SUBMITTED BY Lynnith

July 20, 2003 — The San Diego Comicon has come and gone, and we've brought back a bit of news on the Potter front!

The "footage" promised us by Warners of Prisoner of Azkaban was actually just a video of Daniel Radcliffe and Alfonso Cuaron at Leavesden Studios describing some of the new things Potter fans can expect. Unfortunately they didn't give us any new tidbits - but they did confirm that Quidditch has NOT been cut!

The far more exciting news came from a most unexpected source - Sunday's conversation with Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean (of Sandman and now MirrorMask fame!). An audience member asked the pair what they thought of Harry Potter, and Dave McKean revealed that he'd been hired as a production designer for both the 2nd and 3rd films!!

For Chamber of Secrets, he helped design the spiders, and on Prisoner of Azkaban, he worked on the design of the Dementors and Hippogriffs.

If you're unfamiliar with Dave McKean's work, take a look at our MirrorMask countdown, or browse through any Neil Gaiman graphic novel. Trust me - this is FANTASTIC news!!

In all, Comicon wasn't too important on the Harry Potter front this year. But the hiring of Dave McKean does tell us that the film will most definitely have wonderfully dark and scary creatures. Exciting news!!