English born actor Christian Bale ( Empire Of The Sun , American Psycho ) will portray Batman in the next Batman film, which is slated to start shooting in early 2004.

These are estimates of the sales by Diamond U.S. to comic specialty stores during August 2003.

These are estimates of the sales on graphic novels by Diamond U.S. to comic specialty stores during August 2003.

1602 , Marvel's new Neil Gaiman miniseries, was Diamond's top book in August, selling over 150,000 copies.

Ilan Strasser of Fat Moose Comics in Whippany, New Jersey took a look at his August and September sales and noticed some trends.

DC Comics has developed exclusive Batman content for both video games and a daily online Batman comic strip that will appear this fall on AOL's new KOL (Kids On Line) service.

Steven Bates from Bookery Fantasy in Fairborn, Ohio saw James Deckert's comments (on his Free Comic Book Day missive, and feels that retailers shouldn't complain about paying for advertising.

No, it's not April Fools Day -- Wednesday's The Arts Section of the New York Times did actually contain two articles celebrating superhero comics.

A Paid Advertisement. Great small size! Great low price! CPM Manga is proud to announce the release of classic titles at the popular 5' x 7 3/8' size for a retail price of only $9.99!

Comic sales in July stayed true to form, with Batman topping the list, Marvel taking the most slots (19 out of the top 25), and roughly the same number of titles up as down in the top 25.