More to come later, I promise.

Comic books.

Okay, let’s be realistic, maybe they won’t be interested in comic books, but millions are, it’s the reason why Comic-con exists and we can’t get enough of it.

With the first full day of the con behind us, here’s a look at some of the best non-major label comics that have caught my eye so far at the sold out 2008 San Diego Comic-con International.

Of course, even after trolling the exhibit floor Wednesday for preview night and a good chunk of the day today, I’m sure I haven’t seen all the good ones yet, so don’t go crazy if your favs aren’t on the list.

Valentine
Red Eye Press
Daniel Cooney

“No matter how hard she tries, Valentine just can’t leave the killing game behind. Her life as an assassin has made her a liability to everyone she’s ever known — and the lingering mental effects of the CIA’s MkUltra program have clouded her memory, making her past a puzzle waiting to be pieced together,” states the premise for Dan Cooney’s “Valentine.” This sexy, bitchy killer provides for some classic comic entertainment. The new book, “The Killing Moon,” was unveiled at Comic-con, and it is very good, opening with Valentine crashing a car through some thugs’ living room and taking out the trash.

Headlocked
Visionary Comics Studio
Kingston, Valiente, Gravel

Sure it’s been a while since the WWE was cool, but that doesn’t change how good this story of a young man’s quest to make it in the world of professional wrestling. This color glossy book is well-designed and very impressive for a smaller outfit. When writer Michael Kingston approached me, I didn’t expect much out of a wrestling book, but the amount of work the team put into the comic shows.

Toupydoops
Lobrau Productions
Kevin McShane

Imagine a world where Hollywood was run not by studio execs but by comic book creators. Enter loveable blue Toupydoops and his half-bear, half-human sidekick Teetereater. This is a black and white book that’s well-drawn and nicely detailed. Despite the language and adult situations, there’s something wholesome and genuinely entertaining to be gleaned from reading the six books that McShane and company have put out so far.

GirlsDrawinGirls
Independent
Various Artists

Not so much a comic book as it is an art movement, GirlsDrawinGirls is a fantastic journey through time as some of the top female artists and animators collaborate to draw their gender from caveman days to Victorian times, through their visages of the future. I met with three of the ladies Wednesday, including Melody Severns, who currently works on “The Simpsons.” I also bought a wonderfully illustrated print of a girl playing Nintendo Wii done by Danni S. Lou.

How to be a Serial Killer
Viper Comics
Luke Ricci, Ramon Espinoza

This book was a Comic-con special one-shot deal previewing a movie that’s coming out later in the year. The title explains it all — a man becomes a serial killer and kills people. It’s brutal and violent, but I’m glad I got my hands on a copy of this promotional comic, because the color and drawings are so perfectly done that it makes me want to see the movie — or at least wish Viper could commission a full comic series.

Three more not to miss: “DMZ” by Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli and on the major label side, Image’s “Suburban Glamour” by Jamie McKelvie and “Tales of the Starlight Drive In” by Michael San Giacomo et al.

In a surprise appearance at today’s Comic-con Fox event, Hugh Jackman arrived, “directly off the plane” from the set of Wolverine after the cast and crew finished filming the final scenes. He brought with him a first look at the film, which Jackman assured the crowd he taped together himself on his plane ride.

From what the reel showed, it seems like the film will follow a Wolverine (Jackman) /Sabertooth (Liev Schrieber) friendship-to-mortal-enemies-type plot line, from their first meeting in a prison cell, through their training in Weapon X under the tutelage of William Stryker (Danny Huston). And yes, from the reel of footage, their was visual proof of a Gambit in the upcoming movie, being played by Taylor Kitsch.

Hugh Jackman seemed just as excited as we all are after the resounding applause for Gambit.

The trailer shows the blue guy and the yellow guy racing until the yellow guy cuts off blue, sending him into his yellow race trail and off into oblivion.

Then we see Jeff Bridges in his bearded glory in the real world.

Back in the virtual race world, the yellow guy — Bridges — stands over the blue guy. The blue guy shouts “This is just a game!” Bridges looks down, smiles and swings a yellow disc down violently at the blue guy saying “Not anymore.”

D3Publisher’s Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers is a stretch for the Wii. Instead of Mii’s and Marios it’s half-naked anime girls with bloody swords that get stuck inside their zombie victims if you don’t clean them off.

Yeah, you get to use two swords at once — Wiimote and nunchuck — to wipe out dozens of zombies at once.

The game is simple: you control two sexy sisters wearing bikinis and cowboy hats. It’s based on the movie “Onechanbara,” which came out in April in Japan.

What I liked about this game was that the developers aren’t taking themselves too seriously. They know this isn’t going to be the next 100 million unit-selling game. It’s a simple game with hot chicks, swords and zombies.

“This is the kind of game where you come home from the office and need to blow up some steam — kill some zombies,” said Alex Coward, localization manager for D3 and demoer of the game.

The demo “peep show” was pretty impressive. I’m glad to see a little more maturity on the Wii. If you’re looking for something different, check this out early next year when it drops in the US.

The deal is still pending league approval and Shockey’s physical.

It’s been rumored that Shockey has been unwanted by the team ever since their Super Bowl run when the team seemingly got much better without him. His receiving and blocking talents apparently are outweighed by his boorish behavior and me-first attitude.

Look for him to be very productive in Sean Payton’s offense. Drew Brees must be the happiest guy in Louisiana.

“We acquired a perennial Pro Bowl player and one of the NFL’s top pass rushers,” executive vice president of football operations Vinny Cerrato said. “He is a great leader who will fit in very well with our team. We feel that Jason is a great addition on the field as well as off the field.

“He is a playmaker who can do so many different things for us on defense.”

And, in true Redskins fashion, they plan on keeping Andre Carter at right defensive end and moving the guy that played 11 seasons there to the left side. It’s not easy to switch sides in football, as everything changes. So, keep an eye on this one as he may not be the guy they thought they were getting.

Jimi Hendrix, one of the most influential and iconic music makers of the 20th century will be featured in Guitar Hero: World Tour as both a playable character and with two of his songs: “”Purple Haze” (Live edition)” recorded in 1969 at the San Diego Sports Arena and ““The Wind Cries Mary.””

Additional songs will follow as downloadable content.

“”Guitar Hero games have become the virtual rock stage for the industry’s most beloved artists and Guitar Hero World Tour continues that tradition by honoring the great Jimi Hendrix and celebrating some of his greatest work,”” said Tim Riley, vice president of music affairs for Activision Blizzard. “”His presence in the game will serve to satisfy multiple generations of his fans and Guitar Hero devotees, as well as create new fans by reintroducing his genre-defining guitar style through the unique Guitar Hero experience.””

Being developed by Neversoft for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, Vicarious Visions for Wii and BUdcat for PlayStation 2, Guitar Hero: World Tour is slated for a launch later this year.

Gasoline-electric hybrids now, like Toyota’s popular Prius, don’t need to plug in-you just fill their tanks with gasoline and the battery keeps charged by the internal combustion engine and by energy generated from the wheels when braking (a feature known as “regenerative braking”). The battery then powers the electric motor when it is called into service during idling, backing-up, crawling in gridlock, maintaining speed while cruising, and for extra uphill power when needed. As such, the electric motor is essentially a back-up engine while the hybrid relies mainly on the gasoline engine.

Plug-in hybrids take the concept further by plugging into a regular electric outlet to enable the vehicle to operate solely on its electric motor for ranges of 40-50 miles or more on a single charge. This has profound implications for commuters who need only drive short distances to and from work every day and who may be able to do so solely on electric power. The gasoline engine then becomes the supplemental one for when the car needs to travel farther than the electric engine can take it.

According to researchers at the University of California Davis, the electricity cost for powering a plug-in hybrid is only about one-quarter of the cost of powering a like-sized gasoline vehicle. Other benefits include far fewer fill-ups at gas stations and the convenience of recharging at home.

Toyota, currently the world’s largest producer of hybrid vehicles by far thanks to the success of its Prius, announced that it expects to have a commercially viable plug-in hybrid available to consumers as early as 2010 and is now testing prototype versions of plug-in hybrids at two California universities.

Felix Kramer of the California Cars Initiative (CCI), a non-profit dedicated to promoting plug-ins, called Toyota’s announcement “stunning and very welcome,” and says that these vehicles will be the cleanest practical cars on the road in a world where gas stations dot just about every intersection. The promise of such cars, says CCI on its website, is that drivers will have a “cleaner, cheaper, quieter car for local travel, and the gas tank is always there should you need to drive longer distances.”

U.S. automakers are also jumping onto the plug-in bandwagon. General Motors says that it will have mass-market plug-in hybrids-modifications of its Saturn Vue and Chevrolet Volt-on the road by 2010. Ford has also developed a small fleet of plug-ins, but is not yet ready to offer them to the public. Fisker, a U.S. start-up focusing on the creation of high performance, energy efficient vehicles, plans to sell an $80,000 plug-in hybrid sports car by late 2009. Chrysler’s Sprinter van was the first plug-in from a major U.S. manufacturer, but it is only presently available to a limited number of institutions as a fleet vehicle.

Plug-ins have also caught on elsewhere. Chinese carmaker BYD plans to sell a plug-in hybrid sedan in the U.S. within five years. And Volkswagen hopes to have a plug-in hybrid Golf ready to roll by 2010.

CONTACTS: California Cars Initiative, www.calcars.org; BYD, www.byd.com; General Motors, http://www.gm.com/experience/fuel_economy/news/2008/hybrids/plug_in_vue_011008.jsp; Fisker, http://jalopnik.com/344419/detroit-auto-show-fisker-karma-luxury-hybrid-only-80000.

Dear EarthTalk: I was intrigued to hear that there were a number of ways one could modify or construct a roof on a house or office facility that would provide great environmental benefit. Can you enlighten? – Bill Teague, Menlo Park, CA

Most buildings are designed to shed rain, and as such are built with hard, impenetrable roofing surfaces. As a result, rainwater bounces off and collects as runoff, picking up impurities-including infectious bacteria from animal waste as well as harmful pesticides and fertilizers-on the way to municipal storm sewers, which in turn eventually empty out into local bodies of water.

Minimizing this run-off means that more impurities will remain in local soils where they can be broken down more easily into their constituent elements than if they are concentrated downstream. In order to achieve this goal, landscape architects have developed so-called “green roofs,” which utilize living plant matter and soil on top of a building in order to absorb, collect and reuse rainwater while preventing run-off. Many buildings employing green roofs are able to find abundant uses for the water they collect, from watering exterior plantings at ground level to flushing toilets inside.

According to Steven Peck of the Toronto-based non-profit Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, green roofs can play an important role in maintaining ecological integrity within otherwise paved over areas. “The roofscapes of our cities are the last urban frontier-from 15 percent to 35 percent of the total land area-and the green roof industry can turn these wasted spaces into a force for cleaner air, cleaner water, energy savings, cooling, beauty and recreation,” he says.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) encourages the creation of green roofs for mitigating the urban “heat island effect,” whereby temperatures in crowded cities can soar some 10 degrees Fahrenheit higher than in less developed areas nearby. Other benefits, says the EPA, include: providing amenity space for tenants (in effect replacing a yard or patio); reducing building heating and cooling costs due to the buffering effect of the plant matter and soil; filtering pollutants like carbon dioxide out of the air and heavy metals out of rainwater; and increasing bird habitat in otherwise built-up areas.

Beyond going all out to build a “living” green roof, certain inorganic materials can also make an existing roof greener. The non-profit Cool Roof Rating Council (CRRC), for instance, suggests roofing surfaces that reflect the sun’s heat so as to reduce the urban heat island effect while improving residential energy efficiency. According to the group, “a cool roof reflects and emits the sun’s heat back to the sky.” Builders can check out CRRC’s website for a database of information on the radiative properties of various roofing surfaces so as to make the smartest choice for clients and the environment.

Another quality that makes certain roofs greener than others is how long they last. Metal roofs are known to be relatively maintenance free and last longer than shingles in most situations. Slate roofs also have an excellent reputation for lasting long, although getting work done on them can be expensive when they do need repairs. The Slate Roofing Contractors Association reports that sea green slates can last anywhere from one to two centuries, depending on where the slate is quarried and how well it’s eventually installed.

CONTACTS: Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, www.greenroofs.org; CRRC, www.coolroofs.org.

GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTION? Send it to: EarthTalk, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; submit it at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/thisweek/, or e-mail: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php.

Filing against Comcast, the Free Press and Public Knowledge non-profit organizations prompted the FCC into litigious action. As the battle went on in the courts, it seemed to be going in favor of the consumers. Last Thursday, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin dealt another blow in keeping with that trend.

“The commission has adopted a set of principles that protects consumer’s access to the Internet,” Martin told The Associated Press late Thursday. “We found that Comcast’s actions in this instance violated our principles.”

His word was the tipping point that consumers and organizations supporting ‘net neutrality’ needed.

Comcast has said publicly that the FCC’s policy on broadband standards is not enforceable and that the commission has “never before provided any guidance on what it means by ‘reasonable network management.’” The FCC approved a policy statement in September 2005 that outlined a set of principles as a means to ensure that broadband networks are “widely deployed, open, affordable and accessible to all consumers.” Those standards have been set forth as:

• To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice
• Consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement
• Consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network
• Consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers

Other Internet Service providers argue that this kind of unclear regulation and enforcement, naturally leads them to come up with network solutions, among them ‘network bandwidth throttling’, and ‘ceasing P2P network patterns’, to manage their billion dollar hardware network traffic as they choose. This activity isn’t central to America. Bell Canada Enterprises and Rogers Communications Inc. have also reacted in much the same way as Comcast has.

FCC chairman Martin (a Republican) had strong support from the two Democrats on the commission, who are proponents of the network neutrality concept. Their two votes were enough for a majority ruling on the five-member commission. Without being dealt a fine, but a stern warning instead, the commission asked that Comcast release any information that pertains to the practices of its current mode of ‘network management’, and to divulge to its consumers on how its implementation of any future network management practices will affect them. Any new network management practices will be in use by the end of the year.

“We want to make sure the Internet stays as it is,” said Ben Scott of Free Press, earlier in the year. “Should we give more control to the network owners, who can then decide which Web sites load quickly?” Scott asked. “Can they become the gatekeepers for Internet content?”