On the eve of the U.S.'s largest comic festival, with some 50,000 fans and industry types set to descend on San Diego for Comic-Con International this coming weekend, the L.A. Times published a lengthy feature article by Glenn Gaslin.

Tucked inside the massive monthly listings of products from comic distributors like Diamond and FM are the modest offerings of SQP, typically a group of trade paperbacks which retail for under ten dollars each.

With two weeks left until Tim Burton's refashioning of Planet of the Apes opens, ICv2 conducted an unscientific survey on the sales of POTA merchandise by contacting some twenty retailers from coast to coast.

There is no doubt that manga's influence on American comics appears to be growing. Witness two stories that appeared on Newsarama this week. Michael Doran broke the story of Marvel's plan for an eight-title Marvel ' Mangaverse ' event planned for January, 2002, while Matt Brady detailed plans at DC Comics to use manga artist Kia Asamiya (Silent Moebius, Dark Angel) for a series of Titans covers.

The CMAA contacted Marvel and the publisher admitted that putting the Code Seal of Approval on Wolverine #165 was 'a mistake' on the company's part. ICv2 has learned that Marvel has not been submitting books to the CMAA recently and other current issues that carry the code (e.g., Tangled Web #3) are also 'mistakes.'

Reuters News Service is reporting that AOL Time Warner will shutter all its Warner Bros. Studio Stores by the end of October. AOL Time Warner announced in January that the newly merged entertainment juggernaut was seeking a buyer for the retail stores, but reportedly gave up the search for a buyer in February.

Crossgen, the Florida-based comic publisher, announced the signing of artist Karl Moline, who is currently penciling Joss Whedon's Fray.

The British website Empire On Line is reporting that Oscar-winning actor Nicholas Cage will star as Johnny Blaze in a movie version of the Ghost Rider comic. The film will be directed by Steven Norrington, who brought Marvel's Blade to the big screen.

North American comic shop orders increased in the aggregate again for July, with the total dollars up around 10% from June.

Orders by comic shops (Diamond U.S. customers) for the Top 300 Comics shipping in July.