When I mentioned to our own Greg Ellwood that I was planning to post an article about the upcoming animated feature film version of 'The Goon,' his response was very telling.

"I've never even heard of 'The Goon.'"

Greg reads comics... in some cases, he's a more regular comic reader than I am.  Still, Eric Powell's brilliant long-running series is not a household name, and I can understand why.  It's a genuinely unhinged book, crazy and wild and violent and delightful in every way.  I think Powell's an amazing artist, and one of the hardest parts in translating the book to the bigscreen will be capturing the style of the thing, which is part '50s-era "Mad" magazine, part H.P. Lovecraft.

Thankfully, it seems like Blur Studios is on the case.

The first artwork from the proposed film appeared online in March of 2009, thanks to Quint at Ain't It Cool.  Since then, they've been working on animation tests, and David Fincher's kept an eye on the way things have been progressing.  There was a Comic-Con appearance last year by Powell, with a wee tease for fans, and now he's heading back down for another panel on Saturday of this year's Con.  And he's bringing a bunch of test footage with him.

Even more exciting, it sounds like he's going to have David Fincher (who is a producer and a potential director on the film) and Paul Giamatti (who is doing the voice of Frankie, The Goon's misanthropic sidekick) there on the panel with him, talking about the current plans for the film.  I hope they announce it's been greenlit and it's not just more talk about development.  I'm not sure if they're bringing Clancy Brown, who is giving voice to The Goon, but that would be amazing.

For those of you who are in the same boat as Greg, "The Goon" tells the story of a pair of friends (The Goon and Frankie) who serve as a sort of defensive line against zombies and monsters and mad scientists and all sorts of weirdness.  The Goon started his career as the bagman for a crook named Labrazio, but since those days, any number of things have happened that sort of redefine who the Goon is and how the power structure in his unnamed town really works.  The book is funny, violent, creepy at times, and seems to be doing its own thing at all times.

And now, thanks to MTV, here's a sneak peek at what we'll see in San Diego:

 

 

They'll have the entire presentation online right after it ends, supposedly, so you'll get a chance to see even more "Goon" footage very soon.

The big question now is will there be a whole film to go with it, and if so... when?

We'll have whatever details we hear for you as soon as the panel ends in San Diego, so check back for that and all of the great HitFix Comic-Con 2010 coverage, starting Wednesday.

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You can e-mail me at drew@hitfix.com or follow me on Twitter, where I'm DrewAtHitFix.