Artisan Pictures and Marvel Studios announced today that actor Thomas Jane will play Frank Castle, the tortured vigilante known as 'The Punisher,' in the film version of the Marvel Comic series.

The Sci Fi Channel has announced several new series and mini-series in development, including several of interest to pop culture retailers. Stargate: Atlantis is a new series spun off from the successful Stargate SG-1 series, which was just renewed.

Frequent commenter Ilan Strasser of Fat Moose Comics in Whippany, New Jersey gives us his thoughts on Free Comic Book Day and more.

Paul Stock of Librairie Astro in Montreal, Quebec wrote this cautionary tale about helping to break up a theft ring operating out of the biggest North American printer of comics.

Gail Burt of Metropolis Comics in Downey, California saw our article on the move of Spider-Man 2 off the first weekend in May, potentially affecting Free Comic Book Day next year, and had this to say.

The good news is that Tobey Maguire will be back as Peter Parker in the sequel to the highest-grossing superhero film of all time.

Adam Kubert, one of Marvel's top X-Men artists ( Ultimate X-Men ), will auction off his services for a three-hour comic book store signing anywhere in the U.S. on May 3, 2003.

We posed a couple of questions specifically related to retailer issues at today's Marvel press conference.

Marvel announced the return of the Epic imprint, this time as a line of creator-packaged books which will range from new takes on Marvel characters, to books licensed from other media, to books featuring creator-owned work.

ICv2 has received multiple reports of the X-Men 2 movie adaptation trade paperback being released to bookstores before reaching comic stores serviced by Diamond.