Word has spread quickly around the web that Sony is developing a spinoff movie for Venom, the gooey villain seen in "Spider-Man 3."

Venom's been down this road before. First appearing in 1988's The Amazing Spider-Man #300, he quickly became the web-slinger's most popular villain in ages. At least he was until he started appearing in a long line of miniseries that tried to turn him into some kind of anti-hero but only succeeded in driving the character into the ground and pretty much killing all interest in him. How close this gets to production will be a good test of how far the studios think the market for superhero movies can  be pushed.

More mopping up of movie news and deals coming out of Comic-Con:

* Plenty of sites have (or had) some bootleg photos or shaky cell-phone footage of the "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" trailer shown at Comic-Con. Also, star and producer Hugh Jackman confirmed that there's a cameo in the film for Stan Lee.

* Fox appears to be moving forward with its idea for a junior X-Men pic. Eagle-eyed bloggers spotting production listings for a film titled "X-Men: First Class" and the web address www.xmenfirstclass.com redirects to the Fox movies site.

* There's been no word on a sequel to "Superman Returns" in a long time, but Bryan Singer apparently still likes comicbook properties and has signed on to produce "Freedom Formula," based on the upcoming comic from Radical Publishing.

* Action star Jason Statham tells the L.A. Times he'd love to play Daredevil if they ever made another movie.

* It didn't get a lot of coverage, but BET showed the first footage from its animated "Black Panther" series and got a pretty good reaction. You can take a look at the trailer over at Newsarama.

* "Torchwood" star John Barrowman said during a Comic-Con panel that he's always liked Captain America, would love to play the character and had even discussed the possibility with his agents and managers. That doesn't mean it's going to happen, but it's an interesting idea.

Yes, there were actual comicbooks at Comic-Con and there were some big-name projects announced.

* On the DC side of things, both Neil Gaiman and Kevin Smith have signed on to write Batman stories. Gaiman's will be a two-part story drawn by Andy Kubert and due out in January. Smith is set to write a three-issue series called "Batman: Cacophany," due in November with art by Smith's longtime associate Walt Flannigan. The scripts for two issues are complete, meaning this series will run at least one issue longer than Smith's "Daredevil: Target" miniseries of a few years back.

* Rockne S. O'Bannon, creator of the cult sci-fi series "Farscape," will write a comicbook continuation of the show for Boom! Studios.  He talks about it on YouTube here.

* Flash fans will surely be pleased to see the cretive team behind the must-read "Green Lantern" on board for a relaunch of sorts. Writer Geoff Johns and artist Ethan Van Sciver will be handling "The Flash: Rebirth," starring the newly-revived Barry Allen version of the character.

* Over at Marvel, blogger Valerie D'Orazio — a former editor at DC and Acclaim Comics — will be writing a five-issue "Cloak & Dagger" series.

* TOKYOPOP was absent from this year's Comic-Con in the wake of a big cutback in their output, but they did announce some kind of alliance with Tokyo-based manga publisher Gentosha.

Trailers to the Lionsgate/Marvel animated DVD double feature "Hulk vs." and  are up. First, is "Hulk vs. Thor":

And "Hulk vs. Wolverine":

Plus, the official "Punisher: War Zone" site has the new trailer to the film shown at Comic-Con.

Borrowed from Random House's Suvudu blog.

The shockwaves from Comic-Con continue to ripple, moreso even than yesterday's earthquake.  Returning from the show is always hectic, because there's work to be caught up, a thousand thoughts to sort through and some need to rest for the first time in four or five days.

But first let's get into the big questions: Dealing with the crowds and the future of the con. PWCW has a wrap-up interview with Con spokesman David Glanzer, who says that if there's no significant progress made by the city of San Diego to accommodate the show with a convention center expansion by 2010, they'll listen to offers to move the show after its current contract expires in 2012. Of course, if attendees say they don't mind capping attendance at 125,000 and staying in San Diego, offers from other towns may not matter.

A lot of talk gets spread around about this, and there's a few ideas that come to mind that could keep the show where it is: One is to spread the convention out from the convention center, make it more like a film festival or Euro comics bashes like Angouleme with events at multiple locations. It might also make sense to  split the convention in two — have a smaller comic book event and a larger "media" event somewhere near a hall or arena that can accommodate a big crowd. That could happen anyway should the Con leave San Diego — I'm sure someone would try to fill the hole left by the show's departure and start a new San Diego con.

The much-discussed idea of moving to Las Vegas keeps coming up, and it may make sense in a lot of ways especially if the media takeover and hyping of the con takes it any further from its comicbook roots.
It would make some things about attending the show a lot easier — but it would no longer be Comic-Con and I can't say that I personally would feel motivated in any way but the professional need to cover such an event to go to Las Vegas in the summer for that show.

The crowds this year were better-managed than last year, but this again brings me back to THE PRESS RANT. I know people will write this off as "press whining," but there is a legitimate problem with the way the show deals with the press. Having attended many large conventions (trade and otherwise) as press, there is an expectation at each event that such a pass offers properly credentialed members of the press reasonable access to the events and people they need to reach in order to do their jobs.

But at Comic-Con, the press pass is essentially a complimentary pass that grants access to nothing that isn't covered by a regular four-day badge. This policy worked fine as recently as four or five years ago, before the crowds hit six figures and there was far less press covering far fewer mainstream events. But when folks from Variety, the L.A. Times and countless other legitimate press outlets who have busy schedules of events and panels to cover are told to stand in line for an hour or two with everyone else just to get in to a panel, it interferes with those outlets ability to cover the event and — by interfering with their ability to do their job — makes them testy, angry and overall unhappy with the show. There's no reason I can see why some kind of policy — even a limited one — can't be worked out that would reserve say a small area of Hall H for press, or provide a room where press who can't make it into a panel can at least observe it on monitors. Maybe that'll come when the show heads to Vegas, though I'll suggest to the studios who now make a huge effort to go to Comic-Con that the show's having no way to facilitate coverage at an event like this seems like a good excuse for a lot of legitimate mainstream outlets to think twice about covering big panels.

One last complaint is that the press usually has access to lists of contacts and events that may be worth covering in advance of the event. And while Comic-Con provides its list of registered press to exhibitors, there is to my knowledge no way for press who have no previous contacts to similarly contact publicists representing events, panels or companies that may warrant coverage. Thus the thousand emails I receive from booths and panels outside the purview of my job, but no way to contact the few essential ones i need short of some serious legwork that shouldn't be required.

Tomorrow: More news, more thoughts on the show — after just a bit more sleep.

Here are the winners in various categories for the Comic-Con Intl. Independent Film Festival, and the big Judges' Choice winner.

Action/Adventure: "Citizen"

Animation: "La Lune"

Comics-Oriented: "The Crusaders #357: Experiment in Evil!"

Documentary: "Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown"

Horror/Suspense: "The Insane"

Humor/Parody: "The Auburn Hills Breakdown"

Science Fiction/Fantasy: "Operation: Fish"

Judges’ Choice Award: "Operation: Fish"

Taking a break in my hotel after a long but fairly interesting day, here's the few random observations I'm able to connect at the moment:

* The line to get into Hall H at 9 a.m. this morning began at the door at the south end of convention center and then went behind the convention center, past the Marriott Marina Hotel and to the Hyatt before starting to snake back around again. Astonishingly, they all got in in time for "Heroes" once they opened the door. That line was, by some reports, longer than the line that had formed for the "Watchmen" panel on Friday, so in all it worked out.

* The season premiere for the third episode of "Heroes" was a very satisfying hour of TV, much more in the vein of the first season than the strike-truncated second. Though with the episode taking up so much of the panel's time, it's not clear what advantage there was at all to having the entire cast show up when they only had time to be introduced and make a comment or two. The "Lost" panel meanwhile was a strange affair, with Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse putting on almost a comedy act and giving few hints about the fifth season — which doesn't start shooting for three more weeks. Also, a lot more people than I expected didn't stick around for "Lost" after "Heroes."

* Panels on the upper floors were much easier to get into than last year. I had no problems popping into a couple of reasonably high profiles in one of the bigger rooms and neither filled up. DC's animated "Wonder Woman" looks like it'll be fun from the short trailer shown — if they can make it a hit, maybe it could point the way toward making this property work better in comics and kickstart those long-awaited movie plans.

* As I shopped for comics and books  — It's true! There are booths that actually still sell them! — I kept hearing people ask for copies of "Watchmen" and being told that almost every dealer at the con had sold out. What's even more amazing is that some of those same booths had on Wednesday night huge stacks and entire tables racked with copies of Watchmen, meaning this 20-year-old graphic novel is likely the sales hit of the show. (Here's hoping WB pays attention to the popularity of this thick, long, sexy and violent graphic novel and gives director Zack Snyder some leeway on the running time for the movie version.)

* Walking the floor has so far not been a repeat of the sardine-fest that last year felt like. Sure, it was crowded, but you for the most part could walk around at a reasonable pace. The sole exception to this was in the middle of the hall where the studio booths were concentrated, raising an idea many folks have suggested to spread those booths out to avoid the bottleneck in the show's center. Perhaps some of this is a matter of scaled-back expectations after last year, but it's in some way reassuring after all the stress of preparing for the show to find the crowding issue thankfully falls short of a worst-case scenario.

They were handed out last night. Lots of love for Joss Whedon and "Y: The Last Man." Here's who won:

Best Short Story: “Mr. Wonderful,” by Dan Clowes, serialized in New York Times Sunday Magazine

Best Single Issue (or One-Shot): Justice League of America #11: “Walls,” by Brad Meltzer and Gene Ha (DC)

Best Continuing Series: Y: The Last Man, by Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, and Jose Marzan, Jr. (Vertigo/DC)

Best Limited Series:The Umbrella Academy, by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá (Dark Horse)

Best New Series: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8, by Joss Whedon, Brian K. Vaughan, Georges Jeanty, and Andy Owens (Dark Horse)

Best Publication for Kids: Mouse Guard: Fall 1152 and Mouse Guard: Winter 1152, by David Petersen (Archaia)

Best Publication for Teens: Laika, by Nick Abadzis (First Second)

Best Humor Publication: Perry Bible Fellowship: The Trial of Colonel Sweeto and Other Stories, by Nicholas Gurewitch (Dark Horse)

Best Anthology: 5, by Gabriel Bá, Becky Cloonan, Fabio Moon, Vasilis Lolos, and Rafael Grampa (self-published)

Best Digital Comic: Sugarshock!, by Joss Whedon and Fabio Moon, http://www.myspace.com/darkhorsepresents?issuenum=1&storynum=2

Best Reality-Based Work: Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow, by James Sturm and Rich Tommaso (Center for Cartoon Studies/Hyperion)

Best Graphic Album—New: Exit Wounds, by Rutu Modan (Drawn & Quarterly)

Best Graphic Album—Reprint: Mouse Guard: Fall 1152, by David Petersen (Archaia)

Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Strips: Complete Terry and the Pirates, vol. 1, by Milton Caniff (IDW)

Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Books: I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets! by Fletcher Hanks (Fantagraphics)

Best U.S. Edition of International Material: I Killed Adolf Hitler, by Jason (Fantagraphics)

Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Japan: Tekkonkinkreet: Black & White, by Taiyo Matsumoto (Viz)

Best Writer: Ed Brubaker, Captain America, Criminal, Daredevil, Immortal Iron Fist (Marvel)

Best Writer/Artist: Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library #18 (Acme Novelty)

Best Writer/Artist—Humor: Eric Powell, The Goon (Dark Horse)

Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team: Pia Guerra/Jose Marzan, Jr., Y: The Last Man (Vertical/DC)

Best Painter or Multimedia Artist (interior art): Eric Powell, The Goon: Chinatown (Dark Horse)

Best Cover Artist: James Jean, Fables (Vertigo/DC); The Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse); Process Recess 2; Superior Showcase 2 (AdHouse)

Best Coloring: Dave Stewart, BPRD, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cut, Hellboy, Lobster Johnson, The Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse); The Spirit (DC)

Best Lettering: Todd Klein, Justice, Simon Dark (DC); Fables, Jack of Fables, Crossing Midnight (Vertigo/DC); League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier (WildStorm/DC); Nexus (Rude Dude)

Special Recognition: Chuck BB, Black Metal (artist, Oni)

Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism: Newsarama, produced by Matt Brady and Michael Doran (www.newsarama.com)

Best Comics-Related Book: Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean, by Douglas Wolk (Da Capo Press)

Best Publication Design: Process Recess 2, designed by James Jean and Chris Pitzer (AdHouse)

Hall of Fame: Judges’ Choices: R. F. Outcault, Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson; Voters’ Choices: John Broome, Arnold Drake, Len Wein, Barry Windsor-Smith

Other Awards

Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award: Paul Levitz

Russ Manning Promising Newcomer Award: Cathy Malkasian

Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing: Archie Goodwin, Larry Lieber

Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailing Award: Atom! and Portlyn Freeman of Brave New World

One cool thing that deserves to not get overlooked: At the end of the Disney "Return to Witch Mountain" panel yesterday, the studio unexpectedly showed a trailer for the long-awaited "Tron 2." The clip showed lots of amazing lightcycle action — and Jeff Bridges — and should have fanboys drool as they figure out it exists.