The increasing importance of graphic novels in traditional bookstores can be gauged by the increasing amount of coverage that they are receiving in the trade journal Publisher's Weekly .

Viz has announced that starting this month their Dragon Ball comics will no longer be edited for content and will carry a '13 and Up' label.

Our article last week on comic orders for March ('Top Comics Below 100,000') provoked a lot of reactions -- in fact, the most reactions of any article we've published since we launched a month ago.

Alliance Game Distributors and Diamond Comic Distributors have announced that they will jointly have the exclusive right to distribute Game Workshop's new table-top war game based on the film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Ri ngs trilogy.

Japanese properties are booming--with a major impact on U.S. pop culture.

Whatever the labor situation in Hollywood, it should be an interesting year in the theatres where an unusually heavy diet of sequels and remakes will be enlivened (we hope) by some great directors.

The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot animated series based on the Dark Horse Comic by Frank Miller and Geoff Darrow is returning to the Fox Kids weekday lineup starting on Monday, January, 29 th at 3:30 pm where it will be followed by Action Man and Digimon.

Skybound has expanded its management team with five new hires, including a top comics editor and two senior video game executives, and a promotion to officer level.

Dark Horse Comics will launch a new comic series with art by Chris Weston and colors by Dave Stewart.

Showbiz news was flowing this week, and we round it up here.