Tripwire Goes to San Diego

Fab Brit genre magazine Tripwire continues its yearly San Diego Comic-Con tradition by premiering its third Tripwire Annual at the world's best-known genre media convention.

A stunning Jeff Carlisle full colour original Nick Fury cover sets the tone for the annual, which includes exclusive interviews with Stan Lee, Joe Kubert, Bill Morrison of Bongo Comics, painter Phil Hale, storyboard artist Trevor Goring and many more.

There are also features on Tintin, the 70th anniversaries of both Marvel Comics and Batman, the 30th anniversary of Alien, the new Wednesday Comics from DC which debuted earlier this month, Solomon Kane from Dark Horse and a dozen others.

Company profiles include Euro-comics publisher Cinebook, art book impresario Flesk Publications and Book Palace. And of course there are over 20 pages of original strips from Roger Langridge, Kev Mullins, Declan Shalvey, Josh Fialkov and Kody Chamberlain and others.

In all, it is by far the biggest and best issue Tripwire has published to date.

If you;'re going to the event, inside Comic-Con's Exhibitor Hall Tripwire will be in the Small Press area at table S07 and the 2009 Annual will be available at a special show price.

"We'll also have the 2008 Annual with the Doctor Who cover ready for David Tennant to sign (wherever he's set up)," says publisher and Editor-in-Chief Joel Meadows, "and copies of the 2009 Superhero Special with its Kick-Ass cover in case you want to scare up a John Romita Jr signature.

"Plus of course we'll have some Stripwire artists on hand: Roman Muradov and Kody Chamberlain will be at the table sketching and signing their work in the mag. There's even going to be free swag!"

Additionally, Tripwire has a panel at the Con, on Thursday 23rd July at 10.30 am in Room 3. It will feature Joel, US Editor Andy Grossberg and some special guests including UK columnist Rich Johnston from BleedingCool.com. Panel topics will range from comics industry gossip to features from the magazine including comics, movies, TV, culture and more - and there will be pastries for the first lucky dozen attendees.

This may be the last US appearance for Tripwire in 2009. As we previously reported, the magazine is not carried by Diamond this time around, so retailers are invited to drop by the table and acquire issues for their Colonial stores.

• Up to the minute details about guests and swag can be found on the Tripwire Twitter feed