It’s Midnight as I type these words. Patty and I just got home from The Police and Elvis Costello concert. What a great show. Could be my most favorite ever, which is saying a lot!!!

On with today’s news from The Con:

• DC Comics is adding the Milestone Universe (from the 1990′s) into the mainstream DCU. Static will be joining Teen Titans. Now that is cool. To commemorate the event, DC will be collecting the old Milestone material, and reissuing that in trade paperback form over the course of next year.
• The Star Wars Vector crossover storyline will be collected into it’s own Trade Paperback at the end of the year.
• Dark Horse news: The long awaited 20 Years of Dark Horse will be retitled to 25 Years of Dark Horse and be released in 2011. and Serenity: Better Days is being collected, and early next year.
  Also, in manga news, Dark Horse announced that next summer the company will create a series of 80-page manga that will be simultaneously released in Japan and the United States by the group of creators called Clamp. Dark Horse will also be releasing an Omnibus collecting all the Clover stories next year.
• DC has acquired the rights to many of the 1940′s Archie heroes including The Shield, The Web, The Comet, The Fly, The Jaguar, and The Black Hood. Let’s hope they got the reprint rights, too.
• IDW and Chris Ryall announced collections of Violent Messiahs, The Dreamer, and Thom Zahler’s Love and Capes. They are slated to be released from late 2008 to early 2009. Also, a collection of the ’80s strip Torpedo is slated for 2009. Originally written in Spanish and translated to English for American audiences, Jimmy Palmiotti will be “translating the translation.”
• In Top Cow news, William Harms’ Impaler, previously published via Image Central will be finished and collected by Top Cow, and a new series will start afterwards.
  Also, Madame Mirage will come back next year in a new series, Paul Dini announced. The collection of the first storyline hits in September, though the publisher has copies available at the show. The was no date given for the debut of volume 2.
• DC Comics is bringing back The Warlord. I smell a collected edition.

It’s good to see that so many people are having a good time at the Con. The crowds are large, but that is to be expected.

It’s also good to see so many cool announcements and news items. Let’s hope it continues all weekend long. Look for The Eisner Award Winners – Collected Editions – in a separate post Saturday.

On with today’s news from The Con:

• More news on Mister X with creator Dean Motter. Don’t forget Dark Horse is celebrating the character’s 25th anniversary with an Archive edition due out October 22. It will collect issues #1-14 (Series 1; June 1984-August 1988); 384 pages, $79.95. There is also an Official Press Release to this story.
• Here is the Official Press Release for The Life and Times of Martha Washington (Omnibus) as reported the other day.
• And…Here is the Official Press Release for Guy Davis’s, The Marquis also as reported the other day.
• Sublife published by Fantagraphics and making its world premiere at Comic-Con this weekend, Sublife is a one person anthology series by John Pham featuring one single, serialized story (221 Sycamore St.) backed up by smaller, hopefully more self-contained strips. It should hit bookstores some time in the Fall, and the first issue will be squarebound, 64 pages, two-color.
• Image Comics and Frank Frazetta on Complete Death Dealer, Death Dealer II and The Fantastic Worlds of Frazetta, Volume One. An oversize hardcover compiling Dark Kingdom, Swamp Demon, Creatures, and Dracula Meets the Wolfman. That book is due out at the end of 2008.
• From Cup ‘O Joe Panel: Any chance of a trade for Bob Gale’s “Daredevil” issues, given his current work on “Amazing Spider-Man”? No plans yet, but maybe.
• Boom! Studios announced the formation of Zoom, a new children’s comic book imprint for licensed Disney properties. The new line, which launches in spring 2009, will publish original comics based on Pixar films like the animated hit movie Wall-E, and also on The Muppet Show.
• Vertigo things we know: Fables collection of covers, a “coffee table art book collecting all of James Jean’s covers.” The book will come out in the fall and will include all the covers through Issue #75 and the covers for the trades. The Complete Death is coming out as a hardcover collection with all the death mini-series and a few short stories that were in various Vertigo mini-series over the years. Swamp Thing is going to be released as a series of hardcover books. And Preacher will be in hardcover starting next fall.
• Vertigo things we did not know: A new Vertigo Crime imprint, a line of graphic novels in black and white hardcover that will be “all crime thriller, smart, sexy, edgy books,” Karen Berger said. The imprint will feature writers known for work in crime fiction as well as Vertigo writers. “Interest in the genre is very big,” Berger said. “Our writers really want to tackle more crime thrillers and mysteries.”
• Dan Didio said at the Final Crisis Management Panel that they will collect the FC Tie-Ins, “…in the order that makes the most sense to everybody”.