If you're going to the San Diego Comic-Con, you might save some time and just go to the California Browncoats table and give them all your money. If you're in the market for a Firefly or Serenity item, they'll have it there. UPDATE: Plus the four official Dr. Horrible T-shirts!

I'm not exaggerating, either. Check out the list at their SDCC page. All the books, all the DVDs, all the shirts and comics and licensed material from QMx and Dark Horse and all the great stuff from Out to the Black Outfitters and stuff to benefit charities like Equality Now (Joss' favorite), Kids Need to Read (Nathan's group) and St. Jude's Children’s Research Hospital (Mark Sheppard's charity of choice). They'll even provide you with a shopping list to take with you, to make things easier.

They'll also have con exclusives, like the limited edition Serenity: Better Days #1 with special variant cover we discussed earlier and copies of The Guild DVD.

And they'll have guests and signings from PJ Haarsma (author of The Softwire series and co-founder of Kids Need to Read), Felicia Day (of "Buffy," "The Guild," and "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog"), the cast of "The Guild," Adam Levermore-Rich (fan-favorite browncoat artist and my partner in SaveHiatus.com), and Kevin J. Anderson & Rebecca Moesta (authors, Young Jedi Knights series and many more).

Plus contests, giveaways, a Jayne hat flash mob (shhh, it's a secret!) and more! Check out their SDCC page for more info, and go find them at the same place they were last year, at tables A7/A8 in Hall A at the back of Aisle 300. Go say hi!

Which is pretty cool, you gotta admit.

The California Browncoats will be selling the comics at SDCC. It will be a variant edition of "Serenity: Better Days #1" with the Will Conrad wraparound cover art they used for their special DH 100 version, only this will display Will's pencils instead. 32 pages, all the stuff from the first one, but with a cardstock cover for extra specialness. Only 5,000 will ever be available and they'll be $10 each, a good portion of which goes to Kids Need to Read, the children's literacy program founded by Nathan Fillion and author PJ Haarsma.

These will only be available at Comic-Con 2008, but even if you can't go the California Browncoats are there for you. Specifically, on eBay, where on all five days of the con they'll be selling copies of the DH-California Browncoats SDCC edition of Serenity. Again, all proceeds will go to Kids Need to Read. Bookmark their eBay page and be ready (I'll give you a heads up when it gets close).

Major thanks to Dark Horse and to the Cali Browncoats sponsors Gabriel Stempinski, Margaret Weis Productions, Creation Entertainment, Poplollies.com, The Powers Team – Marsia and Eugene, Dwight Bragdon, Done The Impossible , SaveHiatus.com and Quantum Mechanix, who helped make this possible.

This is a great collectible and a great cause (funny how so many Whedon-based projects combine the two). Check out the California Browncoats site for more details.