Debra Streicker-Fine, CEO of Fandom, Inc. announced Thursday, April 19 that the company has given CMI Holding Group the exclusive license to sell Fandom Shop's inventory. Fandom, once the largest pop culture retailer in the US, stopped shipping orders on Friday, April 6th and since then has been attempting to sell its e-commerce and content assets.

Stan Lee will make a guest appearance on the Home Shopping Network this coming Monday, April 23rd at 11:00 PM (Eastern Time). Dynamic Forces is presenting a 'Marvel 40th Anniversary' program, and highlighting forty years of Marvel art with a series of lithographs. Stan will be signing lithographs during the show.

Canadian card manufacturer Dart Flipcards has landed the license for Shrek, the computer-generated animated comedy from Dreamworks featuring the vocal talents of Mike Meyers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz and John Lithgow.

Retailers who have carried Mark Crilley's series of Akiko novels have repeatedly told ICv2 that this is one series of children's books that really sells.

An article by David Kirkpatrick in today's New York Times states that '...the heyday of online book sales has apparently ended.' This observation is based on reports from on-line giant Amazon.com, which sells four times as many books as its nearest on-line competitor.

Here's a distant early warning from ICv2's Japanese correspondent-- Katsuhiro Otomo, creator of the classic Akira manga, is publishing his first comic work in five years. The first installment of the new Otomo story, Orbital Era , will appear in Kodansha's weekly Young magazine.

Here's a typical example of the kind of reactions we received. 'After reading Mr. Jemas's comments on the overshipping, I must say that I can count the number of digits in his IQ by his 'I know better than you do' attitude (zero).

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Scott Rosenberg's Platinum Studios has signed with AMG (Artists Management Group) to oversee the packaging of Rosenberg's catalog of comic book characters for television, film, and new media projects. In addition. Rosenberg will return to comic publishing indirectly at least by packaging some twenty-odd titles under the editorship of Lee Nordling.

According to Cinescape Online, the Wall St. Journal is reporting that 20th Century Fox is suing Marvel over a planned Mutant X syndicated television series. Fox reportedly feels that the series represents a breach of the agreement it reached with Marvel in 1993 for movie rights to the X-Men.

Not every retailer has the same opportunity to succeed with 'kids comics' as the three profiled in this story, but many can utilize at least some of the stratagems employed so effectively by these storeowners. One theme that is consistent with all three retailers is that they provide one area of their store as an enclave for younger readers.