COMIC-CON INTERNATIONAL: THE SPIRIT PANEL

SAN DIEGO -- The Spirit movie panel featured major Spirit comics news.

Jeph Loeb, who is writing The Spirit film, is teaming with Darwyn Cooke on a Batman/The Spirit crossover one-shot, and then Cooke is writing and drawing an ongoing book featuring Will Eisner's hero.

"A lot of people have told me that if I have any kind of a virtue as an artist, it is storytelling," Cooke said. "And at least 80 percent of that comes straight out the education that Will gave me."

Batman/The Spirit will be a extra-sized book at the end of the year, and The Spirit ongoing will launch early next year.

Loeb said the crossover won't be connected to the ongoing title.

"The story happened in the past and is being recounted for the first time," he said. "It's not set in the same ear Darwyn is doing in the monthly book."

Cooke said that, after New Frontier, he had planned to work on a creator-owned project because he had basically worked with all the major DC characters.

That was until The Spirit came up.

"I've grown up wanting to write The Spirit," Cooke said.

While it will be a DCU book, The Spirit won't be interacting with any other DC heroes for at least a year, Cooke said.

Look for coverage on The Spirit movie soon here in The Continuum.