I find it hard to believe it's been 20 years since Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman" debuted as a comicbook series, but it's true — the first issue had a cover date of January 1989 and was on stands in November of '88.

To celebrate, there's a couple of events in New York City this weekend, including a dramatic reading of the stories from the series at the Helen Mills Theater on Saturday, Nov. 8, at 7:30 p.m. The reading will be lead by a cast that includes voice actor Tom Wayland, and Gaiman will be there, too. Only 100 tickets are available for this event, and can be obtained by making a $50 donation to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Here's the link; if you want to go, better buy tickets now.

On Sunday night, Gaiman will be interviewed about "The Sandman" at the 92nd Street Y by author and graphic designer Chip Kidd. Again, the event starts at 7:30 p.m. and tickets, which cost $27, can be obtained here.

For those of us who can't make it to New York on such short notice, there's plenty of L.A.-based comics events (non-Sandman, unfortunately) in the next week or so:

DC's All-Star Superman took home three Harvey Awards this weekend, including best single issue, best continuing series and a best artist honor for Frank Quitely.  The winners of this year's awards were announced over the weekend during a ceremony at the Baltimore Comic-Con. Here's the full list, wih winners listed in bold:

BEST WRITER

Ed Brubaker, Captain America, Marvel Comics
Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Amulet Books
Grant Morrison, All Star Superman, DC Comics
William Van Horn, Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, Gemstone
Brian K. Vaughan, Y: The Last Man, Vertigo/DC Comics

BEST ARTIST

Gabriel Ba, Umbrella Academy, Dark Horse Comics
John Cassaday, Astonishing X-Men, Marvel Comics
Guy Davis, BPRD, Dark Horse Comics
Frank Quitely, All Star Superman, DC Comics
William Van Horn, Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, Gemstone

BEST CARTOONIST

Darwyn Cooke, The Spirit, DC Comics
Matt Kindt, Super Spy, Top Shelf
Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Amulet Books
Bryan Lee O'Malley, Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, Oni Press
Vasilis Lolos, Last Call, Oni Press
William Van Horn, Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, Gemstone

"Wanted" co-creator Mark Millar is going on a signing tour with artist Tony Harris in support of their new Image series "War Heroes." Org The Hero Initiative plans to auction off on eBay special access to Millar and Harris at each stop of the tour. A special edition of the first issue of "War Heroes" will be sold at each event.

Comics fans looking for the next superhero blockbuster will be bypassing the box office this next week on their way to the comics shops, as DC Comics' long-awaited Final Crisis #1 drops Wednesday, May 28, courtesy of writer Grant Morrison and artist J.G. Jones.

Dan Didio, executive editor of the DC Universe, promises that this is indeed the last crisis — "We've retired that word," he says — and that the series will put the publisher's vast array of heroes to the ultimate test, forcing them to face the possibility of complete defeat. "The log line is, 'The day that evil won,'" he says.

The first issue deviates from the world-shattering jump starts of its predessors, 1985's Crisis on Infinite Earths and 2005's Inifinite Crisis, and sets up its storylines and mysteries in a way that's both welcoming and intriguing. Characters, some of them major, die in this first issue (I'm keeping spoiler-free on that point). Didio says in this case the deaths are essential to later events in the series and that killing a character is a decision that isn't taken lightly. "You don't want it to be random, haphazard and pointless," he says.

The New York Comic-Con is about to kick off its third edition, and while I won't be there this year, the events and programming planned for this year's con move it one step closer to being the No. 2 show in the land after Comic-Con Intl.: San Diego. (Disclaimer: The NYCC is run by Reed Exhibitions, a sister company of Variety parent Reed Business Information.)

The programming this year has a much stronger Hollywood flavor than the previous two years — a function both of the show now having enough of a track record in pulling in attendees for studios to promote their wares to and moving from February to spring dates that are ideally positioned in advance of the summer movie season. (The double good news is that those who are attending won't have to face the freezing river wind walking over to the Jacob Javitz Center.)

Among the goodies: Fox will have a panel on the just-named "The X-Files: I Want to Believe" movie; Disney has panels on Pixar's "Wall*E" and "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian"; Universal will be playing up "Wanted," "Hellboy 2: The Golden Army" and, in collaboration with Marvel, "The Incredible Hulk"; WB has "The Dark Knight" and "Speed Racer"; Lucasfilm will talk about "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" and "Star Wars: Clone Wars"; Lionsgate is bringing in Frank Miller and Eva Mendes for a panel on "Will Eisner's The Spirit"; and a pair of New Line panels spotlight "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay" and "Journey to the Center of the Earth in 3-D." On the TV side of things, Sci Fi will again have a big presence promoting "Battlestar Galactica" and "Doctor Who"; Nick and ABC also will be on hand.

If you're a fan of older comics, this is a great convention for meeting some of the the folks who started this crazy business. Joe Simon, co-creator with Jack Kirby of Captain America and recently profiled in The New York Times, will be on hand, as will Golden Age artists Irwin Hasen and Leonard Starr. It will be almost impossible to miss Stan Lee, who will be accepting a "Legend" award, appearing at a VIP reception sponsored by Virgin Comics and Pow! Entertainment tonight at the Virgin Megastore in Times Square, and promoting his collaboration with Hiroyuki Takei on the manga "Ultimo" for Viz. There also will be a screening Saturday of the documentary "Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist," followed by an Eisner tribute panel. Mark Evanier will host a  panel about the late-great Jack Kirby, tied in to his recent biography of the master artist.

The show also is marking the announcement of business deals, with TOKYOPOP having three right out of the gate: A multiplatform development deal with Spacedog Entertainment, whose manga "eV" has already come out from TOKYOPOP; a deal with game-maker Blizzard Entertainment to produce three years of manga based on such popular titles as Warcraft and Starcraft; and the company's deal with mobile partner GoComics has been made exclusive.

Meanwhile, Devil's Due is bringing in "Heroes" actor Milo Ventimiglia and producer Russ Cundiff to sign autographs and announce a new comicbook project. Autograph signing schedules also are full; the best resource for those lists is, as always, Heidi McDonald at The Beat.

The third New York Comic-Con is rolling out its list of special guests in the rampup to the third annual show April 18-20.

Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee will be honored with the first ever New York Comics Legend Award at a special VIP party April 17 at the Virgin Megastore in Times Square. A limited number of tickets will be made available to the public starting Friday at the NYCC's website.

Newly announced guests of honor include current Wonder Woman writer Gail Simone; sci-fi author and Ultimate Iron Man writer Orson Scott Card; and writer and animator Mo Willems, who will headline Kids Day activities on Sunday. Looks like comics artist turned filmmaker Frank Miller and writer Neil Gaiman also will be on hand.

Also appearing will be Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer, creators of the Adult Swim series "The Venture Bros."

We're trying to catch up on posting about WWLA and the comics-sphere while working on a major freelance project, but this can't wait.

Tonight at 7 o'clock at the central branch of the Los Angeles Public Library, author David Hajdu will discuss his book "The Ten-Cent Plague" The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America" with writer Ben Schwartz. The book (reviewed by Hajdu's former outlet, EW, here) talks about the comics censorship movement of the late 1940s and early 1950s, epitomized by Fredric Wertham's book "Seduction of the Innocent," the Senate testimony of E.C. Comics chief Bill Gaines and the formation of the Comics Code Authority. The lecture is free, but reservations are recommended. Visit this page for more information.

Another clip from "Y: The Last Party" is ready, courtesy of MySpace Comic Books.

Y The Last Party - Q&A with Brian K. Vaughn and Pia Guerra

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With WonderCon having inaugurated the convention season with a by-all-accounts successful show, a number of big events will heat things up in the coming weeks.

First up is MegaCon in Orlando, Fla., set for March 7-9. This looks like a great show, with a deep pool of comics and Hollywood talent set to show. The programming looks equally good, including such diverse ideas as a belly dancing  seminar and the con's fourth annual indie film festival.

Wizard World Los Angeles returns to the South Hall at the L.A. Convention Center March 14-16. Wizard looks like it's bulking up its film programming for this year's shows, with a Lucasfilm presentation on "Star Wars: Clone Wars" and "Indiana Jones" sure to draw a packed house. Some big names will be on hand for a two-part "ultimate screenwriters panel," headed up current "Amazing Spider-Man" comics scripters Bob Gale (writer of “Back to the Future”) and Marc Guggenheim (“Law and Order,” “CSI: Miami,” “Eli Stone”) and featuring Zak Penn ("X-Men: The Last Stand," “The Incredible Hulk”), Mark Verheiden (“Teen Titans”) and John Cox (“Sgt. Rock”). There also will be a "Heroes" panel with Jeph Loeb and an "Incredible Hulk" TV retrospective with Lou Ferrigno, in addition to the usual comics panels from Marvel, DC and Top Cow.

Back on the East Coast, New York Comic-Con has chosen YouTube videomaker Michael Agrusso, creator of the Marvel vs. DC parodies of the Mac vs. PC TV ads, to create three promo videos for its third annual show on April 18-20. The first, featuring a plastic Doctor Doom trying to talk his way into a discount ticket, can be watched below or at this page here.

Lastly, there's the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, set for April 26-27 at UCLA, which will feature a new graphic novel area called "The Comix Strip." The Times is holding a design contest for a logo for the strip. Head over to this site and you can check out the 10 finalists and vote for your favorite. The winner will be announced at Wizard World L.A.

The sole comics-based pic nominated for an Oscar, “Persepolis,” was to no one's surprise passed over in the animated feature category for the heavy favorite, “Ratatouille.” Hard to be too upset by this, as both are excellent if completely different films.

The best comicbook mention of the night goes to supporting actress winner Tilda Swinton, who brought up the nippled Batsuit worn by her “Michael Clayton” co-star George Clooney in the camp-tastic “Batman & Robin.”