In the midst of a recession and in the wake of the economic turmoil created by the 9-11 attacks, the pop culture retailers surveyed by ICv2 reported strong sales in December. Let's take a look at some of the categories...

In addition to the comic art calendars featuring work by U.S. based artists, Tide-Mark has two other offerings that should be of major interest to pop culture retailers.

Palisades Marketing, a Maryland-based company that specializes in creating toys for collectors, has acquired licenses to create a line of Micronauts toys, as well as minibusts for G.I. Joe , Alien, and Predator .

Batman: The 10-Cent Adventure topped the comic charts for January 2002, with over 650,000 copies ordered from Diamond U.S. prior to any late orders or reorders.

The December 29th New York Times carried an article on the various 9-11 comic benefit/tribute books, noting the 'crossover interest' they were generating.

Here are ICv2's Top Five Comic Stories of 2001. These rankings are based on the business impact of these events on pop culture retailers. 1.Comics bottom? The first three quarters of 2001 were rough in the comics industry. Orders on comics hit new lows

Here are ICv2's Top Five Anime Stories of 2001. These rankings are based on the business impact of these events on pop culture retailers. 1.Anime spreads out. A nime is reaching more deeply into America pop culture in a variety of ways, and seems stronger than ever.

Strange Stories for Strange Kids , the second Little Lit comics anthology, was featured twice on the Today Show recently.

Initial comic and graphic novel orders to Diamond from North American pop culture stores were up 7% (in dollars) over December 2000, capping off a strong year-over-year trend for the fourth quarter.

For the first time in recent memory, initial U.S. orders on a comic title by pop culture stores have topped $1 million retail.