All of Marvel's X-books except Ultimate took substantial jumps in sales between April and May, reflecting new creative teams...

This article contains a chart showing the top 300 comic titles ordered from Diamond North America based on Diamond's reported title indexes and external title data, and interpolation of the remaining numbers.

Inside.com, the media-watching website, has reported that Radio Disney, a children's-oriented radio network has told its affiliates not to 'align ourselves promotionally with this new release' ( Shrek ). Shrek is a computer-animated comedy film produced by Dreamworks, which features the vocal talents of Mike Meyers, Eddie Murphy, and Cameron Diaz.

At today's Marvel news conference, Marvel President Bill Jemas announced the renewal of Marvel's agreement with Diamond Comic Distributors to continue Diamond's exclusive distribution of Marvel titles in the direct market. In addition, the two companies agreed that Diamond would also represent Marvel's trade paperbacks in the traditional bookstore marketplace.

On Wednesday April 18, 2001, the Washington Post printed a lengthy article by Hank Stuever that focused on DC artist Phil Jimenez and his obsession with Wonder Woman . Stuever's essay covers the entire history of the character, who first appeared some sixty years ago just one month before Pearl Harbor.

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.

Orders for the top comics took an upward tick in April, reflecting the typical seasonal direction now that the doldrums of first quarter are behind us. Ultimate X-Men #5 even came in above 100,000 in estimated comic store orders, the only title to do so in the last two months.

This article contains a chart showing the top 300 comic titles ordered from Diamond North America based on Diamond's reported title indexes and external title data, and interpolation of the remaining numbers.