At 4 p.m. Friday, convention organizers decided to turn off online registration at the Comic-con Web site. By Saturday afternoon, the organizers and the fire marshal, who talk to each other throughout the con, decided that the number of people in the San Diego Convention Center had reached a point where on-site registration had to be shut down. No part of the convention was ever closed, and those who were pre-registered still got in. When some attendees left the building, a few walk-up attendees were able to get inside. This was the first time the Comic-con has had to take such action in its 37 years.

“Nobody wants to turn people away,” said David Glanzer, director of marketing and publicity at Comic-Con. “You don’t want to advertise an event people can’t come in to.”

The most recent collection of Weissman’s whimsically mordant Yikes comics is the first to utilize the traditional four-panel structure of the Sunday funnies, but anyone expecting the standard setup–punch line routine is in for a pleasant, if unsettling, surprise. Combining the “bubblegum” tone and bright color scheme of Bazooka Joe comics with such semicreepy 1960s-era fare as The Addams Family and The Munsters, these bizarre explorations of childhood friendships (not to mention competitiveness and mutual enmity) are hilarious. Weissman milks the jarring collision of sugary cuteness and abject cruelty for all it’s worth, and with names like Li’l Bloody (a junior vampire), Kid Medusa, the Pullapart Boy (who literally pulls apart from time to time) and X-Ray Spence, his characters are clearly suited to the task. Stomping on anthills, talking about barf, beating each other up and getting bitten by black widow spiders—these occasionally undead little scamps always seem to be having the time of their lives. Weissman’s deployment of vivid pastel colors is equally tongue-in-cheek, but there’s more to the art than simple irony. With all its warm, fuzzy morbidity, Chewing Gum in Church gives new meaning to the phrase “sickly sweet.” (Aug.)

Dean Haspiel has been prominent in the world of comics since the late 1980s, but he's not the kind of artist whose work can be easily pegged on any single style or type of book. Some of his most popular work can be found in his collaborations with Harvey Pekar on American Splendor and on last year's original graphic novel The Quitter. Best known as an alternative cartoonist, he's the creator of the lyrical mock-libertarian hero Billy Dogma. But he's also done drawings for such superhero comics as Batman and Spider-man, while also contributing comics to magazines like Spin, Playboy, Nickelodeon and High Times.

• 30 Days Of Night: Three Tales (IDW Publishing)
• Absolute Boyfriend Vol. 2 (Viz Media)
• Air Gear Vol. 1 (Del Rey Manga)
• Captain America: Red Menace (Marvel)
• Fantastic Four: Books of Doom (Marvel)
• Hellblazer: All His Engines (DC/Vertigo)
• Law Of Ueki Vol. 1 (Viz Media)
• Pathfinder (Dark Horse)
• Testament: Akedah (DC/Vertigo)
• Wonder Woman: Mission's End (DC)