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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Several outlets are reporting today that director Doug Liman will be directing the adaptation of a popular Japanese anime novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka.

All You Need Is Kill was released in the states last year, and is about an alien invasion in which the protagonist sets off to battle, and dies.

He is reborn every morning to fight another day, only to perish again.  A female soldier named Bitch of War makes an appearance as well. The book is referred to as being video-game inspired.

Chances are, you are familiar with Liman’s work. He has directed Swingers, The Bourne Identity, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

His latest movie Fair Game stars Naomi Watts and Sean Penn and will be hitting theaters November 19.  The movie tells the politically charged story about Valerie Plame who was outed by the White House staff as being a CIA operative.

So far, Liman has been able to smoothly transition from one genre to another, which makes us excited to see what he can do with this.

Often events happen that we can’t get to cover extensively or at all. This year that dubious honor fell on Anime Expo in Los Angeles. As much as we might have wanted to go there and show you everything from the expo we have Comic-Con to plan for and that has to take presidence.

Fortunately, we’ve got friends. And one of those friends, SamProof, went to the expo and shot a lot of video, cut it together and we’ve got it for you today. We think it captures the essence of Anime Expo and helps us get over (mostly) the fact that we couldn’t be there this year.

Check out the video after the jump. For more from our pal SamProof, head on over to his site.

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Even though we didn’t get a chance to attend Anime Expo this past week it doesn’t mean we can’t bring you some info on the event. Taking place from July 2-4 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, the expo showcases the latest, greatest and most colorful Anime from around the world.

Of course, where there’s Anime you will find people who love to dress up as their favorite Anime characters. Our friends at LAist have put together a rather impressive bunch of photos that show you exactly what we’re talking about.

We can show you a couple of them here but for all the rest, be sure to head over to the site and their photo pool on Flickr to check them out. After looking at these photos and hearing some of the stories it looks like we ma have to add this event to our calendar for next year. Seems like it was a good time.

Check out a few more photos after the jump.

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Women, you can’t live with them, you can’t live without them — especially if you’re a grown man-child living in your parent’s basement. That is, until now. The “Women of Marvel” is a year-long celebration of, you guessed it, the women of Marvel Comics.

Marvel intends to celebrate women not only in the superhero realm but also the real life creators and artists. Marvel sees us standing impatiently in lines for Avatar and says, “Hey, maybe she’d like to read something to take her mind off of the 3 hour and $18 dollar ticket price.”

First off, I commend Marvel for spotlighting half of the human population. Yes, we women are out there and some of us are geeks. For the past few years I have been reading about Marvel’s company and comic book events.

I found Civil War to be expertly drawn and relevant, I was thankful that House of M was both brief and Wolverine-centric, and I was patient as Skrullacost (aka Secret Invasion) ended in a forgone conclusion. I was ecstatic when Marvel also dedicated a month to my favorite hairball, Wolvie.

Now that I liked, especially the article about the state of the canuckle’s head when he sat down on the couch for some therapy. It’s safe to say I’m excited about some Marvel events and less so about others, which is fine considering events span the far reaches of the Marvel universe.

However, when I heard about a year-long celebration of a gender I am wholly bias about, a smile spread on my face. Maybe it was due to the fact the most recent San Diego Comic-Con was comprised of 40% women or the line of Twihards stretched for miles, but whatever the cause the impact is slowly changing the marketplace for the well-rounded better and Marney (Marvel + Disney) is diving into the deep end.

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There’s lots to see and do at the upcoming Anime Expo in Los Angeles. The expo, a production of the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation, showcases the best in anime and manga, serves to foster trade, commerce and the interests of the general public and animation and comics industry.

The event, which is the largest of its kind on North America, goes from July 2 through July 5, 2009 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Be sure to check out some video of the group after the break.

Here’s some info about the show, and its guests of honor, from the official press release:

Visual kei fans get ready for a musical explosion as Moi dix Mois rocks Anime Expo® 2009 as an official Guest of Honor for the nation¹s largest anime and manga convention. Moi dix Mois is a sound project headed by Mana, the consummate guitarist and leader of Malice Mizer which is on indeterminate hiatus.

In addition to writing music and lyrics, Mana does all of the computer programming and arrangements for his songs. Mana¹s strikingly electrifying and unprecedented musical creation is the result of his remarkable talent to combine the diametrical opposites, such as the classical and the avant-garde, the elegant and the delirious, or the creative and the destructive.

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If you were one of the people waiting for a live-action Akira film to be made, you’re not really going to be very happy about this latest news. Why? Well, according to reports over at Bloody Disgusting, the live action version of the film that had been in development at Warner Bros. is now “dead as a doornail.”

Originally, the movie was to be a massive two-part, live-action epic produced by Warner Bros. and Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way productions. It was also to be the directorial debut of Ruari Robinson, best known as the Oscar-nominated director of the sci-fi comedy short Fifty Percent Grey and the short The Silent City. But now, with Robinson reportedly leaving the project, the fate of Akira as a live-action film is very much uncertain.

In case you’re not familiar with Akira, it originally came out in 1988 as a manga and then as an animated film co-written and directed by Katsuhiro Otomo. The story, set in a futuristic post-nuclear war “New Tokyo” in the year 2019, concerns a teen biker gang member called Tetsuo who is subjected to government experiments which unleash his hidden and terrifying powers. Kaneda, the gang’s leader and Tetsuo’s best friend, must then find a way to stop the ensuing destruction caused by his friend, even if it means killing him.

I first saw the animated film in the early ’90s and was blown away. At the time it was like no other animation I had ever seen and I’ve always secretly harbored a desire to see it as a big-budget, live-action feature. I guess I’ll take that much longer now to get my wish.

To get an idea of just how cool this movie is and to see what might have been, check out the trailer for the animated Akira after the break.

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Over at Sci-Fi Wire they’ve got ten, count ‘em, ten new images from the upcoming action/horror movie Blood: the Last Vampire. The film, a live-action adaptation of the cult hit manga, features the acting talents of  Gianna Jun, Allison Miller, Masiela Lusha, JJ Feild and Koyuki. Its written by Chris Chow and directed by Chris Nahon.

In case you’re not familier with the story, Blood: The Last Vampire follows the adventures of Saya, a half-human, half-vampire samurai who’s job it is to destroy other vampires who kill humans. When demons infest the earth, Saya must join forces with a shadow society known as the Council and travel to an American military base where her journey will lead her to face the deadliest vampire of them all.

I don’t know about you, but I think this film looks pretty awesome. Vampires, samurais, sword fights, cute asian girls chopping off the heads of bad guys and all in blood-soaked, slo-motion splendor. What more could you want from a movie?

Be sure to check out the bigger photos after the jump. We’ve also got the first five minutes of the film to share with you as well. Yes, we’re cool like that.

Blood: The Last Vampire hits theaters on July 10th.

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