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For those savvy enough to have read Paul Pope’s (BATMAN: YEAR 100, HEAVY LIQUID, BATTLING BOY in 2013) ONE TRICK RIP-OFF when it first...

Diamond has released their preliminary top 10 and comparative charts for January, and it was another good month for Marvel and comics overall. Although periodical sales were down a bit from last month, GNs were up quite a bit — perhaps oddly given the Christmas sales season. Both periodical and graphic novels were up in strong doubles digits from January 2012, however, showing that the comic book recovery is well under way, no matter what you thing of creative shuffles.

The second month of Marvel Now titles arguably makes for more interesting sales data than the first. We're starting to get a sense of where some of the books that had huge launch numbers in November are actually going to settle down. And we're also seeing how the second-tier Marvel Now books are going to fare, with this month seeing the launches of CABLE & X-FORCE, THUNDERBOLTS and AVENGERS ARENA, as well as the relaunch of AVENGERS itself.

The news issue of international literary magazine Words Without Borders is online and it's their annual GN issue, with comics from around the world on topics from the Spanish Civil War to the political violence of Peru’s Shining Path, organized labor in France and broken homes in South Africa.

Celebrating one year of publishing, Viz's SuBLime yaoi imprint has announced a slew of new titles: six new titles and 11 debuting volumes. With manga still in the doldrum in the US, it's good to see one imprint hanging in there—the appeal of boy's love manga is still going strong. And who can resist a book called PRETTY MEN FIGHTING DIRTY?

At Buzzfeed DC has revealed its covers and plans for April, and promises MORE shocks MORE surprises and MORE MORE so much that you will sit back on your heels and just say, in a dazed tone...."What the ****...."

First it was hotels, then it was badges...now it's pro badges. Comic-Con International: San Diego professional badge registration went live at 1 pm Pacific time yesterday and free guest badges for attending professionals—once a little perk that everyone enjoyed—were gone in minutes, apparently. It isn't exactly clear when pro badges actually became unavailable because there was a site meltdown, a "come back later" and then...there was only this:

Short version, the last remaining book retail giant plans to close as many as a third of its stores over a 10-year period—although that may be an optimistic projection, as well. Slowed by the rise of digital and a lack of new malls, B&N oipened only two stores in the last fiscal year, and it's end of year profits were well below what was expected. While the Nook ereaders has been a bright spot, sales there have slowed as well. So a leaner meaner BN seems to be in the cards.

The 90s are out there, and Scully and Mulder are determined to find them. IDW will be relaunching the X-files franchise in comics form. The plan includes reprints of the original series that ran from 1995-2009, and a new series launching in June.

If there's one trend we've noticed growing over the years its the use of graphic novels as teaching tools—on the must basic level, comics are now recognized as a way to get reluctant readers to get started reading. On a larger level, comics are being used as a general teaching tool. Josh Elder's Reading with Pictures organization has been promoting this idea and cataloging the use of comics in the classroom. It's not just the visceral appeal of colorful pictures that puts comics over—some think that the verbal-visual blend is the future of literacy, and comics could potentially be on the forefront of that.

It's not that they weren't go before, but now they ‘but now they even have a whole name: Marvel’s Phase Three, as Marvel studio head Kevin Feige told MTV:

By now, it seems a lot of people have taken advantage of Kyle Baker's decision to put his stellar body of graphic novels up for free online. While it's a windfall for readers, at Robot 6, Corey Blake asked "Does ‘free’ devalue comics?" While free sampling is a staple of marketing, it also has drawbacks: