The Spider-Man film spurred increased sales of Spider-Man merchandise, a track record that will easily justify additional outreach efforts synchronized with the wallcrawler's video release on Nov.2.

We recently asked Dark Horse's Lee Dawson for help in filling out our information on Ghost in the Shell 2 . Dawson collected the answers below from the editor, translator, and other sources.

Dark Horse has finally chosen Diamond Book Distributors as a replacement for LPC, its bankrupt former distributor to the book trade.

The 2002 Eisner Award Winners were announced at the recent San Diego Comic-Con, and the love was spread around. Four titles won multiple awards: 100 Bullets with three, and Eightball, Dork , and Akira with two each.

We're working our way through all the news from San Diego, but we've got a bunch of bits and pieces left over that aren't going to get into print unless we group them all together here. So without further ado, here's our News and Notes from San Diego 2002...

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.

At this year's San Diego Comic-Con, Wizkids announced that it is preparing an additional HeroClix entry, which will include characters from other comic publishers.

We recently caught up with Image Publisher Jim Valentino and asked him about the issues of the day, including what challenges he perceives from CrossGen's new initiative, what limits we may see on the currently hot retro trend, and Image's plans for its book distribution in the wake of the LPC bankruptcy, among other topics.

CrossGen Comics has chosen Client Distribution Services (CDS) for exclusive representation of its growing line of graphic novels to the bookstore, library, warehouse club, and mass merchandiser channels.