With E3 over, the next big summer event in the geek world is Comic-Con in San Diego. Every year, more than a hundred thousand people descend upon San Diego, taking over the city and enveloping it in geekdom.

There isn’t a corner you can turn without seeing a Green Lantern T-shirt or a bar you can walk into that doesn’t have a revised comic book inspired martini list. It is nerd paradise.

But, Comic-Con isn’t all Batmobiles and conversations with Jim Lee. There is a darker side to the Con that becomes increasingly apparent (and annoying) once you get there.

As much as we love the Con, there are a few things we wouldn’t mind living without for our week in San Diego.

Twilight

The past few years, Comic-Con has been invaded by screaming teenage girls and even louder overeager cougars in search of their first glimpse of the latest trailers of the Twilight saga. Twilight is not comics. It’s not even geek.

Ask any person on the street to tell you what they imagine a vampire looks like before Twilight came out and not a single one would mention “sparkles.” The vampires that most people love revolve around sex and violence, not good Christian values and celibacy. Real vampires don’t shimmer, they kill people.

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The Hills Run Red, sadly, has almost nothing going for it or to recommend it. Its a combination of the worst elements of the latest genre of horror filmmaking and not a very well put together combination of them either. The story, if it can be called that, follows four young adults who’ve set off to make a docudrama about an obscure, unfinished horror films called The Hills Run Red. Along the way they encounter citizens of a small town where the original film was made and, of course, trouble follows.

What happens during this film can be best described as a mismatched, cliched unfolding of coincidental and needlessly violent and bloody events that taken as a whole, signify almost nothing. Usually, at least in the better films of this genre, you hope the audience feels some empathy or, at the very least, pity for the poor characters trapped in this scenario. Or, as in the case of the recent Zombieland, the film has other things in it favor such as humor. Unfortunately, because the characters in the film are developed so haphazardly and so poorly and there’s basically nothing much here in other areas, I felt nothing for them and was not the least bit concerned as they met their individual demises.

In fact, most of their actions in the film were patently stupid in so many ways, they probably deserved what they got — at least in the context of the film. One of my biggest pet peeves is stupid characters in movies who do stupid things that no real person would ever do. As an example, if someone calls and tells you the disturbing phone calls are coming from inside the house, you don’t go upstairs to check. Or, if you hear an odd noise on a dark and stormy night, you probably shouldn’t go and investigate.

Sure, there’s exceptions to this and also in many cases you need to suspend your disbelief to keep the story going, but for this film, that was a very tall order. Whatever thoughts the filmmakers were thinking when making this movie, logic and common sense were obviously not among them — which is one of the few things that does come across clearly with this film.

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The latest trailer for the Warner Bros. thriller Whiteout surfaced on IGN today. The graphic novel adaptation stars Kate Beckinsale as US Marshall Carrie Stetko, who is investigating Antarctica’s first murder. The film is helmed by Dominic Sena and also stars Gabriel Macht, Columbus Short, Alex O’Loughlin, Shawn Doyle and Tom Skerritt.

This teaser will seem familiar to fans, as most of the material from the first trailer remains intact. However, this version gives viewers who may not be familiar with the source material a greater understanding of the world Stetko inhabits and what she must do before the freezing winter plunges the continent into darkness.

Whiteout hits theaters September 11. Check out the trailer after the jump.

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There is a new Barnes and Noble that just opened up in my neighborhood. Its built into an apartment building, one of three such glass & metal monstrosities recently built in the Upper East Side, with escalators that take you underground. So, at least if the events of The Day After Tomorrow ever happen (and Al Gore increasingly convinces me that they might) we’ll at least have a place to take cover.

Anyway, this new B & N is a MALL. A mall of books. Two floors, God-knows how many square feet of DVDs, books, graphic novels, film script collections, and pretty much everything ever printed. To say the least, I blacked out somewhere between the hours of one and four this afternoon.

My first recommendation is the first book I came away with: The Dylan Dog Case Files, published by Dark Horse Comics.  Translated from Italian, Dylan Dog is a supernatural detective that hunts monsters in the Louisiana Bayou. Created by Tiziano Sclavi, Dylan is being brought to life by Superman himself, Brandon Routh in the movie Dead of Night.

My second recommendation is Detective Comics #854, which introduces the new creative team of Whiteout writer Greg Rucka and artist J.H. Williams III. The book also features Rucka’s creation from the pages of 52, Batwoman.  If you happened to make it to New York Comic Con this past February you were treated to the delights of the first few pages of what is sure to be a downright beautiful book. You can download a preview of it at the link above.

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Even though filming was completed almost two years ago, the trailer for Whiteout has finally been released. The film, based on the Eisner Award winning graphic novel written by Greg Rucka and drawn by Steve Lieber, stars Kate Beckinsale as U.S. Marshall Carrie Stetko. Stetko is at the remote base of McMurdo investigating the first murder ever to take place in Antarctica. A location so remote, that its described in the trailer as “the most isolated landmass on the planet.”

Of course, while Beckinsale’s character investigates the murder, she comes to realize a greater conspiracy may be at work. With the help of The Spirit‘s Gabriel Macht, who plays another agent investigating the same murder, she must unravel the mystery before McMurdo is plunged into six months of wintery darkness.

As a big fan of the source material, I’m glad to be finally seeing the trailer for this film. Seeing as how it was finished almost two years ago, I was beginning to wonder if it would ever see the light of day. The trailer makes the film look pretty good so I’m not sure why it took so long to get released. Of course, a good trailer isn’t always an indicator of a good film. But with Whiteout finally getting a release date, we’ll get to know for sure soon enough.

Check out the trailer after the break.

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