On Wednesday April 18, 2001, the Washington Post printed a lengthy article by Hank Stuever that focused on DC artist Phil Jimenez and his obsession with Wonder Woman . Stuever's essay covers the entire history of the character, who first appeared some sixty years ago just one month before Pearl Harbor.

Marvel has announced that X-Force #116 , the first issue written by Peter Milligan and illustrated by Mike Allred, will not carry the Comics Code Authority's seal of approval. This is the first time that this has happened since way back in the 1970s when a Stan Lee-penned issue of Spider-Man took on the issue of drugs.

The latest word from Pioneer about the release of the newly remastered Akira on DVD and VHS concerns the collector's edition of the DVD, which will come in a super cool collector's tin. Only 75,000 tins will be produced. After they are gone, Pioneer will go back to conventional jewel box packaging.

Just before the start of this year's show, Mike Friedrich and Joe Field, the co-producers of the Oakland-based WonderCon, approached Comic-Con International to take over the operation and ownership of the Bay-area comic convention.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer , the most critically acclaimed show on the WB network, will be heading to archrival UPN next fall. Buffy is important to specialty retailers since the show represents one of the strongest TV licenses of the past five years

'Art School Confidential,' one of Daniel Clowes most popular Eightball strip, has been optioned by actress Drew Barrymore. Clowes and Terry Zwigoff, who wrote the screenplay for Ghost World , are scripting 'Art School Confidential' which Zwigoff ( Crumb, Ghost World ) has signed to direct.

ICv2 has learned from sources in Japan that Broccoli has plans to open four to six anime character goods stores on the West coast within three years. I f Broccoli does succeed in opening a chain that size, they will have important economies of scale based on both the parent chain's buying power in Japan and the sharing of expensive freight and customs costs.

The American Booksellers Association has settled its lawsuit against Barnes & Noble and Borders for $4.7 million. The lawsuit was brought on behalf of independent bookstore owners who felt that the big chains received illegal discounts and promotional subsidies from publishers. The paltry settlement from Borders and Barnes & Noble does not even begin to pay the legal fees for the suit against the chains.

Marvel's 2000 Annual Report is now available, and there's information on a number of key issues for pop culture retailers , among them the importance of direct sales to pop culture stores to Marvel's publishing operations and business as a whole. Marvel's direct sales are critical to its publishing, but publishing remains a small part of the overall picture for Marvel since it was folded into Toy Biz 1998.

List of the many makers of POTA merchandise in conjunction with the Tim Burton movie.

Entertainment Weekly's influential 'Summer Movie Preview' issue which hit the stands Monday, April 23 features a spectacular fold-out Planet of the Apes cover. The coveted EW cover spot goes to the summer film with the most 'buzz' and Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes fits the bill for this highly competitive summer season.

Debra Streicker-Fine, CEO of Fandom, Inc. announced Thursday, April 19 that the company has given CMI Holding Group the exclusive license to sell Fandom Shop's inventory. Fandom, once the largest pop culture retailer in the US, stopped shipping orders on Friday, April 6th and since then has been attempting to sell its e-commerce and content assets.