Jim Crocker of Modern Myths in Northampton, Massachusetts, saw retailer L.E. Becker’s comments about selling All Star Batman and Robin #10 on eBay and says retailers should consider how and when to take advantage of “windfalls.”

The nearly two-decade-old Watchmen trade paperback, still smoking from from the effect of the trailer shown in conjunction with Dark Knight , the top movie of the year, was the top dollar book sold to comic stores in August, with an astounding 43,000+ copies sold.

These are estimates of the sales by Diamond U.S. to comic specialty stores during August 2008.

The Coen brothers scored their first weekend box office winner ever with the spy spoof Burn After Reading.

There are now more televised award shows than political commercials currently airing in battleground states.

Twentieth Century Fox is looking at ways to expand its superhero movie franchises, including more X-Men spin-offs and a revival of the Daredevil property.

Wayne Charness, Senior Vice President at Wizards of the Coast parent Hasbro, has fired off a letter of protest to Michael Goldfarb, the aide to presidential candidate John McCain who disparaged Dungeons and Dragons players on multiple occasions.

Brad Meltzer’s new novel, The Book of Lies , due out next week, was the impetus for a USA Today story this week on the origin of Superman, which Meltzer ties to the death of Mitchell Siegel, Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel’s father, in a Cleveland robbery in 1932.

In Part Three we talk about the upcoming Marvel-Del Rey projects, Del Rey's publishing plans for books about manga, and the definition and categorization of manga.

In Part Two, we talk about Del Rey’s mix of original English language and Japanese licensed material, the Del Rey and Del Rey Manga imprints, the impact of Kodansha’s plans to publish in the U.S. , and digital distribution of manga.