The Chicago Tribune was on hand to chronicle the Heroes panel at Comic-Con over the weekend…

If we needed proof that geeks now reign supreme over popular culture – especially television – we got it Saturday at Comic-Con International in San Diego.

This year, the yearly gathering of fans of genre entertainment and comic books, which was expected to top last year’s 4-day attendance of 123,000 people, was all about the second coming, literally, of Heroes, which got the Comic-Con blessing a year ago and returned to do a victory lap.

“You helped create this incredible enormous success for the show,” creator Tim Kring said during the show’s celebratory hourlong session.

As if to give the hit NBC show the ultimate nerd seal of approval, the director Kevin Smith, who on Friday presented the pilot for his own new geek-friendly TV show, Reaper, came onstage during the raucous panel the next day to announce that he will write and direct an episode of Heroes: Origins, the spinoff series that will debut in the spring of 2008.

As the surprised and excited cast looked on, the fans jammed into the enormous room went wild, cheering Smith’s arrival for a full minute. The director is not just a boldface Hollywood name, he is the Geek Revolution in the flesh: He’s written comic books for years, and given his annual presence at the Comic-Con for the last decade or more, the voluble New Jersey native, whose Friday Q-and-A with his fans was diabolically, almost painfully funny, is pretty much the honorary mayor of Nerdtown.

And Smith was the one who was nervous, not Kring, who was the bearded, professorial type on the panel, which also featured the entire, 12-person cast of the show.

“I just don’t want to be the guy who ruins Heroes,” Smith said.

What a difference a year makes, huh? In 2006, the NBC show came as a supplicant to the convention, which has been used to build buzz about films for years, to the extent that the stars of big-budget tentpole movies are more or less expected to turn up (this year Jessica Alba, Harrison Ford and Nicolas Cage were only a few of the A-list types who came to flog upcoming projects).

Heroes got a good reception at Comic-Con a year ago, and then the show blew up that fall. Cause and effect? No one can say for sure, but the positive reaction of the blogging types at the convention certainly didn’t hurt.

Whether or not that show’s success story can be replicated like an army of droids (or possibly clones), the Heroes effect was impossible to ignore this year at Comic-Con. Many network shows for fall – everything from the fanciful Pushing Daisies to the vampire drama Moonlight to the geek-friendly remake of Bionic Woman – presented clips, complete pilots and/or panel discussions.

Whether or not the Comic-Con types truly have the power to make or break a TV show or to “open” a movie, Hollywood executives are paying studious attention to the likes and dislikes of the men and women at the fest, which, 37 years ago, started out with 300 comic-book collectors in the basement of a San Diego hotel. Continue reading this article …

At the 38th Annual Comic-Con International, fans of the sci-fi and fantasy genres proved they’re no longer on the fringe of pop culture.

The mammoth convention, held this past weekend at the San Diego Convention Center, attracted more than 125,000 people. And our beloved cast of Heroes was deservedly front and center.

The entire Heroes ensemble appeared and was given a rock-star welcome. Fan favorite Masi Oka (pictured with Bionic Woman star Michelle Ryan, Skeet Ulrich and Matt Dallas) played to the crowd and even showed his geek cred when he helped fix a faulty speaker on stage.

On the first day of the convention, it was officially confirmed that Zachary Quinto, Heroes‘ slithery villain Sylar, will be playing Spock in the next Star Trek movie (opening December 25, 2008).

“It’s really incredible,” Quinto said. “To be a part of something so iconic with the support of the man [Leonard Nimoy] who created the role is a true honor… I certainly intend to bring my own spin on Spock, and with these guys I’m sure I’ll be able to find that.”

The franchise’s other big news was the announcement that another Comic-Con demigod, Kevin Smith (Clerks, Mallrats, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back), will write and direct an episode of next year’s spin-off, Heroes: Origins.

After receiving thunderous applause, Kevin Smith gushed about being a fan of the first season, which he says mastered “the art of the cliff-hanger.”

It’s not yet known what Kevin Smith’s episode is about (the spin-off is an anthology of standalone installments, featuring as-yet unknown characters coming to grips with special abilities), but he said, emphatically:

“I don’t want to be the guy who ruins Heroes.”

Executive producer Tim Kring was effusive in his gratitude to the Comic-Con fans, who last year gave the show its first major buzz. At TV Guide’s Hot List panel he acknowledged the power of the cult fans: “This audience was always there, ready to become a mainstream audience.”

A group of TV reporters has been turned loose on the world of Heroes - a sprawling complex of sets at the venerable Gower Studios - and they’ve all got questions about the show’s second season.

The only problem: There are no answers. Throughout a press visit, the cast members of last season’s surprise hit were pressed for a little insight into what the future may hold, but they were dancing as fast as they can - trying to be polite but admitting they can say almost nothing.

Asked if the show’s producers had called a meeting to go over what can and cannot be said, a newly bearded Adrian Pasdar - who plays Nathan Petrelli, the flying politician - laughs and says, “Yeah, but it wasn’t that long. Basically, it was, `You can’t say anything. Have a cup of coffee and keep your mouth shut.’ ”

This, of course, leads to all manner of speculation, based on the sets and who’s present for the press visit.

Reporters walking through the set of a new home for Claire Bennet (Hayden Panettiere), and her family try to figure out where it’s located. (Rumor has it: California)

Why is Pasdar - whose character appeared to have been blown up in the finale - among the actors on hand? Why is Milo Ventimiglia - who plays Nathan’s brother, Peter - dressed in a slick business suit? What’s the deal with the new cast member Dania Ramirez (The Sopranos), who plays a “hero” fleeing the Dominican Republic to the United States?

And where is Leonard Roberts, who played D.L. Hawkins, the man who can walk through walls as the loving husband ofNiki Sanders (Ali Larter)? Since he isn’t here, can we assume we’ve seen the last of D.L.?

“I wouldn’t make too many assumptions about anything,” says show creator Tim Kring.

About the only thing Kring is willing to say about season two of Heroes is that much of it will be set outside the United States, including story lines taking place in Mexico, Central America, Ukraine and Ireland. (There’s a very cool Irish pub set that’s been built.)

We’ve tried to uncover as many Heroes spoilers as possible, of course, but the cast isn’t very helpful. Not that we can blame them. In fact, we’ll probably thank them when surprises next season catch us off guard.

SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News

Fans of Heroes caught the first public showcase of the interactive extras on the show’s first season HD DVD at Comic-Con International earlier this week.

Robin Cole, group manager for HD DVD consumer technology for Microsoft, showed off the special features for Heroes: Season 1 at the NBC booth on the convention floor, addressing hundreds of people who were wandering this way and that.

“It takes the elements of comic books and puts them on the screen,” Cole said, showing how viewers could single out the famous paintings in the series and use picture-in-picture options.

Of course, this set has the usual fare: deleted and extended scenes (50 in all), a never-aired premiere episode with a commentary by show creator Tim Kring, a making-of featurette, etc., but Cole wanted to talk about the interactive features.

“Interactivity — I know, it’s one of those buzz words we use,” she said.

Cole walked the audience through an extra called The Helix Revealed, a guide to the mysterious symbol that keeps popping up in the show, and Character Connections, which allows viewers to follow just the clips of their favorite characters. There’s picture-in-picture cast and crew video commentary and a mind-reading feature. Extras such as these make the viewer feel like they are a part of the show, she said.

Sadly, due to the lack of an Internet connection at the booth, “What I can’t show you is the networking,” Cole said.

Viewers can take a Heroes’ Ability Test, create a profile, upload it to an NBC Web site, and find out via a unique access code what powers they may have. Users can download exclusive content and Heroes updates to their HD DVD player every day.

“This series doesn’t end when you buy the disc,” she said.

The people behind HD DVD feel this set is their coming-out party, showing what HD DVD is capable of, with Comic-Con as the venue.

“We really want the consumer to understand the experience they’re going to get,” said Ken Graffeo, EVP of marketing for Universal Studios Home Entertainment, which is distributing the HD DVD.

Heroes: Season 1 will hit stores on August 28 for $99.98.

We already know Americans love Heroes. The show has been nominated for eight Emmy Awards and television critics here named is Program of the Year recently.

But our favorite sci-fi adventure is now also officially a hit in England.

The show drew an audience of 4.3 million on British channel, BBC Two, in its series debut this week. That’s a lot viewers for that country; it was the second most-watched program of the week, only beaten by ITV1’s Wire In The Blood.

The entire first season of Heroes previously aired on the UK’s digital Sci-Fi channel earlier this year.

First, trading cards.

Then, a video game.

Now? A graphic novel.

This fall DC Comics will offer a hardcover collection based on a series of 43 comic-book vignettes that appeared on the Heroes website last season.

The book, which will be the first time the stories have been available in printed form, will be announced this week by Universal Studios and DC Comics at the International Comic-Con in San Diego.

In addition to the online strip by artists including Michael Turner, Marcus To, Mitch Gunnell and Phil Jimenez, USA Today says the book will feature new covers by comic-book superstars Alex Ross and Jim Lee.

For true comics fans, there’s also art by Batman and Superman artist Tim Sale, whose prophetic and apocalyptic paintings are used as story devices for many of the show’s cliffhangers.

“It works best when the painting on the show looks creepily like the scene you’ve just seen,” says Sale, who has provided more than 50 paintings for the series.

Sale says he provided illustrations early on to help the series’ creator sell the show to NBC. “Tim Kring is not a comic-book guy,” Sale says. “For all I know, he has never read one. But he has surrounded himself with a number of people who are immersed in it.”

Kring, in a statement, called the DC book “a dream come true.”

It would be wrong - and possibly a felony - to say too much about how lovely 17-year-old Heroes star Hayden Panettiere looked yesterday, when NBC arranged a visit to the show’s sets.

The blog TV with Meevee was there, commenting on how this young actress was batting her eyelashes and making sure reporters get a good look at the assets. The site said Hayden seemed more like a perfect-attendance, student-council-president type who just happens to be magazine-cover pretty.

As she strolled around the set, Panettiere made very clear that we won’t be seeing her in any Paris Hilton-style misadventures.

“I have an allowance that I get, the money was never made apparent to me, it was just, ‘This is what you love to do.’ … I was raised completely as a normal kid,” she said. “I take out the trash, I walk the dogs, I make the bed, I vacuum. … I’m not allowed to leave the house unless I make the bed and everything in my room is put away.”

Sounds like Hayden and Jansen Panettiere were raised the proper way.

The actress does have a generous 1 a.m. curfew, however. And, besides, the fans yelling “The cheerleader!” and pointing at her, there are some tough angles to being a pretty young star. Such as the paparazzi waiting outside her house for her to leave.

“You usually have cameras following you, which makes it more of a scene,” she said. “I went to try to go to Venice Beach the other day, you can sort of blend in with people, which is kind of nice. But then they see 10 cameras, and they’re like, ‘Who are they looking at? Who are they looking at?’ ”

She sighed and shook her head, and someone asked if she could understand what has happened to Lindsay Lohan and to other young starlets, and if it could happen to her. The answer to the latter was an emphatic no.

“I’m not surrounded by those kinds of people they’re surrounded by. You understand how it happens, you understand what they did wrong,” she said. “But it’s so, like, controllable. When you’re putting nasty white powder up your nose, that’s you putting it up there, no one else is putting it up there.”

Panettiere, of course, plays the cheerleader Claire Bennet, whose superpower is healing.

Meevee about halfway through the tour when they visited with the prosthetics guys, who had a selection of fake body parts laid out on a long table. Bryan Blair of Optic Nerve Inc. demonstrated the cable controls on a prop head used after Claire had her head bashed against some lockers by Sylar. The head’s crumpled, bloody temples and pushed-in face seemed to reinflate like a balloon until they were once again, well, head-shaped.

“Is that my body parts?” Panettiere said, walking up and grabbing a small prosthetic with two pieces of “bone” sticking out. “I love the ribs because they actually move! These were used in the first season. They go back in and then they squish back out.”

But she was most interested in something that the FX guys referred to as “the autopsy piece,” a silicon torso simulating Claire’s flayed chest, with skin flaps pulled back to show the bloody rib cage. Hayden bopped right over and started playing with it, flipping the skin flaps open and closed.

“This is my chest cavity when I was chopped open, fileted on the table last season,” she said. “This was not fun to have on. They kept having to come over and spray it down with water. The blood would literally run off under my arms and get stuck under there. It was creepy. I was in almost nothing on the table with this thing on, on a freezing cold metal table. I kept wanting coffee and I couldn’t get up to get it.”

Heroes is spawning more than just a hit television show.

We’ve already mentioned the trading card set due out soon. Now, a video game adaption of the series is planned by French gamemaker Ubisoft.

The deal gives Ubisoft the rights to build a third-person superhero action game that brings the series characters, locations and story lines to next-generation game consoles and the PC. The untitled game could be in stores as soon as late 2008.

“We’re very excited to be making the Heroes video game with Ubisoft,” said Tim Kring, executive producer and creator of Heroes. “Time and again, Ubisoft has proven they can turn licensed properties into fantastic games.”

The deal, according to The Hollywood Reporter, represents Ubisoft’s second big licensing announcement of the week, coming on the heels of Tuesday’s a partnership with filmmaker James Cameron and 20th Century Fox on a game for the 2009 sci-fi film Avatar.

This game is the latest addition to a rapidly expanding canon of Heroes-related brand extensions including graphic novels, the Heroes 360 Web site, a mobile game by GameLoft, and Heroes: Origin, a spinoff show set to begin airing in 2008.

Like other elements of the Heroes canon, Kring and his creative team have long been planning how the game will tie into the over-arching franchise.

“From Day 1 we’ve all been thinking about the game,” said co-executive producer Jesse Alexander, who first hinted about it during an online podcast in May. “All along we’ve been writing some of our stories in ways they can tie into the eventual video game.”

Instead of highlighting a specific character’s heroic journey, the game will focus on the entire ensemble cast. The game also is expected to play a crucial role in how the show’s writers explore cross-platform storytelling for future seasons.

While Ubisoft likely will hire its own writer to pen the game script and develop the game at one of its internal studios, the TV series writers will supervise and consult on game design and story.

But with the show’s evolving cast and fast-moving story lines, spending two years developing the game still poses a creative challenge for Ubisoft. To ensure its relevance, the Heroes game won’t retell a specific volume’s story or be used as a bridge between seasons.

“We want it to have a lasting shelf-life and tell a distinctive story that gives you enhanced insight into the entire franchise,” said Alexander, an avid gamer.

Top prizes went to four NBC shows at the Television Critics Association Awards in Los Angeles, including outstanding program of the year to the freshman hit Heroes.

Heroes also took the best new drama prize at the People’s Choice Awards in February and is up for an Emmy this year.

Ali Larter, Hayden Panettiere and Masi Oka - among others - celebrate the success of Heroes.

Another first-year show, Friday Night Lights, was handed the award for outstanding new program while fellow NBC series The Office took home the comedy trophy.

Alec Baldwin of 30 Rock, also on NBC, won best actor in a comedy while Michael C. Hall picked up the best actor in a drama category for Dexter.

The Sopranos, which bowed this year after six seasons, nabbed outstanding achievement in drama and the Heritage Award, which honors long-running programs with a “lasting cultural or social impact.”

Another day, another new actor on Heroes.

Dana Davis has joined our favorite showas a regular, playing a new hot young hero whose powers are not yet known. Her name, though, is Monica.

Davis joins Dania Ramirez, who plays another beautiful young hero named Maya, as an addition to the cast. Also new in season two will be Nick D’Agosto, Barry Shabaka Henley, Holt McCallany, David Anders, Eriko Tamura, Lyndsy Fonseca and Dianna Agron.

This past season, Davis co-starred on ABC’s critically praised The Nine and the CW’s Hidden Palms.