For the past few years, I have gone down to Comic Con and there is a girl I have hooked up with the past few years down there. We get along great and keep in touch throughout the year and like clockwork we end up together in San Diego. I could totally see dating her. The problem is I am from Massachusetts and she lives in San Francisco. – LongDistanceTrouble

Long distance is tricky. The end.

How is that for insight and guidance? You’re welcome. Thank me later.

But seriously, there are so many nuances to every long distance romance that it would be tough to find a stock answer that worked for all scenarios.

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How do you follow a debut novel that was named one of Time magazine’s best books of the year? For Charles Yu the answer is Sorry Please Thank You, a breezy but fascinating collection of short stories.

In an interview during San Diego Comic-Con 2012, Yu revealed that the transition from writing his popular and widely praised book, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, to the short story format of Sorry Please Thank You was challenging. The author also admitted that not all of the stories turned out the way he had planned.

“Sometimes you write something and it’s just not what you thought it was going to be,” he said. Even so, Yu is pleased with the final product and readers will be too.

The collection of stories transports readers from futuristic earth to virtual reality and even into space. In every time and location the characters are searching for the same things: happiness and love. The fundamental nature of these desires helps keep Yu’s stories grounded even as some of them veer off into the more obscure and strange (an alien’s guide to Earth families, for example).

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At Comic Con, The Flickcast team got to finally get our hands on the Wii U and Nintendo’s minigame packed NintendoLand. Like we talked about in our E3 coverage, NintendoLand will feature a collection of mini games inspired by Nintendo franchises, past and present. In total, NintendoLand will contain 12 mini games with half of them already announced and five were playable for us in the Nintendo lounge at SDCC.

First we got to try out Animal Crossing: Sweet Day. Inspired by the stuffed animal-like art design of Animal Crossing, this mini game puts three players on a map where they must collect candies that are placed in various locations, sometimes requiring multiple players to stand on a location together to release the candies. The more candies the players collect, the fatter their heads get and the slower they move. At the same time, they are being pursued by a fourth player who is controlling two guards using the Wii U controller, independently controlling each guard with the different analog sticks and using the controller’s screen.

Communication is key between the players in their hunt for the candy as they need to warn each other about oncoming threats and gather at certain locations to unleash the larger stashes of candy. The player using the Wii U controller gets to really have the most fun though as they get to chase and troll the other players by using pincher style attacks to corner them.

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At Comic Con, Capcom took the time to let us check out some of their newest titles coming out over the next year. During our time at the Capcom booth we got hands on with Resident Evil 6, the rebooted DMC and the next installment to the Lost Planet franchise.

For Resident Evil 6, we were treated to extended versions of the demo currently available to those who purchased Dragon’s Dogma. In the campaigns we got to play, the action was fast and furious but there was also that intensity often found in Resident Evil games where every bullet needs to count. In addition to deranged people with firearms of their own there were creatures that would assault us with a blast of spikes that would knock you off your feet, leaving you open to further attack.

Also, check out the newest Resident Evil 6 trailer after the jump. Don’t forget that Resident Evil 6 hits the XBox 360 and PlayStation 3 on October 2nd, 2012.

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Comic-Con is the Mecca of pop culture. People from every facet of the entertainment industry are there and for good reason. If a movie is going to be huge in 2012, it started at Comic Con 2011 (or even sooner). Even television shows that have nothing to do with “geek culture” can be found at the Con.

But of course at Comic-Con, everyone is able to let out their inner geek. Whether it’s a t-shirt that proudly proclaims “Nerd” to the world or a twenty-five piece, thousand dollar Iron Man costume with light-up chest piece, everyone is able to let their geek flag fly.

The hardest part of Comic-Con is it is impossible to see everything, whether or not you are on the show floor or trying to follow it from home. We hope that this photo gallery can help fill in some of those spots of the Con that you missed out on. Check it out and share it with your friends and hopefully see you there next year.

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Right at the start of Comic Con we reported on a rumor that the next game coming from Activision was going to be the Hit Monkey game. While we were all hoping from our Flickcast offices (a.k.a. our San Diego hotel rooms) that this rumor would come to be false, nothing surprises us anymore and if Hit Monkey was on its way, we would have dealt with it.

Luckily during Saturday’s Marvel gaming panel, everything changed. Instead of getting a monkey with guns, we got the Merc with the Mouth. Deadpool is coming to consoles in the aptly titled Deadpool: The Game. Seemingly voiced by the same actor who took on Deadpool’s role during Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, Deadpool will be joined by the inner dialogue that plagues his insanity ridden life in the comics.

This game also looks like it will follow the trend of recent mature comic book games like Batman: Arkham City or Wolverine: Origins where “s**t gets real.” This isn’t a happy-go-lucky web-slinger cracking jokes and tying up bad guys for the cops to come get them. This is going to be a guns blazing and head chopping lunatic making jokes that are not safe for the office.

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Lots of info coming out of Comic-Con in San Diego this week. Of course, we’re pretty interested in anything where comics and movies converge so when Marvel makes some announcements, we’re gonna let you know.

As we predicted yesterday, Marvel’s Kevin Feige confirmed August 1, 2014 as the release date for the next super-hero ensemble: Guardians Of The Galaxy. But wait, there’s more.

Edgar Wright said he and Joe Cornish have written Ant-Man and Wright shot a test that he showed to the crowd. Apparently, people loved it and Wright’s description of the tiny hero who “kicks ass one inch at a time.”

But there’s even more. Captain America: The Winter Solder, the confirmed title of the sequel, is set for an April 4, 2014 release. Alan Taylor is set to direct Thor: The Dark World and it will arrive on November 8, 2013.

Also, as we told you before, Shane Black is still hard at work on Iron Man 3 and working towards its release date of May 3, 2013. They also showed footage from the movie which included Ben Kingsley as the Mandarin and Guy Pearce as an as yet unknown bad guy.

How’s that for a whirlwind of announcements? Anyone else need a minute?

We’ve been following director Gareth Edwards’ career since he premiered his film Monsters during SXSW in 2010. Back then our own Chris Ullrich gave it a good review and if you ask him, he knew even then Edwards was only at the beginning of his career and destined for great things.

Well, fast forward to today and during a panel at Comic-Con a surprise visit by Edwards also brought with it the first footage from his next sci-fi monster flick: Godzilla. We don’t have the footage to show you yet but until we do, you can check out the first poster for the movie right now.

As it’s a teaser poster, it’s pretty simple. Still, it helps to set the mood and from what we’ve heard about the footage from the film, what a mood it is. Can’t wait to check it out.

Have a look at the full poster after the break. Look for Godzilla to hit theaters next year.

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Star Lord. Groot. Drax. Rocket Raccoon. Since the huge success of the Avengers including the post-credit reveal of the big bad behind everything, there have been rumblings about the Guardians of the Galaxy making their way to the big screen. Last night during the Marvel party, lots of discussion was overheard that let the cat out of the bag that Marvel’s cosmic crusaders will be officially revealed today.

Though details like who will be taking on these roles are shrouded in secrecy, it is still exciting to see Marvel give the Guardians of the Galaxy their own feature film. Especially with Marvel putting their cosmic franchises like the Guardians and the Annihilators on hiatus and other powerhouses like Nova MIA.

Stick to The Flickcast for more on Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy from San Diego Comic-Con 2012.

At Comic-Con in San Diego the first trailer for Halo: Forward Unto Dawn screened for an enthusiastic crowd. This live action/CGI web series sounds, and looks, pretty great.

Here’s the story:

Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn tells an exciting story of heroism and sacrifice on a scale never before seen in the Halo universe, taking fans back to the beginning of the human and Covenant war and leading into the events of Halo 4.

Set against the backdrop of a United Nations Space Command (UNSC) military academy, a group of highborn cadets are training to be the next generation of soldiers in the UNSC’s ongoing war with insurrectionists in the outer colonial planets. Among these cadets, Thomas Lasky struggles with his doubts about this war, and with the burden of expectations he may not be able to carry.

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At least with this rather surprising news it’s not a case of another creative team making a prequel to a classic graphic novel. Before Watchmen, we’re looking at you.

This time at least the guy who started it all is back and ready to tell another part of the story. To what story am I referring? Well, as you might have heard, celebrated author Neil Gaiman has decided to return to the world he made famous and tell a new part of The Sandman story.

That’s right, Gaiman will collaborate with artist J.H. Williams III on a new limited series based on his classic graphic novel The Sandman for Vertigo. Gaiman made the announcement via video during the Vertigo panel at Comic-Con on Thursday.

In the video address, Gaiman said “there was one tale still untold” for The Sandman and with Sandman‘s 25th anniversary coming up, he felt the time was right to revisit it and tell this new story.

The title of the series will be announced later, but look for it to debut sometime in 2013 and be available da-and-date digitally.

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The Walking Dead has proven itself to be a valuable franchise in comics (just hitting its 100th issue), on TV (being the top rated program on the AMC network) and in games (with Telltale’s adventure game being considered one of the top downloadable titles so far this year). It is no surprise that someone else would try to get their hands on it and leverage the property further.

While Telltale’s The Walking Dead revolves around the comic world, the AMC television series has its own separate continuity. While the two revolve around the same basic concept, the stories have already drastically diverged. It only makes sense that someone would want to further expand on this second continuity, especially with some of the intriguing characters introduced to it that never appeared in the comics.

Along with developer Terminal Reality, Activision will be publishing The Walking Dead in 2013. Terminal Reality most notably worked on the recent Star Wars Kinect and was also working on Demonick, the title being shown in development of Happy Madison’s Grandma’s Boy.

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There have been rumblings all week leading up to the Marvel Games panel taking place this Saturday at San Diego Comic Con. Activision has stated they will reveal a new Marvel game from the team at High Moon Studios, the same team currently working on Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. The team at Beenox has held the reigns strong for the Spider-Man franchise and there hasn’t been any word on a new X-Men game since X-Men Destiny. Could it have been a post movie release tie-in to the Avengers franchise that THQ had abandoned?

The rumor going around the interwebs right now is a pretty shocking one as it is a character that not many people are even familiar with. Created in 2010 by Daniel Way, Hit Monkey has found his way into crossing paths with some of Marvel’s most iconic characters such as Spider-Man and Deadpool. Supposedly, earlier in the week a website was preemptively published http://hitmonkeygame.com/ which contained a teaser image for the game. The site has since been pulled down.

Despite the character’s lack of mainstream popularity, Hit Monkey actually offers players a lot of gaming opportunities in line with what Activision has successfully published. While the FPS genre is still Activision’s bread and butter, the team at High Moon Studios has had success with the third person gameplay of Transformers. Considering the high acrobatics of Hit Monkey on top of the gunplay, this certainly seems like a reasonable possibility.

Marvel is going to war. Well, more to the point, many of the Marvel characters are going to war in what promises to be a new comic event from the company that brought you Civil War and Secret Invasion.

So far we don’t know a whole lot about what’s coming except that Marvel has released a couple of comic covers to help build awareness of the event, and according to said covers, it all starts in October and might have something to do with water. We’ve got both of the full covers to share with you today so you can see for yourself.

Whatever it is Marvel promises to reveal all during Comic-Con in San Diego’ s Amazing Spider-Man panel on July 15th at at 12:30PM. If you can’t make it to San Diego, you can get all the deets at the company’s website.

Click through to check out the two full covers. More on this as it comes to us.

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Costumes are a big part of the Comic-Con experience every year in San Diego. Whether or not you decide to wear one to the show, you are inevitably going to be crossing paths, taking pics of or posing with people doing some kind of cosplay. And since this is the world of comic, anime and gaming cosplay, a lot of those costumes revolve around weapons.

Now while you’d think that Comic-Con would be the safest place to be when the zombie bath salt apocalypse breaks out because it is filled with weapon equipped geeks who have spent more hours training for such an event (i.e. watching Night of the Living Dead, reading the Walking Dead and playing Dead Rising), this might not be the case in 2012.

Comic Con International has sent out an updated set of guidelines for costume weaponry this year. Here is the full release from Comic Con International on the specifics:

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