• Utterly adorable t-shirt designs by Vera Brosgol

• Comic Book Resources launches new comics sales analysis chart. Frankly, anything that includes columns entitled “Delta” slings us back in time to a hellish world of multi-function calculators and the quadratic equation. So far commentary light, but new ways of looking at sales is always good.

• Teshkeel media has a new partner to raise capital, the Unicorn Investment Bank.

UIB will underwrite and assist TMG in the raising of $25 million for the offering. TMG’s current investor base includes large GCC institutions the Commercial Bank of Kuwait, Bayan Investment Company, Safat Investment Company, Al Aswak Company and retail group MH Shaya Company as well as a consortium of private investors from the United States, Mexico, China, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Kuwait.

[snip]Yasser Abbady, Director of Corporate Finance at UIB, commented, “TMG have identified and successfully developed unique content for the young, highlighting Islam’s rich culture and heritage. With a substantial proportion of the region’s population under the age of fifteen, TMG’s management vision coupled with their award-winning concept of ‘The 99’ makes this a very attractive investment indeed.”


Comics + children = THE FUTURE!

• Viz has teamed with several foreign publishers to bring out DEATH NOTE in Europe.

VIZ Media…has inked deals with Ediciones Glenat España in Spain, Panini in Italy, Tokyopop in Germany and Dargaud Lombard in France to publish the DEATH NOTE manga from Shueisha. It is scheduled for fall 2006 release.

DEATH NOTE is about Light Yagami an ace student with great prospects who is bored out of his mind. Then he finds the Death Note, a notebook dropped by a rogue Shinigami death god. Any human whose name is written in the notebook dies, and Light vows to use the power of the Death Note to rid the world of evil. But when criminals begin dropping dead, the authorities send the legendary detective L to track down the killer and he’s hot on the heels of Light Yagami.