While on a trip to the southwest, I stopped by Sante Fe's famed, and only, comic book store, True Believers Comics & Gallery for a chat with general manager Chris Diestler about the state of the shop and the industry.

Chris Diestler of True Believers Comics & Gallery

Here is some of what he had to say.

What is a strong seller? Y the Last Man trade paperbacks. We probably sell five times as many trades as single issues. There were a lot of people who got into the series late and it is too expensive to go back and buy the issues.

Also, we sell a ton of Image's The Walking Dead, Marvel Zombies, Marvel's adaptation of Stephen King's Dark Tower and the recently relaunched Buffy the Vampire Slayer written by  Joss Whedon. Actually, anything by Joss Whedon sells really well.

Store demographic: We sell a lot more Vertigo titles than the average shop and our store skews more towards the adult. However, with every Spider-Man and Fantastic Four movie that comes out, we get kids coming in to buy that kind of stuff. For "300," we started selling the trades back in November when they first started to advertise the film. Everybody said "Oh my god, Frank Miller."

Not so hot: I don't know if I should say that. What if Marvel reads this? Spider-Man was not a big seller until the movie came along but he did sell well during the Civil War when he was unmasked.

What I am reading? Scalped by Vertigo, that just started about six months ago. It's about an undercover Indian FBI agent trying to bust up a drug/gambling ring

Reason for the store's continued success: Our location caters to the tourists of Santa Fe and we do not have to completely depend on the locals. Although god bless them because they do really help keep us in business. The tourists will occasionally rummage through our back issue books and easily drop $100 or so.

Recent back issue sales: I just sold three Golden Age Superman books

Future of comics: It's graphic novels and trade paperbacks. Most people who are getting into comics now are finding them at major book stores.  Even when our regular customers miss the first couple of issues of a series, they will just wait for the trade paperbacks rather than pay higher prices on Ebay for the single issues.

Favorites in my personal collection: I really got into comics when John Byrne was drawing the X-Men and George Perez was on Teen Titans so those issues have a real soft spot in my heart and I would never sell them.

Hype around the death of Captain America: I had a waiting list for the book that was a mile long. I had people call me up ordering four issues over the phone with a credit card.

Comics as collectible: I do not sell to people with the promise that they will be worth anything. If you do not get your $3.00 worth of entertainment value out of it then you are spending too much money. People still ask for the Death of Superman issue all of the time and I can sell it for $5 to $10.
[note: weeks after its release back in 1993, the famed "black bag" issue, Superman no. 75, could fetch around $100].

- Joseph Szadkowski

Hasbro and Cartoon Network combine their pop culture might in the upcoming series, "Transformers Animated." Sam Register, executive producer for the series, offers some words of wisdom on the show that will debut in early 2008.

My history with the Transformers: I had started at an ad agency for Hasbro called Griffin Bacal back in the early 1990s. It was my first job out of college and I wrote and produced toy commercials based on the Transformers. It was my first creative job and I got to write and professionally play with toys.

Why does the world need another Transformers animated series? Because it's a perennial favorite and it's one of those properties you can do over and over again in different ways and it is always fun. For example, Batman has been done in 15 different ways and it is still Batman. Some characters really work that way and there is always a new generation of kids that can be reintroduced to the property.

What is your role as the show's executive producer? I helped develop the property from its inception with Hasbro. I brought in the creative team, writer, director and designers. I also worked closely with Hasbro's toy designers to make sure the characters and toys looked as similar as possible to each other, especially with the transformations. The toys, by the way, are mind-blowing. I basically keep the talent on track.

Why did you choose this animation style and how would you describe it? The creators I brought in were all fans of the 1980s animated version of Transformers and this is absolutely an homage to that version with similar character designs, and storylines — right down to the theme song, updated of course.

This animation style is also makes my team of creators come to work every day and enjoy themselves. Essentially, animators and designers are giant children who drive cars. To be able to allow them to work on a property that gave them such joy as children, well, it means they will sleep less and work harder to make a better show in the end.

What storyline will you follow? We went back and tell the origin from a different point of view. One of the main things we did is kept the character count low. If you looked at the old 1980s cartoon, that was not the case as one of the goals was to sell as many toys as possible, not sure ratings were high on the list. When you have hundreds and hundreds of characters, it's hard to commit to any of them. We kept it to five core characters [Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Prowl, Bulkhead and Ratchet] that you could get to learn more about in every episode and have some sort of relationship with rather than a cavalcade of transforming robots.

Sam Register

We wanted the villains to be in there, but you will not see the villains in every episode, another rule we decided to break from the 1980s show. We make the villains bigger and cooler, and they don't get their butt kicked in every episode. And, we had to convince Hasbro to use them sparingly, but when they show up, we make them really tough.

We also brought in a human female character, a softer human for the environment. Since Transformers are aliens, something you forget because they are robots, they have no idea what Earth is about and it makes for a great source for humor and a touchpoint for kids, who are getting to know the world for themselves.

Who is the core audience for this show? Seven-year-old boys are our laser target, but we know that skews lower and higher depending on the love of the Transformers. But we also want to appeal to the girl who happens to turn it on, which we do with a strong female character and setting up strong relationships with the characters.

Will this have the sort of wide-reaching appeal and humor of "Teen Titans" or the more serious fan-based "Star Wars: Clone Wars?" Way more "Teen Titans" than "Star Wars."

What will keep this from becoming just a giant merchandise advertisement for Hasbro? Everything that comes out now for kids, the largest consumer products property of all time I believe is "Lion King," has merchandise ties. It is just part of the business. If we can make really great characters and stories, the products become one of the successes of the property and not the only goal. There is not a big difference between Transformers and Batman. These are great characters that kids really love generation after generation. The only difference is Batman started off as a comic book character and Transformers started off as a toy.

- Joseph Szadkowski

The comic book permeates all levels of popular culture. This sporadic feature reviews some recent examples from the world of digital video discs (compatible with DVD-ROM-enabled computers and home entertainment centers) and also includes a recommended sequential-art reading list to extend the multimedia adventures. Read other reviews in my Saturday column.

The Powerpuff Girls: The Complete First Season, Collector's Series (Warner Home Video, Rated TV PG, $26.99). Creator Craig McCracken's famed female superhero team's exploits arrive compiled on a DVD set featuring the first season's worth of episodes, made famous on the Cartoon Network back in 1998.

For anyone who has forgotten the story, when Professor Utonium mixes sugar, spice and everything nice to make a perfect little girl, Chemical X accidentally gets into the concoction, and the superpowered Buttercup, Blossom and Bubbles are born, ready to protect Townville from a colorful assortment of villains.

The groundbreaking cartoon lasted six seasons and spawned a feature film. It mixed an exaggerated Japanese anime style with a 1960s Hanna-Barbera flair and gave young girls hip new role models.

This two-disc set has the first 13 episodes (usually broken into two shows) along with a pair of pilots, and all are consistently loaded with tongue-in-cheek humor, pop-culture references and action.

I was never a huge fan of the slick series, but I appreciate its place in the history of animation because its success allowed Mr. McCracken eventually to move on to one of my family's favorite cartoons, "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends."

Best Extra: The DVD set is essential for the cartoon fan, but the episodes need a digital cleanup, and a lack of extras makes the discs a bit of a disappointment.

Besides Mr. McCracken's original art-school short, a CNN interview during his stint at Hanna Barbera Studio and his hilarious interview with Space Ghost (he is even judged by the Council of Doom), not much says this is a "collector's edition."

Also, why did Warner Home Video not get Mr. McCracken to take part in some optional commentary tracks for the episodes? This cartoon made him an industry player, and it would have been nice to hear his current take on the insanity of the first season of shows.

Read all about it: DC Comics offered a Powerpuff Girls comic book between 2000 and 2005, and two trade paperbacks "Titans of Townville" and "Go, Girls, Go" ($6.95) are manga-sized compilations that split up the first 10 issues of the series.

- Joseph Szadkowski