The first issue of Blender , a spin-off from the popular Maxim magazine empire, includes rave reviews of Uncanny X-Men #394, by Joe Casey and Ian Churchill, and New X-Men #114 by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely.

Newsstand copies of some Marvel titles currently on sale feature different titles and issue numbers vs. the direct versions.

Kevin Smith's Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back has been moved back from its original August 10th release date to August 24th. Smith made the move after consulting with Dimension Films, which will be releasing the latest opus from the 'Bluntcave.'

In an interview with ICv2, a spokesperson for the CMAA was very surprised to hear about Marvel's talk of pulling out of the association, especially since all the publishers had agreed to a meeting on Thursday, May 11th

All of Marvel's X-books except Ultimate took substantial jumps in sales between April and May, reflecting new creative teams...

Several alert readers have emailed ICv2 about our story, 'X-Force #116 To Be Non-Code.' In the story we quoted Marvel's assertion that this was the first mainstream Marvel Superhero comic to go without the Code's seal of approval since the 1970s. Our readers immediately asked us, 'what about those Garth Ennis-penned Punisher books? They weren't code approved, were they?'

Just as Marvel has moved its bookstore distribution from LPC to Diamond, ICv2 has learned that Dark Horse is moving from Penguin to LPC for its exclusive bookstore distribution. Though no press release has been issued as of yet, we've been told that the switch will take effect on July 27, 2001. With its extensive backlist of comic trade paperback titles (only DC's is bigger) Dark Horse is a comic industry leader in bookstore sales.

At today's Marvel news conference, Marvel President Bill Jemas announced the renewal of Marvel's agreement with Diamond Comic Distributors to continue Diamond's exclusive distribution of Marvel titles in the direct market. In addition, the two companies agreed that Diamond would also represent Marvel's trade paperbacks in the traditional bookstore marketplace.

Marvel President Bill Jemas announced at a press conference today, April 25, that Marvel will continue its relationship with Diamond as exclusive direct market distributor and will also expand the relationship so that Diamond will handle Marvel's trade paperback business to bookstores as well as the direct market.

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.