Ed 'Big Daddy' Roth, a central figure in the development of California car culture has died of a heart attack at the age of 69. To finance his car creations Roth sold t-shirts featuring a gallery of anti-heroic characters including the counterculture's answer to Mickey Mouse, the red-eyed, razor-toothed Ratfink.

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.

Maybe it's because the specialty market is counter-cyclical, or maybe it's because it is product driven and there are lots of good products in the offing, but according to retailers ICv2 heard from, the pulse of the industry is strong right now, at least judging from the talk at the DC RRP.

Fox's X-Men grabbed the most nominations for the 27th annual Saturn Awards presented by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films. The first motion picture featuring Marvel's mutant supergroup earned over $150 million at the box office and a whopping ten Saturn nominations.

Company profile for California-based distributor carrying a wide range of imported Japanese anime and kaiju products.

In the lead article in the Arts Section of the April 4, 2001 N.Y. Times , Neil Strauss celebrates the sad and brilliant art of cartoonist Chris Ware ( Acme Library , Jimmy Corrigan ). Strauss's lengthy article is headlined 'Creating Literature, One Comic Book at a Time.'

April 4, 2001. In a conference call with the press today, Marvel President Bill Jemas didn't mince words when defending his 'no overprint policy' In response to a question on the topic from ICv2, he responded, 'It's sort of an IQ test for comic retailers. You can count the digits in their IQ based on their enthusiastic reaction to the 'no overprints policy.''

Several events that occurred over the past week demonstrated an increasing tendency to blame the entertainment industry for society's ills.

Fandom.com, one of the largest U.S. retailers of comics, collectible toys, and other pop culture products is shedding staff and preparing for a sale. The company had downsized by 20% in January.