Bill Norris Jr. of New Age Comics in Eugene, Oregon sent us this comment on the new cover stock on the Marvel Ultimate books.

The Comics Journal has won a 2002 Utne Independent Press Award for arts and literature coverage.

Rick Newman of Pet Shop Comics and Collectibles in Louisville, Kentucky saw the news about Marvel's revamp of Rawhide Kid and had this to say.

These awards are given as a way of reflecting on the events of the year and to draw some conclusions from them. We chose Jakks Pacific's acquisition of the Dragon Ball toy license as the Deal of the Year, and the divergent price trends in collectibles as the Phenomenon of the Year.

We chose manga in specialty retail chains as the Phenomenon of the Year, Marvel's overprint and reprint policies as the Controversy of the Year,...

We chose Marvel Comics as the Comic Publisher of the Year for 2002, and Shonen Jump #1 as the Comic Product of the Year.

A quintet of familiar properties took the top positions in our Top 10 Cool lists of the top dollar products in pop culture stores in November.

Orders for comics and graphic novels in dollars continued their year over year declines in January with an 8% drop compared to January 2002.

Batman topped the rankings of U.S. orders from comic stores for January, with over 120,000 copies ordered -- up over the second Jim Lee issue, which was up over the first.

Estimated quantities for initial orders on graphic novels shipping in January 2003 from pop culture stores ordering from Diamond US.