Five Comic-Con Announcements That Didn’t Get Nearly Enough Attention

Every year at San Diego Comic Con International, there are dozens of announcements of cool new projects…which get buried in the avalanche of announcements from Comic Con.With monolithic TV and movie panels taking up much of the spotlight these days, you’ve got to be a Big Two publisher to even hope that someone will pay attention to your comic book…and that’s ignoring the possibility that your TV or movie announcement will fall on deaf ears because it’s announced on the same day as Batman vs. Superman or something.What do we think got a raw deal this year?

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The Simpsons are crossing over with everybodyIf this isn’t a farewell tour, I don’t know what is.After a quarter century of avoiding long-form onscreen crossovers with Matt Groening’s other series (Futurama) or their own heir to the Fox Animation throne (Family Guy), it came out at The Simpsons panel that the venerated TV comedy would be doing just that–both in the same season.Well, maybe the same.The Planet Express is coming to Springfield, with plans for the episode to air either as this season’s finale or next season’s premiere. The Family Guy crossover will reportedly taken place in the upcoming season.Dark Horse’s licensed books just got realWith A-list writers announced for both Tomb Raider and Terminator–both properties which are being actively developed in other media and both properties which have huge potential to connect with non-traditional comics readers and expand Dark Horse’s market–the publisher took a huge step forward in reasserting itself in a field (licensed comics) where they were once the dominant publisher in the industry but have in recent years lost some ground to people like IDW Publishing and BOOM! Studios.Gail Simone on her own would be a huge “get” for Dark Horse, given that her exclusivity deal with DC recently ended and while she’s been doing some licensed work for Dynamite, it hasn’t been on the kind of project likely to capture the public’s imagination. Tomb Raider is something else entirely, with a new game out and a new movie rumored. Pile Straczynski writing Terminator on top of that and you’ve got a very strong turnout for Dark Horse.