C2E2 2011: Top Cow Announces New Series, Shows Darkness Game Details and More

Event series, playing cards, and video games. That and more was revealed today at the C2E2 panel "Top Cow: We Create… Universes" hosted by none other than Top Cow Publisher Filip Sablik.

With the panel just letting out, here's some of the top news coming out of the event.

At the forefront of the panel was talking about the publisher's  event book of the year — Artifacts. Newly exclusive artist Jeremy Haun will be joining the series for the third arc, and the panelists spoke about the series and its affect on the Top Cow universe at large.

They also updated retailers and fans on the dealyed Artifacts playing cards; some production issues had held up to the release of the card series, but Top Cow will be shipping them out in a few weeks.

Sablik also went into the new series they're doing with video game creator Jason Rubin and artist Tyler Kirkman called Mysterious Ways. No, this isn't s U2 spinoff comic… instead its a supernatural thriller where an alcoholic ex-cop finds himself at the senter of a serial murder investigation thanks to a mysterious piece of silver he finds. Top Cow says this new series will start in July.

On the video game front, Top Cow is following up on the 2007 hit video game The Darkness with a sequel set for release in the Fall. Top Cow relayed some gameplay details and showed off a couple sweet screen captures from the game, which will be released on Xbox 360, PS3 and the PC platforms.

Speaking of The Darkness, comic series writer Phil Hester was at the panel and mentioned that several classic villains from the anti-hero's past are scheduled to show up in upcoming issues. The Darkness kicked off a new arc called "Outer Darkness" with #90 this month, which serves to countdown to the series' milestone 100th isue.

Lastly, Top Cow announced the winners of its Nethworld "We Are All Lost" Variant Cover Contest. The winning entry came from Bozhidar Savov of Bulgaria, and his work will be the cover art for a retailer incentive variant cover for the series first issue, set for release on April 13th.