John Danovich, Director of Special Projects at ACD Distribution, will become Vice-President of Sales for Fast Forward Entertainment, a Wisconsin-based publishing company.

As it becomes increasingly clear that the U.S. (and perhaps the rest of the world) is slipping into a recession, we decided to take a look at the potential impact on sales of the product categories carried in pop culture stores -- anime, comics, toys, games, and movie/TV merchandise.

We wanted to let you hear what some of the retailers that won the Grow with Shojo display contest had to say about it.

The GAMA (Game Manufacturer's Association) site at gama.org has recently launched discussion boards

Marvel has announced that it will hold a retailer conference on Monday, October 1 at the China Club, a 16,000 square foot nightclub located at 268 W. 47th Street in New York City.

Former WotC Vice President Ryan Dancey has announced the formation of OrganizedPlay, a new company. It has signed a five year license with WotC for the use of Living City of Raven's Bluff .

An informal ICv2 survey of retailers in the Midwest and West has found that last week's tragic events in New York City did have an immediate impact on sales, but a strong weekend brought sales for the week back to near normal levels.

Diamond Comic Distributors and sister company Alliance Game Distributors announced today that they were canceling the Baltimore Retailer Summit, which was scheduled for next weekend--September 22-23.

ICv2 had a chance to talk with several Manhattan retailers today and found that they were soldiering on in spite of disruptions in traffic and daily life created by the heinous terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

DC's Patty Jeres was among the thousands of New Yorkers who got a firsthand eyewitness view of the tragic events that occurred when terrorists piloted two airliners in the twin towers of the World Trade Center.