With sales of graphic novels in mainstream bookstores on the rise, and book distributors vying to sign comic publishers, one of the first questions to arise is -- which graphic novel publisher is number one in bookstores?

American Gods , by comic scribe Neil Gaiman, was awarded the 2002 Hugo Award for best novel at last weekend's World Science Fiction Convention in San Jose, California.

The 2002 Eisner Award Winners were announced at the recent San Diego Comic-Con, and the love was spread around. Four titles won multiple awards: 100 Bullets with three, and Eightball, Dork , and Akira with two each.

Marvel's recent announcement of exclusive deals with Joseph Michael Stracynski (JMS) and Kevin Smith could be seen as a response to DC Comics forging similarly exclusive deals with Brian Azzarello, Warren Ellis, and Mike Carey.

Diamond Select showed off a growing collection of licensed products and cool Japanese imports at its showroom at the New York Toy Fair this year.

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.

After remaining silent for months in the face of chiding from Marvel's Bill Jemas, DC Comics spokesman Bob Wayne fired off a flurry of verbal jabs at Marvel.

Marvel Comics has announced a 'fully painted illustrated prose project' that teams writer Greg Rucka with artist Yoshitaka Amano.

Dark Horse Comics announced that it has secured American and European distribution rights to two new high-end collectible figures based on characters from the highly popular Lone Wolf & Cub manga series.

Ain't It Cool News is reporting that a highly placed source at Warner Bros. has indicated that Neil Gaiman will be directing as well as writing the screen adaptation of his Sandman mini-series, Death: The High Cost of Living .