A new line of toys from Oscar-winning special effects master Stan Winston ( Terminator, Aliens, Jurassic Park, Batman Returns ) is planned for October.

The first 80-page installment of Frank Miller's Dark Knight Strikes Again, one of the most highly anticipated comic releases in years, will be accompanied to market by a second monster product capable of generating huge sales, the Dark Knight Strikes Again Statue .

At the Diamond Retailer Summit in Fort Wayne, DC Comics announced that the first issue of Frank Miller's Dark Knight Strikes Again will go on sale on the fifth of December.

Veteran comic scribe Chuck Dixon, who began writing for four-color heroes back in 1985, is heading to Tampa to join forces with the Crossgen team on March 1, 2002.

According to Variety , Frank Miller and Geoff Darrow are in talks with Warner Bros. for the movie rights to their Hard Boiled property, which was published as a comic by Dark Horse in the early 90s.

The big players seemed to dominate this month, with multiple products associated with the strongest properties taking many of the top slots.

D-Boy, Inc., in association with Studio Tron and Fanboy, Inc. plans to release a series of collectible pewter statues based on the gorgeous female leads in Kia Asamiya's Silent Mobius manga.

Along with the great Osamu Tezuka, Shotaro Ishinomori was one of the founding fathers of Japanese manga. Ishinomori created the Kamen Rider ( Masked Rider in the U.S.) as well as Cyborg 009 and literally hundreds of other manga and anime series including The Skull Man , a dark anti-hero who lives for revenge.

DC Direct has a huge slate of products on tap for 2002, which will make it unlikely that any challenge to DC's dominance in this increasingly important product area will succeed.

ICv2 drilled down on the comic release date issue with DC VP Sales and Marketing Bob Wayne and Executive Vice President Paul Levitz.