In spite of the obvious success that comic book-based films have had in Hollywood over the past year, and despite the fact that fellow AOL/Time Warner company DC Comics has an enormous roster of characters, Warner Brothers has been unable to pull the trigger and squeeze off another round in the battle of cinematic superheroes.

Louis Porter, Jr. based his role-playing game, Haven: City of Violence, on contemporary crime comics like Frank Miller's Sin City and James O'Barr's The Crow , as well as on the Hong Kong action films of John Woo.

James Furfferi of Empire Comics in Rochester, New York brings his 30 years of retailing comics to bear in his opinion of the current Marvel path.

We spoke with CrossGen founder and CEO Mark Alessi at the recent San Diego Comic-Con to get his comments on comic distribution, find out about CrossGen's educational initiative, and the future of his company.

In this second part of our two-part interview, we talk about DC movies and TV shows, whether DC is keeping CrossGen out of the front of Previews, and whether all the attention that DC parent AOL/Time Warner is getting is affecting things at DC.

Warner Brothers Consumer Products Division announced that McFarlane Toys has received the master toy license for the second and third installments of The Matrix Trilogy --- The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions -- as well as rights to the original Matrix film.

For 2003 Dark Horse has lined up a number of exciting licensed projects that are going to be much more than mere comic book versions of screen stories.

The largest comic/pop culture convention in the U.S. just keeps getting bigger. This year, exhibition space for the San Diego Comic-Con International grew by 25% to 350,000 square feet.

Tokyopop announced two new acquisitions at the recently concluded Anime Expo. The first was the Lupin III (pronounced 'Lupin the Third') manga by renowned creator Monkey Punch (Kazuhiko Kato).

Chris Pollichemi of Altered States Game and Hobby in Syracuse, New York has a different slant on the Yu-Gi-Oh shortage in hobby stores. He feels Upper Deck is making the right moves, but doesn't think much of the game, or some of its purchasers.