We were interested in the reaction of Tokyopop's competitors and the marketplace to its announcement that it would be publishing all of its manga titles in the original right to left format...

We took a look at the archives of Internal Correspondence , the print predecessor of ICv2, for the stories that were dominating the pop culture products industry fifteen years ago.

Initial March comic orders from US pop culture retailers were up 7% over March 2001, powered by strong performances from Marvel and Dark Horse.

The best-selling comic title for March 2002, New X-Men , has initial raw orders to Diamond US of only around 104,000 copies, the lowest quantity for a #1 comic title since April of last year.

Estimated quantities for initial orders on graphic novels shipping in March 2002 from pop culture stores ordering from Diamond US.

Estimated quantities for initial orders on comics shipping in March 2002 from pop culture stores ordering from Diamond US.

Tezuka began to publish his Phoenix manga stories to demonstrate that the medium he helped define had the potential to be as thought-provoking as any other branch of art or literature.

January is a transition month in the pop culture products business, with the first week or two typically showing strong post-Christmas sales, followed by slowing traffic as the winter doldrums set in. But there was a lot of activity in pop culture stores this January, with especially strong releases in the comic category.

The good news is that ToyBiz action figures are getting better and better thanks to new high tech imaging equipment and an increasing willingness to hire top sculptors, but the bad news is that the first wave of Spider-Man Movie Action Figures showed up in Wal-Mart (and reportedly, in Toys R Us) a month before other channels.

Superhero parody character Lethargic Lad gets its own book this summer with the planned release of the Lethargic Lad Jumbo-Sized Annual #1 in June.