In celebration of the upcoming 10th anniversary of the genre-defining EVERQUEST online game franchise, Sony Online Ent. is releasing EVERQUEST: THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY COLLECTOR'S EDITION early next year. The retrospective celebrating the first decade of the EVERQUEST phenomenon will be available online and at select retailers in North America.

VIZ Media and Stan Lee's POW! Ent. have announced the North American debut of the exciting Prologue Chapter of ULTIMO in the September 2008 issue of SHONEN JUMP magazine, which hits retail outlets nationwide on August 5 for $4.99.

ULTIMO is the result of a historic collaboration between comics legend Lee, creator of many iconic superheroes including Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, and the X-Men, and Hiroyuki Takei, the creator of the popular SHAMAN KING manga series.

Milan, Italy-based animation production company, Atlantyca Ent. has appointed one of Italy's most prominent authors, Pierdomenico Baccalario, as editor-in-chief to head the company's content-publishing division, which is dedicated to creating and developing new content for book products based on popular entertainment properties and characters.

The ELEMENTAL series showcases the world's best digital artwork created with Autodesk software. ELEMENTAL 3 is packed with exciting imagery from Autodesk customers with a strong emphasis on architectural and design visualization. For the first time in an ELEMENTAL title, Autodesk Maya and Autodesk Mudbox artwork are also included.

Among adult readers in Japan, BLACK JACK is Osamu Tezuka's most popular achievement, and perhaps the most close to the creator's heart, as Tezuka considered entering the medical field -- majoring in medicine in college -- before devoting his life to comics.

Eric Goldberg's CHARACTER ANIMATION CRASH COURSE!, published by Silman-James Press, is available for pre-order on Amazon.com. It's 240 pages of cartoon goodness, all geared to getting great performances from your characters on the screen. It comes with an accompanying CD that has animation movie files of selected sequences in the book.

DC Comics will release a prequel to upcoming TV show FRINGE, according to USA TODAY. FRINGE, from J.J. Abrams (ALIAS, LOST, CLOVERFIELD, upcoming STAR TREK) is set to start airing this fall on Fox.

Writers and artists are still being hired, but DC will release the comic on August 27, two weeks before the two-hour premiere on September 9.

The sixth book in the d'artiste series -- DIGITAL PAINTING 2 -- features Master Artists Don Seegmiller, Melanie Delon, Daniel Dociu, and Marta Dahlig. For the first time, Ballistic Publishing offers pre-order customers the opportunity to download the majority of the Photoshop/Painter brushes used by the Master Artists in their tutorials.

The Walt Disney Studios has signed a multi-year deal with Ahmet Zappa, Harris Katleman and Christian Beranek to oversee the newly christened Kingdom Comics. It is designed as an innovative new venture of developing graphic novels to create new film projects for the studio as well as re-imagining and rejuvenating motion pictures from the Disney live-action vault.

Comics publisher Devil's Due and Capcom have signed a deal to turn some of Capcom's popular video games, starting with BIONIC COMMANDO and LOST PLANET, into graphic novels.

The first in the four-property deal will be BIONIC COMMANDO, VARIETY reports, with writer Justin Marks hired on for writing duties.

Marks has been busy recently spinning pop culture properties into pictures, including VOLTRON: DEFENDER OF THE UNIVERSE, HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, GREEN ARROW: ESCAPE FROM SUPERMAX and Fox's upcoming STREET FIGHTER: LEGEND OF CHUN LI.