Just when it looked like the Watchmen “trailer effect” was subsiding, the collection of the 1986 miniseries jumped five spots to No. 13 on USA Today’s bestseller list — which may be the highest-ever position held by a graphic novel.

Two weeks ago the trade paperback reached No. 15 on the book chart, the same spot held in April 2007 by the 16th volume of Natsuki Takaya’s Fruits Basket. I can’t recall a comic performing better than that, but if anyone has a better memory for these things, please correct me.

USA Today’s chart tracks all genres and formats of books sold in some 4,700 brick-and-mortar and online stores.

Fueled by the release of the trailer for Zack Snyder’s adaptation, sales of the Alan Moore-Dave Gibbons collection have skyrocketed. To meet increased demand, DC Comics has printed an additional 900,000 copies of Watchmen since the teaser’s debut on July 17. That means the book will have a print run of more than 1 million copies this year.

Related: Andrew Steven Harris takes a look at the legal fight between Fox and Warner Bros. over the Watchmen adaptation, and provides my favorite headline of the week: “The world will look up and say, ’sue us.’ And I’ll look down and whisper, ‘okay’.”

– Joëlle Jones draws some X-Women.

– An entire blog devoted to Ronald Searle? I’m so there.

– Eric Bogosian to recite Art Spiegleman. There’s a pairing I never expected to see.

– PBS Newshour does a profile on Jeff Smith.

– Pantheon will publish Dash Shaw’s Bodyworld.

– Scatalogical Hulk joke alert!

– Ryan Kelly shares Northlanders character designs.

– Here’s a map in case you ever get lost in Springfield. Via.

– Vulture previews Burma Chronicles by Guy Delisle.

– Das Gamer wonders why the Halo comic is taking so long to complete.

– Larry Marder teases new Beanworld. Wohoo!

– Neil Kleid is doing a series of articles on the Dark Tower for Marvel.com. Here’s the first one.

– Bill Kahler and Mark Yturralde, the treasurer for Comic-Con International, are contestants on the Amazing Race this fall.

– The Hero Initiative has more Hulk covers up for auction. This week’s covers are by John McCrea, John Romita and Fred Hembeck, among others.

Compiled by JK and Chris.

– Wil Moss talks to the Apocalipstix team.

– Good news: IDW is going to alter the format of the Dick Tracy books in order to allow the Sunday pages to be printed at a larger size.

– Brigid Alverson talks to Templar, Arizona creator Charlie Trotman.

– The Daily Cross Hatch chats up Cory Doctorow.

– Frank Santoro on Kyle Baker’s How to Draw Stupid.

– Franklin Harris recounts the history of EC Comics for Reason.

– James Kochalka takes a stab at recreating a classic Fantastic Four page.

– Yen Press is hopping on the four-panel manga bandwagon.

Although the two big summer-event miniseries take a breather this week, Wednesday sees the debut of DC’s much-anticipated tie-in Legion of Three Worlds — which could end up faring better than Final Crisis itself.

For Marvel it’s all about collections: Mighty Avengers, Amazing Spider-Man, Punisher: War Journal Classic, Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane and X-Men: Divided We Stand, for starters.

Elsewhere, Dark Horse releases the first volumes of Herbie Archives and MySpace Dark Horse Presents, IDW Publishing debuts Doctor Who: Forgotten and a Scorchy Smith hardcover, Viz reaches the home stretch with Naoki Urasawa’s Monster, and Dynamite rolls out the fifth issue of Project: Superpowers.

To see what other titles Chris Mautner and I think are worth mentioning, just keep reading. As always, let us know your choices in the comments below.

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Mandalay Pictures has acquired the film rights to Julius, Antony Johnston and Brett Weldele’s modern-day retelling of Julius Caesar.

F. Gary Gray (The Italian Job, The Negotiator) will direct.

Released in 2004 by Oni Press, Julius reinvisions Shakespeare’s play as an urban crime drama centering on the charismatic leader of a London gang whose generals conspire against him.

Eric Gitter of Closed on Mondays Entertainment, Oni’s movie-production arm, will produce. Peter Schwerin and Joe Nozemack will executive produce.

Julius is the latest in a string of Oni projects being developed for the big screen: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Resurrection and Resurrection at Universal; Courtney Crumrin and The Damned at DreamWorks; and Maintenance and Billy Smoke at Warner Bros.

– Stan Sakai shares the character designs for Usagi Yojimbo and Gen from the current Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. Setting my TiVo to “stun” …

– Willy Harold Vassaux is creating an Olympic comic. And will our search hits skyrocket if I mention “superhero” Michael Phelps?

– Brigid Alverson and her fellow contributors at Good Comics for Kids discuss Robot Dreams making Oprah’s Reading List for Kids.

– Film.com analyzes the most rabid fanbases — movies fanbases, that is, like Trekkies, Twilighters and Potterheads. They say Harry Potter fans are the most rabid, even more so than Whedon fans, who I would have picked for the top spot.

– “Because I want to set you free.”

– I’m sorry, but that’s just wrong.

– The New Yorker blog interviews Comics Curmudgeon Josh Fruhlinger.

– Tom Spurgeon talks to Abandoned Cars author Tim Lane.

Compiled by JK and Chris.

The Watchmen “trailer effect” continues as the trade paperback slips just three places to No. 18 in its fourth week on USA Today’s bestseller list.

The trailer for Zack Snyder’s adaptation was released on July 17 with The Dark Knight, driving the collection of the 1986 miniseries to No. 83 in just three days. USA Today’s chart tracks all genres and formats of books sold in some 4,700 brick-and-mortar and online stores.

To meet increased demand for the Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons trade paperback, DC Comics ordered an additional 300,000 copies. BookScan recorded Watchmen selling 10,000 copies in just one week; last year, it sold about 100,000 copies in total.

Watchmen, which topped BookScan’s July graphic novels chart, climbed as high as No. 2 on Amazon.com’s bestseller list. It now rests at No. 10.

Update: This morning’s New York Times reports that DC has printed an additional 900,000 copies of Watchmen since the trailer debuted. That means the book will have a print run of more than one million copies this year.

Epileptic creator David B. will attend several events in Seattle this weekend, including a discussion with Peter Bagge and Jim Woodring on Sunday. Complete details can be found here.

Congrats to First Second and Sara Varon, whose Robot Dreams graphic novel made Oprah’s reading list for 6-9 year olds:

Robot Dreams by Sara Varon
In this nearly wordless book, comic book-style illustrations tell the story of Dog and his best friend, Robot. When the two become separated, readers follow their separate—and very different—experiences, which are amusing, wistful and truly thought provoking.

I’d be curious to know if/how this kind of attention affects sales on the book — which is worth checking out by both kids and adults, BTW.

If you’re into Secret Invasion – I mean really into it — this is a good week for you. Or if not “good,” at least pricey: The fifth issue of the miniseries event hits this Wednesday, along with four direct tie-ins and a peripheral title.

DC, meanwhile, debuts another Final Crisis tie-in, Revelations, and dusts off the 20-year-old Millennium. Yes, the crossover that gave the world the New Guardians.

If superhero event comics aren’t your bag, Fanfare/Ponent Mon releases Hideo Azuma’s Disappearance Diary and Jiro Taniguchi’s The Ice Wanderer, IDW Publishing debuts Ben Templesmith’s Welcome to Hoxford, and Viz Media brings out Hiroe Rei’s Black Lagoon.

To see what other titles Chris Mautner and I think are worth mentioning, just keep reading. As always, let us know your choices in the comments below.

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I picked up a preview ashcan of Faith Erin Hick’s next comic, The War at Ellsmere, in San Diego. She definitely won me over as a fan with Zombies Calling, so I’m looking forward to buying her sophomore book when it comes out in December.

She talks about the new book over on her blog:

The War at Ellsmere is the story of Juniper, an aggressively self-sufficient 13 year old who wins a scholarship to the prestigious (and slightly creepy) Ellsmere Academy, a girls’ school which Jun hopes will gain her easier entry into ivy league post-secondary schools. While at the school Jun makes friends with a crazy girl named Cassie who thinks there’s a mythical monster living in the forest next door, and offends the school’s alpha student, a dead-eyed, probably dead-souled girl named Emily. Jun’s defiance of Emily leads to an escalating war between the two of them, which finally results in … well, you’ll just have to read the book to find out, won’t you?

I have to tell you, this book has been kicking my ass since January. When I started I was pretty terrified, sure I wouldn’t be able to properly convey the school setting and manage the multiple plotlines, and I took everything I learned from doing Zombies Calling and applied it to this book. I think it is a big step up in terms of storytelling for me. I tried to pay attention to all the legitimate criticisms I received from Zombies Calling and address them (the most common being that Zombies Calling was a bit short; Ellsmere will be nearly 40 pages longer).

You can check out a preview of the book here.

Bryan Lee O’Malley points to an animated ad for the Scott Pilgrim series, created by Chris Niosi, and voiced by him and his friends.

The 22-year-old Watchmen continues its climb up the book charts, fueled by the trailer for Zack Snyder’s upcoming adaptation.

The collection of the Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons miniseries pushed another 14 places up USA Today’s Top 150 list to No. 15. Natsuki Takaya’s Fruits Basket reached the same spot in April 2007; that may be the highest position held by a graphic novel.

USA Today’s chart tracks all genres and formats of books sold in some 4,700 brick-and-mortar and online stores.

So, it probably comes as no surprise that Watchmen topped BookScan’s Top 20 graphic novels chart in July.

To meet increased demands for the trade paperback, DC Comics has ordered an additional 300,000 copies. (Previous reports placed the order between 200,000 and 250,000.) DC President and Publisher Paul Levitz told Publishers Weekly that BookScan recorded Watchmen selling 10,000 copies in just one week.

The Watchmen trailer was released July 17 with The Dark Knight, whose box-office success has given a boost to several Batman collections.

Batman: The Killing Joke, the 1988 graphic novel that served as inspiration for the movie’s version of The Joker, entered the USA Today list last week at No. 114. Although it fell off the list this week, it was No. 4 on BookScan’s July chart, followed by Batman: The Long Halloween at No. 8, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns at No. 11, and Batman: Year One at No. 13.

… or a dream, actually. Rose & Isabel creator Ted Mathot begins to explain the process behind the creation of his two-part graphic novel series:

The first thing I needed was an idea, and a strong one that I would be able to stick with for the duration of the project. As cheesy as it may sound, I had a dream about the story before I ever wrote or drew anything. All it was was a single shot of three brothers and two sisters walking away down a road in Civil War uniforms, going to fight for their country. I had just finished reading Elmore Leonard’s Tishomingo Blues, about a mob hit that was to be carried out during a Civil War re-enactment, so that may have been partially responsible for the dream’s content. Anyhow, the dream even had a piece of music that went along with it (including lyrics that had something to do with families fighting together) but when I woke I couldn’t remember the words or hum the tune. But I had the kernel of the idea.

August kind of creeps up on you, doesn’t it? It seems like only yesterday that we were counting down to crises, and being infiltrated by one alien or another.

And now, here we are, with the third issue of Final Crisis — plus a “Director’s Cut” of Issue 1! — and the second issue of the ancillary Secret Invasion series Front Line.

This week also sees the first Creepy Archives from Dark Horse, a trio of “Batman R.I.P” tie-ins, the (limited) return of NYX and Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, a hardcover Bleach Collector’s Edition and, after some delay, the appearances of Special Forces #3 and Okko: The Cycle of Earth.

To see what other titles Chris Mautner and I think are worth mentioning, just keep reading. As always, let us know your choices in the comments below.

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Paramount and Plan B pick up Crilley’s Miki Falls

Paramount Pictures and Brad Pitt’s Plan B have acquired the film rights to Miki Falls, the manga-influenced series by Akiko creator Mark Crilley.

Sera Gamble (Supernatural, Eyes) will adapt the comic, which chronicles the final year of high school for Miki Yoshida. When she tries to befriend handsome new student Hiro Sakurai, she is rebuffed. Stubborn Miki, however, won’t take no for an answer, and uncovers a surprising secret about the enigmatic young man.

The four-volume series, which spans the seasons of the year, was published from May to December 2007 by HarperTeen.

The Ticker

• JK Parkin reported this from Comic-Con, but now the Hollywood trades have picked up on it: Disney has optioned Monster Attack Network, the AiT/Planet Lar graphic novel by Marc Bernardin and Adam Freeman. [Variety, The Hollywood Reporter]

• The current edition of Production Weekly lists Warner Bros.’ Green Lantern movie as in active development (that’s not exactly news), and provides a broad description that seems to stay true to the character’s origin: “Each sector of space is protected by a Green Lantern, possessing a power ring that uses a powerful green energy to do anything within the limits of the user’s imagination and will power. When the Green Lantern assigned to this sector of space finds himself dying on planet Earth, he tells the ring to find a suitable successor. The chosen replacement, hot-shot test pilot Hal Jordan, finds himself with a new job he never expected. [Slashfilm]

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Full disclosure in that Grant Gould is a friend of mine. It may not be important to you that he’s one of the nicest dudes I know and that he constantly cracks me the hell up, but what should be important to you are that he’s talented and the following three words: Vikings vs. Werewolves. How can you not want to read that?

Grant’s career so far is mainly as a sketch card artist for every major trading card set from Revenge of the Sith to Iron Man. His first comic Wolves of Odin is coming in November from Super Real Graphics, but I wanted to know more now, so I asked him some questions and I’m sharing the answers with you. He was also recently announced as one of the artists on Lucasfilm’s Clone Wars webcomic, but I’ll save that conversation for a future column.

Michael May (MM): Tell me about your background with sketch cards. How’d you get into that?

Grant Gould (GG): In 2004, Topps was looking for new artists to tackle their Revenge of the Sith card set and one of my online pals, artist Tom Hodges, was already on the set and gave me the heads-up and put in a good word, etc. I sent Topps some samples, they got me approved through Lucasfilm, and that was that. Since then I’ve worked on several more Star Wars sets, Lord of the Rings sets, DC, Marvel, Heroes, Halo, Indiana Jones, you name it. Sketch cards have been huge for me in terms of helping to get my name out there and get my foot in the door.

MM: What’s your favorite piece that you’ve done so far?

GG: As in, which is my favorite card set so far?

MM: I’m wondering more about which drawing of yours are you most proud of? You’ve done so many sketch cards and commissions and fan prints; is there one particular piece that you still look at and think, “Yeah, that was a really good one.”

GG: Well, I tend to be my own worst critic. I have a habit of really liking a piece, then going to sleep and looking at it the next day and suddenly hating it. But there are a few things I’ve done that I’m pretty pleased with, even if I do see faults in the art that I wish I could change. For example, on the most recent Lord of the Rings: Masterpieces card set, I had the opportunity to illustrate one of the base cards and that was a huge thrill because I’m such a massive fan of Tolkien and the LOTR movies. I think I tend to be most proud of the projects that I enjoyed the most – not so much the projects that I think the drawings look the best, if that makes sense.

MM: Perfect sense. Drawing sketch cards and commissions is pretty secure work for you, right? What’s the attraction to making a comic that makes you want to spend more time on that and less time on the work that pays more regularly? In other words, at this point in your career, why comics?

GG: To be honest, sketch cards and commission work aren’t very secure, or reliable, in terms of making a living off this stuff. I knew that I would have to start branching out into other things if I wanted to keep any sort of fulltime art career going. I think there are three major factors in me getting into comic work:

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