WONDER CON: IDW PUBLISHING

SAN FRANCISCO -- IDW Publishing staged a short presentation with several announcements for its Wonder Con panel on Saturday at Wonder Con.

Editor Scott Dunbier singularly held court for the panel and ran down upcoming projects.

Following are highlights:

* Savior 28 by J.M. DeMatteis and Mike Cavallaro (from the website act-i-vate) debuts next month.

"Savior 28 Is J.M.'s descontruction of super heroes," he said.

* Captain Canuck, a Candian series by Richard Conley and Geroge Freeman from the late 1970s, will be collected. The first of two collections is scheduled for June.

* A two-issue Barack Obama mini-series spins out of Presidential Material: Barack Obama, which Dunbier said is going into its fifth printing. ("It's our own little stimulus package," Dunbier joked).

The first issue will deal with the Democratic convention through the inauguration, with the second chronicling the first 100 days.

The creative team of Jeff Mariotte and Tom Morgan returns, as does cover artist by J. Scott Campbell.

"We're making an effort, as we did in the first one, to make it an unbiased, straight-to-the facts reporting job," Dunbier said.

From the Ashes is a six-issue series from Bob Fingerman. The story features Fingerman and his wife Michelle after World War 3. "It's a crazy, New York, Woody Allen, post-apocalyptic comic," Dunbier said.

* The Last Resort is a new book written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray. "It's a zombie comic that takes place in a Club Med setting," Dunbier said.

The artist is doing his first American work, including pencils, inks and colors.

Covers are by Amanda Conner and Darwyn Cook.

* IDW is collecting The Torpedo, by Enrique Abulli and Jordi Bernet in oversized hardcovers. The first book will have two stories drawn by Alex Toth. Dunbier described the series as "1930s small-time hoods going through amoral adventures. It's got a great sense of humor."

Palmiotti is doing translations and Cooke is the series' designer.

Richard Stark's Parker: The Hunter, Darwyn Cooke's adaptation of the first Parker series novel that came out in 1962, will be 144 pages, in a slightly smaller than standard size. It will be released in July and will cost $24.99.

"He's got it all laid out," Dunbier said. "He's somewhere up around page 92-94 and he should be done about two weeks."

* The Family Circus, a personal favorite of Dunbier's, will be collected beginning in November. The newspaper strip by Bill Keane began on Feb. 29, 1960 and the collection will be in time for its 50th anniversary.

"Bill Keane has a similar sensibility to Norman Rockwell to me," Dunbier said.

* In October, IDW will be collecting the late Dave Stevens' entire Rocketeer series, the first time this has been done.

Dunbier explained that all of Stevens' original pages were gathered and re-scanned, with hand-picked Laura Martin re-coloring the art.

A deluxe edition will be released in an "Absolute format," likely in the 8 by 12 range. "It's ridiculous how much unpublished material will be in the deluxe edition, more than 100 pieces," Dunbier said.

"The hope is to make this the book Dave always wanted it to be," Dunbier added, pointing out Stevens' mother and sister in the audience