NYCC 2014

I hold my hands up: I've whinged and moaned before about comics sites covering toy news, and here I am doing the very thing (I have nothing against toys/figures/collectibles; I'm just a bit of a snooty purist). Anyway, the news of Japanese 'hobby products' company, Good Smile, teaming up with Nickelodeon to create new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figures based on James Jean's illustrations, was simply too good to pass up. The validity of this statement can be gleaned by glancing at the image above. The four individual large-scale models, which will roll out separately beginning with the releases of Leonardo this November, will also have the capacity to combine, creating one huge diorama.The remaining three statues will receive a staggered release over the course of 2015.

Marvel Television has released the first teaser for its forthcoming Guardians Of The Galaxy animated series, set to air next year on the Disney XD channel. The clip introduces viewers to two of the animated cast -- Rocket Raccoon in gun-toting action, and Star-Lord offering up a taste of his best cocky swag -- and provides a taste of the show's fast-moving, neon-heavy animation style. The animated series was "announced" at New York Comic-Con on Friday (it's been announced at least twice previously, including at San Diego Comic-Con, but people have short memories for things they haven't see). No official launch date has been given, as the series is still in production.

As Vertigo's two currently longest-running series head to a close -- Bill Willingham's Fables and Mike Carey and Peter Gross's The Unwritten -- the DC imprint is doubtless looking for new series with long-term potential to run alongside FBP, Astro City, and American Vampire. At New York Comic-Con on Friday the publisher announced two titles that might fit the bill, both from DC writers making their Vertigo debut. Grayson writer Tim Seeley will team with former Madame Xanadu artist Marley Zarcone on Effigy, while once and future Secret Six author Gail Simone and former 2000 AD artist Jonathan Davis-Hunt are the team behind Clean Room.

It looks like Marvel is striking while the iron is hot. September's Edge of Spider-Verse #2, which featured an alternate-universe Gwen Stacy who bore the mantle of Spider-Woman and was also in a super-cool girl band, was such a massive success that the publisher has announced an ongoing series starring the character will launch in February. The creative team behind the Edge of Spider-Verse issue, writer Jason Latour, artist Robbi Rodriguez, and colorist Rico Renzi, are all expected to return. The announcement came Friday morning at New York Comic-Con in a closed-door, retailers-only panel, which reportedly also teased a January event with the familiar words "No More Mutants", and included retailer questions about the future fates of Thor, Wolverine and the Fantastic Four.

As readers will know from our weekly Best Cosplay Ever feature, we're big fans of cosplay at ComicsAlliance. The comics, sci-fi, gaming, and fantasy communities have proved time and again their exceptional talents for homemade disguises and superheroic sartorial excellence, and all of their craft and skill will be on display this weekend at New York Comic-Con. Our chief cosplay correspondent Betty Felon is on hand to document as much of it as she can. Scroll down for some of the very finest cosplay from New York.

Jonathan Hickman has been building up to something big for the Marvel Universe for the entirety of his run on Avengers and New Avengers. His 'incursions' -- alternate realities colliding and wiping each other out -- were the driving force behind Infinity and the splinter that divided the Avengers in Original Sin; they now form the backdrop to his books as they skip to a new status quo under the 'Time Runs Out' banner. There was always a plan. Now we know the culmination of that plan. As announced at a Times Square event for New York Comic-Con on Thursday evening, Hickman's Avengers runs will end in May 2015, and he'll be joined by artist Esad Ribic on a year-long epic event book called... Secret Wars. No, for real. Secret Wars. Maybe they don't know that the name's been used before? No-one tell them. They've been working on this for ages; they'll be so disappointed.

This year, New York Comic-Con is taking harassment on their convention floor more seriously than ever before. Their brand-new anti-harassment policy is comprehensive and offers a great deal of protection for attendees. Still, we here at ComicsAlliance wanted to offer some tips for ensuring you and others around you have the safest, most fun convention possible.

Each weekday, ComicsAlliance brings you a carefully selected variety of links from around the web about comics and comics-related media, including movies, video games, toys, and whatever else might be worth noting. Quite frankly, these are items you may just need to know about to have a productive day. Take a look at today's hand-picked links after the jump.

IDW seems dead set on taking as much of my money as it possibly can. Not only has the publisher produced high-end 'Artist's Editions' of some of my favorite comics, including Jack Kirby's Fourth World, Frank Miller's Daredevil and Walt Simonson's Thor, but as part of this year's New York Comic-Con, it's announced upcoming Artifact and Artist's Editions respectively for Carl Barks' and Don Rosa's Uncle Scrooge stories. The announcement comes as part of a resurgence of interest in the creators' work on the World's Richest Duck, which also includes new hardcover collections of Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge from Fantagraphics. The IDW collections, however, will print the original art at its original size.

Zander Cannon's graphic novel Heck was hands-down one of the best books of 2013. It mixed an intricately detailed depiction of hell with a deep emotional resonance and an expressive, but also appealingly simply cartooning style. In some ways, it was so good that it made it hard to imagine how Cannon could follow it. But then Oni Press announced Cannon's new, ongoing series at New York Comic-Con Thursday. It's called Kaijumax, and it's about a maximum-security prison for giant monsters. Let me repeat that so it sinks in. It's about a maximum-security prison for giant monsters. When we all expected Cannon to zig, he zagged.