Chris Staros has joined the board of directors of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. He joins Peter David, John Davis, Neil Gaiman, Greg Ketter, Denis Kitchen, Frank Mangiaracina, Louise Nemschoff, and Milton Griepp who voted unanimously for his inclusion.

Plans for Free Comic Book Day 2003 are underway, and the first order of business is selecting a date. To do so, the committee charged with organizing the event is taking a comic retailer poll via the Diamond Website between two major comic-based movie releases.

Gail Burt of Metropolis Comics in Downey, California concurred with longtime retailer James Furferri's comments to Marvel--listening to retailers could save costly mistakes.

Retailer Mike Banks of Samurai Comics in Phoenix, Arizona has a great suggestion on outreach to libraries during the upcoming Teen Read week.

CrossGen Comics is planning to reformat its Compendia series of comic anthologies starting with Forge #9 and Edge #9 . Going forward all the books in the Compendia line will be printed in a 5-3/8' by 8-3/16' size, which is smaller than the typical graphic novel, but still quite a bit bigger than the standard mass market type paperback.

Roger Corman, Hollywood's reigning 'B-Movie King,' is planning a return to theatrical filmmaking with Captain Justice , a superhero-themed feature budgeted at $3 million.

With sales of graphic novels in mainstream bookstores on the rise, and book distributors vying to sign comic publishers, one of the first questions to arise is -- which graphic novel publisher is number one in bookstores?

Ground Zero is a two-store multi-category pop culture retailer in Mobile, Alabama that carries comics, games, DVDs, magazines, miniatures, some toys, and some board games.

Retailer Ilan Strasser of Fat Moose Comics & Games in Whippany, New Jersey sent us this comment on his feelings about the year since the 9-11 attacks.

Alan Vu opened his 1000 square foot store Animax in Memphis in 1997. Specializing in anime, Animax has become a fixture in a city better known for blues and barbecue. We talked to Vu about how he handles this biggest of anime properties.