Sony Pictures Entertainment has inked a seven-figure agreement with writer Alvin Sargent ( Paper Moon, Julia , Ordinary People ) to pen the script for Spider-Man 3 with an option to write Spider-Man 4 as well.

Shrek 2 was the best-selling video release of 2004 in the U.S. with a grand total of 37 million units sold, which included a whopping 21.6 million DVDs.

This week, Bates shares his store's experience with trading cards.

Charles Brownstein, Executive Director of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund wrote this remembrance of Will Eisner for another venue and was kind enough to share it with ICv2.

Writer Bob Andelman, whose biography of Will Eisner, A Spirited Life , will be published by Dark Horse's M Press imprint in July) sent out the word of Eisner's death and shared these events and anecdotes from Eisner's life.

Befitting the occasion, this week Bates offers his top ten resolutions for 2005.

The Big Two comic publishers have each announced an exclusive creator signing.

With sales down on an individual basis on a lot of comic titles and weak graphic novel sales, the market struggled to a 2% increase in dollars for November 2003 vs. November 2004.

Sales were soft for most of the top comic titles this month, with five out of the top ten and 16 out of the top 25 dropping in sales. But the top seven piece books were all higher than the current base $2.25 price.

These are estimates of the sales on graphic novels by Diamond U.S. to comic specialty stores during November 2004.