GTA: SA at E3 after all?

When we doled out our Best of E3 Awards earlier this week, GameSpot gave Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas the dubious honor of Most Disappointing Absence of the event.

However, since then, visual "evidence" has surfaced that shows GTA: SA did make an appearance at E3--in spirit, anyway.

Yesterday, Rockstar sent out a screenshot of Carl Johnson, the protagonist ("hero" might be a strong word) of the upcoming action-crime epic. At first glance, the pic looks like an innocuous snapshot of Johnson riding his bicycle in a parking lot in front of a building.

Closer inspection, though, reveals the building to be none other than the Los Angeles Convention Center, site of the insanity otherwise known as E3. The image's title, "CJ spotted outside Convention Center," adds to this assumption.

As you may already have guessed, the picture is a gag. But instead of being fan-created, as some had suspected, the image was fully authorized by Rockstar. Reps from the publisher confirmed its authenticity to GameSpot, calling it "an official screenshot that Rockstar released to the Grand Theft Auto fan site Web ring," presumably with a straight face.