At this year’s 2013 San Diego Comic Con (SDCC) Chris Ware was honored with four (Yes 4!) Eisner Awards for his brand-new Graphic Novel, BUILDING STORIES (Published by Pantheon). Here’s a photo of one of them, Congrats Chris… you honestly deserve this credit, great job!!

WOW! This is insanely great news!! OK, we don’t mean to brag, but at this year’s 2013 San Diego Comic Con (SDCC) Chris Ware’s new Graphic Novel, BUILDING STORIES (Pantheon Books) won four 2013 Eisner Awards!!! Yes, FOUR! This is almost too good to be true and we are so proud of Chris Ware. His new Graphic Novel, also known as “The Book in a Box”, won in these categories: Best New Graphic Novel, Best Writer/Artist, Best Lettering and Best Publication Design.

We want to congratulate Chris Ware (and Pantheon Books) for their amazing success!

This weekend, at the 2013 San Diego Comic Con (SDCC), Neil Gaiman made some HUGE announcements about coming back to his “Sandman” character for DC Comics’ Vertigo line. He will write the books and the interior art will be done by J. H. Williams III. The cover art (example up above ) is by Dave McKean and he will do a few other covers as well. This is great news, especially considering that the original comic books came out 25 years ago (circa 1988) and now we get to revisit that world and those amazing characters. The six-issue series starts this October and will be released bi-monthly. Yeah, we’re drooling already and can’t wait!! For more info just check out the video down below:

While Chip Kidd was having fun partying at this week’s 2013 San Diego Comic Con (OK honestly, he was probably working like a dog) he was kind enough to share a few fun photos he took while running around.

The first one is of him standing in front of the Booth for Pantheon Books. Hey, take a notice of the banner in the background with the new “Pantheon Graphic Novels” logo!

Next, Chip ran into some super-awesome famous people. The 1st pic is none other than Neil Gaiman (The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Make Good Art Speech, & soon, Sandman Overture for DC Comics) and then we get to see the Fantasy Author, George R. R. Martin (The Game of Thrones). That’s cool!

Then, last but not least, he dropped by the HOT TOYS Toy Booth to see the brand-new Classic 1966 BATMAN TV Series Figures and Batmobile. These are coming out later this year and they are insanely beautiful…. actually, Masterpieces of ART!

Hey! We have a bunch of abbreviations here so please let us explain that real quick, ha! First, SDCC is the “San Diego Comic Con”, which starts on July 18th (Thursday) and runs until Sunday. Then, the CBLDF is the “Comic Book legal Defense Fund”. They’re a non-profit group that helps support Comic Book Retailers and Creators. They also work to SAVE FREE SPEECH. Whew!

OK, the good news is that the Book Designer Chip Kidd will be appearing at the 2013 SDCC with the lovely Japanese Translator Anne Ishii. They will be making multiple appearances, both separate and together, at different times of the event. Also, Chip Kidd will mainly be appearing to sign available copies of Batman: Death by Design, Neil Gaiman's Make Good Art, and The Passion of Gengoroh Tagame.

So far the schedule looks like this:

THURSDAY - Chip Kidd will be signing books at the CBLDF Booth (#1920) at 5:00pm.

FRIDAY - Chip Kidd will appear with Anne Ishii for a Lecture and Book Signing at 12:00pm.

SATURDAY- Anne Ishii will have a performance at 12:00pm.

Of course the CBLDF will have many other Creatives, Authors, Writers, Cartoonists, and other Artists as well. For more information and a complete list of events, please CLICK HERE!

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF) will be in San Diego for the 2013 Comic-Con International (SDCC). You can find them at Booth #1920 and you’re going to NOT want to miss them because they will have a bunch of exciting things going on!

First, the CBLDF will have a few Exclusive items you can only get at this event. One such item is a brand-new T-Shirt with the face of EC Comics/Mad Magazine Creator, William Gaines. The shirt also has the motto, “Bill Gaines Was Right”, which relates to the censorship of comic books and supports free speech. Right On!

They will also have some exclusive variant-cover comic books, really great stuff like:

Adventure Time #18, with art by the amazingly talented Chrystin Garland!
Liberty Variant of Quantum and Woody #1, with a cover by Tony Millionaire!
Comics Code Variant of Lazarus #1, by the Creative Team of Rucka, Lark, and Arcas!
Also, don’t miss their authoritative guide book on Manga Art titled, Manga: Introduction, Challenges, and Best Practices!

Aside from these variants and exclusives, the CBLDF will also have in-booth book signings featuring designer Chip Kidd and translator Anne Ishii, among other exciting appearances! “Chip Kidd” related books on hand will include: Batman: Death by Design (DC Comics), Neil Gaiman's Make Good Art, and The Passion of Gengoroh Tagame. Of course they will have many other Creators, Artists, Writers, etc, as well. For a full signing schedule, CLICK HERE!

Here’s a friendly reminder that PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE Books and their other groups (Pantheon, Knopf & Schocken, Doubleday, and Vintage Anchor) will be exhibiting at the next 2013 SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON (SDCC), which at the time of this posting is next weekend! I mean, it starts on Thursday, July 18th, and runs until Sunday, July 21st. Their booth numbers are 1514 & 1515 and are located just a few spaces from the DC Comics Booth. For a more detailed EXHIBIT HALL MAP please CLICK HERE!

Please be sure to visit the PANTHEON Graphic novels Booth because they will be giving away “Cartoonist Buttons” and “Pantheon Bookmarks” which were designed by Chip Kidd. The Pin-Back Buttons feature portraits of Charles Burns, Art Spiegelman, and Chris Ware. They will also have a preview of Pantheon's next graphic novel, THE ADVENTURES OF LOVELACE AND BABBAGE by Sydney Padua, set to be released next fall in 2014. Also, as an added bonus, they will have LIMITED giveaway copies of other Pantheon titles including Hanan al-Shaykh's ONE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS , PZ Myers' THE HAPPY ATHEIST and Jesse Ball's SILENCE ONCE BEGUN (early copies in advance of the January 2014 release!).

Also, in the Random House Booth, they’re gonna have a ton of great Authors who are not only selling books but will be available for book signings. Check out the list down below!

Author Roger Hobbs will appear on the “Keep 'Em at the Edge of Their Seats” panel on Thursday at 4 pm, and he will sign copies of GHOSTMAN at the Random House booth (#1515) on Friday, 4:00 - 5:00pm.

Chuck Palahniuk will be on the “Ode to Nerds” panel on Thursday at 1:45 pm, and he will signing books at the Random House booth (#1515) on Friday, 10:00 - 11:00am.

Anne Rice will be back at SDCC this year to meet fans and promote her werewolf series, The Wolf Gift Chronicles. The next installment, THE WOLVES OF MIDWINTER, pubs on October 15th. Her signing will take place on Saturday, 3:00 - 5:00pm in the Autograph Area #AA03. Also, be sure to watch for a fun giveaway at the Knopf Pantheon booth, while supplies last.

Andrew Vachss will be signing copies of his new AFTERSHOCK Book at the Random House booth (#1515) on Saturday, 10:00 - 11:00am.

Please check out this quick video interview conducted by Josh from The Batman Universe. He talked with Chip Kidd at the 2010 San Diego Comic Con about his love of the Batman character.They also discuss a few Batman Books that Chip has worked on and there’s news about a “future publication” called BAT-MANGA ( that was not released at the time but out now, ha! ). Pretty interesting.

Chip Kidd is set-up at the PANTHEON BOOKS/Random House Booth at this year’s 2012 San Diego Comic Con ( It’s Booth #1515, for more info please check out the NEXT APPEARANCE page, navigation tab is up top ). Every now & then he gets a chance to go looking around and can’t help but totally geek-out on all the cool brand-new Batman stuff that is EVERYWHERE! He’s been sending us some really great photos ( look for even more later ).

First up is a HUGE Promo Banner near the DC Comics Booth that features BATMAN AND ROBIN with artwork by Frank Quitely, beautiful!

Then, speaking of Advertising Banners, here’s another one for a new Batman Video Game future-release.

The next photo is a Batman Japanese Shogun Warrior-type Figure. This was made by FUNKO who just makes extremely excellent stuff. We think this figure is a SDCC Exclusive because it’s all “Black and White” ( the original one is color ).

Then we get to see a new “SUPERMAN VS BATMAN” Statue based on Frank Miller’s THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS Graphic Novel. OK, we actually saved the BEST for last! Here is an Original “Marshall Rogers” Comic Art Page offered by some vendor. What torture!!