I haven't been terribly keen about seeing the latest retelling of Richard Matheson's classic I Am Legend, a Warner Bros. film starring Will Smith, until today's Comic-Con panel featuring a sneak peek of a comic cross-promotion with DC/Vertigo.

I Am Legend: Awakenings chronicles the personal stories of people living all over the world affected by the virus that eventually turns the people around them into blood-suckers.

In a move reminiscent of how the Wachowski brothers' Matrix trilogy was promoted online and in comics, DC/Vertigo has attracted a stellar cast of creators both in and out of the industry to work on the Awakenings mini and other stories that will appear online, the likes of 30 Days of Night co-creator Steve Niles (who licensed I Am Legend straight from the author for $100 to publish an adaptation of his own), artist Bill Sienkiewicz (Elektra Assassin), screenwriter Mark Protosevich, sci-fi author extraordinaire Orson Scott Card and Richard Christian Matheson, a successful sci-fi author in his own right and Matheson's son.

BTW, Orson Scott Card dropped an interesting tidbit regarding his next comics-related work: An adaptation of Ender's Game.

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