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At a special panel over the weekend at Comic-Con, Devil's Due Publishing presented the new "season" of Jericho, coming this October to a comic shop near you. And they've brought the original writing team from the series to the comic book. Which means, this will be about as true a continuation of the true ongoing vision for Jericho as you can imagine.

Executive producers Jon Steinberg and Dan Shotz revealed that the new series will take the characters right into the Civil War that was brewing in the second season. They're excited about the possibilities the comic format allows them. As a comparable example, when IDW brought "season six" of Angel to comics, they transported much of L.A. to a plane of hell, something that would have been cost prohibitive in a live action series.

If this trailer, straight from Comic-Con International, is any indication, then January 2010 can't come soon enough! The 13-episode Starz (You read that right, Starz!) series Spartacus: Blood and Sand boasts Sam Raimi (Spider-Man), Rob Talpert (Drag Me to Hell) and Steven S. DeKnight (Smallville) executive producing. It features Lucy Lawless (Xena: Warrior Princess), Peter Mensa (300) and Erin Cummings (Dollhouse).

Everything about this trailer makes the show look amazing. Amazing costuming, good casting and dialogue. The effects style borrows heavily from the hyper-realism of 300, which adds a great dramatic flare. Damn, what more can I say? Just watch the thing and wait with bated breath until January like me.

Considering that Dethklok is the biggest and most important band in the universe, my question is why it's taken so long for a Metalocalypse comic book series to get off the ground. Originally, it was just the Dethklok vs. The Goon one-shot from Dark Horse Comics. That came about because The Goon creator Eric Powell is a huge fan of the show.

From there, though, Dark Horse got with series co-creator Brendon Small and have developed a full publishing program around the Metalocalypse brand. They even got artists and writers from the show to collaborate with the Dark Horse team on whatever's going to come down the pipe.

Occasionally on The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert reads an excerpt from his fictional fiction book, Alpha Squad 7: Lady Nocturne: A Tek Jansen Adventure, which features Stephen as the main character, Tek. The whole thing is a joke on Bill O'Reilly's 1998 novel, Those Who Trespass (O'Reilly clearly based the bad-ass TV journalist on himself). Well, Stephen's going to one-up Papa Bear because Tek Jansen's about to be thrown in the comic book world!

During Comic-Con, the Oni Press panel made their expected announcement about an upcoming My Name Is Earl comic and then followed up with the surprising revelation that they also want to work on Tek Jansen adventures. Talks are currently in process with Stephen and his writing staff, because they'll be involved in the project, right alongside the usual Oni team.

Exciting news for those who love Stephen and "crappy, Mary Sue sci-fi" parodies.