Greetings from funnybook-land. It's been a bewildering and somewhat depressing week for the comic-book industry, and as always, I've been covering it in detail at The Comics Journal's weblog, ¡Journalista! — here are just some of the highlights:

• Diamond Distribution is the company that puts the comics in comics shops, and their initial orders are out for March. As with last month the only way to find any optimism is to squint your eyes, wish real hard, and be thankful that the undertaker hasn't run up to you with a tape-measure, getting the specifications ready for your coffin.

  There's nothing dramatic here, but that's as close to optimism as you can get. In February, four titles managed to crack the 100,000 mark; in March that number dropped to three. DC's Jim Lee-drawn Batman managed to hold onto the top spot, while the Marvel titles underneath it shuffled a tad but otherwise just sort of sat there, dropping a bit in terms of over all numbers but not in such a way as to look like an obvious disaster. Given the above, I hope I can be forgiven for thinking that the word "domination" looks a tad out of place in the following quote:

  "Marvel's domination of the best-selling comic periodicals continued, with eight of the top 10 titles and 20 of the top 25. DC and Dreamwave took the other five of the top 25. Graphic novels were a different story; Marvel didn't have a single title in the top ten graphic novels, a weak field. Four of the top ten graphic novels were manga titles and four were DCs."

  All hail the Kings of the Very Small Hill. As always, most of these numbers are inaccurate insofar as re-orders from shops have yet to be factored in, though I should also point out that since Marvel no longer accepts re-orders, the numbers for their titles are considerably closer to the truth — fate's little joke on Bill and Joe, as it turns out.

  Scrolling down the top 300 comics for March, the usual markers of industry malaise continue to stand out, as every comics title that doesn't directly cater to the hardcore superhero obsessive continues to cluster at the bottom of the list. Sing along with me, kids: Powerpuff Girls #36 (7,923 copies), Usagi Yojimbo #65 (7,456 copies), Acme Novelty Library #16 (6,068 copies), Cerebus #288 (6,043 copies), Looney Tunes #100 (5,454 copies), Love and Rockets Vol. 2 #7 (5,356 copies), Metal Hurlant #5 (4,754 copies), Warren Ellis' Scars #5 (3,550 copies), Betty and Veronica #186 (2,801 copies), Raijin Comics #16 (2,223), James Kochalka's Sketchbook Diaries Vol. 3 (1,081 copies). And so on.

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