Marvel has announced final details of its May Insert program, which will encompass every comic the publisher will release that month to sample the additional readers that are expected to pick up comics as a result of the Spider-Man movie.

Just ten years ago it appeared that Marvel couldn't get a movie made to save its life. How times have changed. This week the second Blade film topped the box office, and everyone expects that Sony/Columbia's Spider-Man movie is going to be one of this summer's biggest hits.

Blade II strolled into 2,707 theaters on Oscar weekend and promptly cut the competition down to size by earning over $33.1 million, the second largest March opening ever.

The best-selling comic title for March 2002, New X-Men , has initial raw orders to Diamond US of only around 104,000 copies, the lowest quantity for a #1 comic title since April of last year.

The good news is that ToyBiz action figures are getting better and better thanks to new high tech imaging equipment and an increasing willingness to hire top sculptors, but the bad news is that the first wave of Spider-Man Movie Action Figures showed up in Wal-Mart (and reportedly, in Toys R Us) a month before other channels.

DC's Dark Knight Strikes Again was the top-selling comic for the third consecutive month, according to orders placed with Diamond US from pop culture stores. The initial raw order was over 171,000 copies, which was around 10% over initial orders on #2, and nearly as high as the initial orders on #1.

The WB Network announced the addition of two new animated series to its Kids WB lineup for next fall. The most important of these series for pop culture retailers is the return of the animated Scooby Doo.

There is no denying that the quality of the action figures that ToyBiz has produced over the past year has improved dramatically. The new Marvel Legends action figures take the familiar superheroes back to the vibrant colors of their original four-color incarnations.

Fox announced today that the sequel to the hugely popular first X-Men film will be released on May 2, 2003, not in the winter of 2002 as had been rumored.

By the end of the Thanksgiving weekend, Nick Barucci and the folks at Dynamic Forces will have raised more than $100,000 dollars for a variety of 9/11 charities including the Police and Fireman's Widow's and Orphans Fund...