Since 1990, newsstand sales of the hundred top selling magazines in the U.S. have declined by 40%. Certainly the proliferation of new titles is partially responsible for the decline in the sales of individual magazines, but doesn't completely explain the fact that the average sell-through for all magazines has plummeted to just 36%.

Orders for the top comics took an upward tick in April, reflecting the typical seasonal direction now that the doldrums of first quarter are behind us. Ultimate X-Men #5 even came in above 100,000 in estimated comic store orders, the only title to do so in the last two months.

This article contains a chart showing the top 300 comic titles ordered from Diamond North America based on Diamond's reported title indexes and external title data, and interpolation of the remaining numbers.

April 4, 2001. In a conference call with the press today, Marvel President Bill Jemas didn't mince words when defending his 'no overprint policy' In response to a question on the topic from ICv2, he responded, 'It's sort of an IQ test for comic retailers. You can count the digits in their IQ based on their enthusiastic reaction to the 'no overprints policy.''

The Top 10 Cool lists for February, 2001 have just gone up on ICv2, and our comments are below. These lists are compiled from actual sales submitted by retailers.

Fox Kids has announced two new anime series that will be a part of their fall lineup along with new cartoon series based on Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Evolution . The new Japanese cartoons on Fox Kids include Transformers: Robots in Disguise and Shinzo.

Paul Jenkins, writer of Spider-Man, Hulk, Inhumans, Sentry , and Witchblade has taken a position at Top Cow as lead story editor. His primary responsibility will be working with all the Top Cow writers in an editorial capacity to ensure a uniform strategic direction in storylines.

Sometimes the pop culture products industry gets pretty wild and woolly, and last week was such a time, with three stories in different venues providing some diversion from our regularly scheduled programming.

Marvel President Bill Jemas' defense of his no overprint policy has fed the continuing discussion over the future of the comics business.

In a statement released Friday, March 2nd, Marvel President Bill Jemas has reinforced Marvel's decision not to over-print its periodical comics, c alling the past policy of 10-20% overprints, '...a desperate, shortsighted effort to squeeze every last dollar out of every last book.'