The best-selling comic title for March 2002, New X-Men , has initial raw orders to Diamond US of only around 104,000 copies, the lowest quantity for a #1 comic title since April of last year.

Diamond Select showed off a growing collection of licensed products and cool Japanese imports at its showroom at the New York Toy Fair this year.

Free Comic Book Day is gaining strength as more publishers have agreed to participate and as the promotional heat picks up.

For the first time in recent memory, initial U.S. orders on a comic title by pop culture stores have topped $1 million retail.

In response to ICv2's question about Marvel's Walmart program at the Marvel press conference today, Marvel President Bill Jemas revealed that at least six million Ultimate Spider-Man #1 's are already in print.

Retailer Russ Toney of C&C Comics in St. Albans, West Virginia had some comments on Marvel's Ultimate reprints for Walmart...

Comic and graphic novel orders were up month-to-month again in November, continuing a strong second half for North American comic sales with the largest dollar orders of the year to date.

Comic orders were up again in October, kicking off the fourth quarter with the best dollar month this year to date. Total dollars for October were up over 11% compared to September, which was an unusually strong month when compared to normal seasonal trends.

Comic orders from specialty stores were generally down for August, with an 8% dollar drop from July.

In today's Marvel press conference, Marvel President Bill Jemas took the blame for the impression '...that it often does look like we are out to get comic shops -- a lot of that is my personal failure to provide complete information about the policies....