ICv2 has learned that WizKids, the company that created the category-defining collectible miniatures game Mage Knight , has tapped Jonathan Leithuesser for the post of Advertising and Public Relations Manager. Leithuesser is a veteran of the games industry with solid credentials.

Now Diamond Select has inked a deal with CMG Worldwide, the marketing agency that controls licensing rights for over 200 dead celebrities including Marilyn Monroe.

Out of respect for the gravity of today's events, ICv2 is suspending its normal coverage except for the news we've been able to collect to date on the immediate effects on the industry.

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.

The Radiant Light Dragon will be the last dragon figure that Wiz Kids will release until the second half of 2002,

Diamond has released some general mid-year category information, and while the shifts between categories are substantial year-over-year, the over-all business is stable with some positive underlying trends despite a tough economic environment in the 'real world.'

Robert Boyd of LPC, the company that sells Tokyopop titles to bookstores, told ICv2 that Sailor Moon sells better than any of the other graphic novels his company reps by a factor of 'at least' 1.5.

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.

Tucked inside the massive monthly listings of products from comic distributors like Diamond and FM are the modest offerings of SQP, typically a group of trade paperbacks which retail for under ten dollars each.

With two weeks left until Tim Burton's refashioning of Planet of the Apes opens, ICv2 conducted an unscientific survey on the sales of POTA merchandise by contacting some twenty retailers from coast to coast.