Award-winning videogame creator Will Wright was at Comic-Con in his first-ever appearance to publicize the highly anticipated Spore game. © EA.

Spore
Another game that encourages young players to create new and unusual creatures -- and whole new worlds -- is the much-anticipated Spore, set for release on September 7, 2008. Award-winning videogame creator Will Wright (best known for SimCity and The Sims game franchises, the latter of which has sold more than 100 million units to date) was at Comic-Con in his first-ever appearance.

In addition to discussing Spore, Wright commented on MashON Comic Book Creator's new Spore component that allows children to create their own comic books featuring Spore creatures that they have designed.

After reminiscing about his fondness for 2001: A Space Odyssey and interest in the computer HAL, Wright spoke about the Spore videogame, and its objective to deconstruct existing notions of the universe and to create new stories. Wrights said that kids like to draw and make things, and that Spore will advance creativity and the power of collective effort.

"There are 1,500 known species on Earth," Wright said, adding that he is amazed by the realistic creatures that can be, and have already been, created with Spore (at spore.com), as well as the things being designed that are not creatures at all.

What Wright finds most exciting is how children can take their Spore creatures, create a whole environment, and then lay it out as a comic book, or make a film and upload it to YouTube. "Players take on the role of George Lucas or J.R.R. Tolkien," Wright says, "as they have a hand in determining the history of life through to the future."

Old School Meets New School
Comic-Con is designed as an educational event, and the panel "Toys, Comics, and Characters: Illustrators as Entertainment Entrepreneurs" showcased some of the smartest -- and most successful -- talent at the convention.

The panel featured illustration faculty and alumni from Parsons The New School of Design, including Abby Denson, the Lulu Award-winning cartoonist and creator of Tough Love: High School Confidential; Steven Guarnaccia, chair of the Illustration Department at Parsons; Nora Krug, an Associate Professor of Illustration whose work as an illustrator, animator and visual narrator has appeared in the New York Times, Guardian and Playboy; Tara McPherson, a painter, poster artist and freelance illustrator, who has designed posters for rockers Beck, Modest Mouse, Mastodon and Death Cab For Cutie; and Brian Wood, who released his first series, Channel Zero, in 1997 to considerable critical acclaim.

The panel, merging creative and business ideas, was followed by a reunion of Parsons animators and alumni.

Dress for Con Success
While industry professionals, studios and comics companies were out in full force -- as were the fans -- some of the most entertaining moments from Comic-Con came from seeing attendees dressed as their favorite characters.

In addition to the world-famous Comic-Con Masquerade, Marvel Comics teamed up this year with Disguise, a leading supplier of licensed character-driven Halloween costumes, to present a super-hero fashion show. Disguise created costumes inspired by some of the most popular Marvel female characters, including Black Cat, Emma Frost, Spider-Woman and Captain America.

On the big screen or little screen, in videogames, animated or in-person as costumed crusaders, Comic-Con brings comic books to life for a few crazy days in July. Next year's C-C in San Diego is slated for July 23-26, 2009.

'Nuff said.

Janet Hetherington is a freelance writer and cartoonist living in Ottawa, Canada, where she shares a studio with artist Ronn Sutton and a ginger cat, Heidi. She is exhausted from Comic-Con International in San Diego, but happy, too. Janet's comic creation Monster Love is in the Top 50 of Platinum Studios' 2008 Comic Book Challenge.

Dan Bennett is a Southern California-based arts and business writer whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Entertainment Weekly and MTV.com. He is festival director for Hubbub: The Las Vegas Global Animation Festival and the Los Angeles International Children's Film Festival.