John Riley of Grasshopper's Comics in Williston Park, New York saw the comments by Ilan Strasser of Fat Moose Comics on the number of Marvel trade paperback titles that are out of print and agrees, but also sees another problem with the Marvel trade paperback line.

Marvel has granted licenses to four major book publishers for mass market books based on Marvel characters, with initial products slated for release in Q1 2005.

New Avengers #1 was the best-selling comic in December, topping 240,000 copies sold to comic shops by Diamond.

With sales down on an individual basis on a lot of comic titles and weak graphic novel sales, the market struggled to a 2% increase in dollars for November 2003 vs. November 2004.

Sales were soft for most of the top comic titles this month, with five out of the top ten and 16 out of the top 25 dropping in sales. But the top seven piece books were all higher than the current base $2.25 price.

These are estimates of the sales on graphic novels by Diamond U.S. to comic specialty stores during November 2004.

More c om ic titles showed growth in sales in October than in September, with nine of the top 25 c om ics, eight Marvels and one DC, growing vs. their previous month sales.

Marvel has released its book schedule for the first five months of 2005, and it includes 92 titles in hardcover and paper combined.

Sales on the top comic titles slid across the board in September, in a normal seasonal decline in sales compared to August.

These are estimates of the sales on graphic novels by Diamond U.S. to comic specialty stores during September 2004.