TV. “These people have great ideas,” he says. “They know our sensibility better than anybody else because they watch the shows.”

The parties got underway in the evening, with Scholastic hosting a bash for its new Grafix graphic novel line, which will make Jeff Smith’s classic “Bone” series its first launch. The Scholastic editions will correspond to the trade paperback editions already out, but will be in color for the first time.

The studio presence hits hard tomorrow with the first big presentations, with the WB’s panel on “Constantine” with Keanu Reeves and “Batman Begins” among the highlights.