Paste's 10 Favorite Things About NYC Comic Con 2009

What's next from the auteur who brought us teenage monster hunters, epic space westerns and super-villain musicals? According to the revered writer and director, a dark rumination on the horrors of human trafficking. "I'm such a bitter, sad man and this is my bitter, sad show," Whedon joked. While his new series about programable human beings may lack the playful pop culture spark of his previous shows, it also has the potential to stretch the Whedonverse into even deeper emotional territory then we've seen in Buffy or Firefly.

 

As one of the most thought-provoking, progressive comic imprints in the industry, Vertigo Comics has it's work cut out for itself in attracting new readers to its cerebral side of the playground. Various new projects were announced at the convention: Cuba: One Story is writer/illustrator Dean Haspiel's graphic translation of the life of Inverna Valesquez, a second mother to Haspiel who lived as a soldier in Fidel Castro's army. The team of Mike Carey and Peter Gross will provide a more fanciful alternative with The Unwritten, an analysis of the power of fiction that diagrams the life of a writer's son who's solely identified as a story-book character. Expect post-modern twists galore.

Rumors of a movie directed by Edgar Wright and starring Michael Cera have been swirling for months, but we all know the truth: no movie will ever be able to touch this brilliant pop-culture masterpiece in the making. A layered collage of sex, indie rock and obscure video game references all projected through a Manga filter, Scott Pilgrim's evolution as an evil-ex-boyfriend fighting slacker has been absolutely entrenching. Author/Illustrator Bryan Lee O'Malley's panel more or less revealed the story to be autobiographical. With one last year in the Pilgrim epic, we can only hope that O'Malley has more hyper-kinetic history to project into a new series.