Did you say you wanted more year-end awards? Closing out the year, ICv2 offers up its two-part 2003 Comic Awards. At least with a retailer-oriented website, there's no pretense about "artistic merit" or "contribution to the medium." No, they're looking at the dollars, baby. I like that.

Tokyopop, of course, gets the nod for Comic Company of the Year, while top-selling "Batman: Hush" is named Comic Product of the Year. (Let's face it, "Hush" was just a "product" -- a marketing product. Enough of the nonsense about it being a "good mystery" -- the story was not particularly good or a mystery -- and it didn't revitalize the Batman franchise. It sold books. Or, rather, Jim Lee's art sold books. And that was the intent.)

Where was I? Oh, yeah. The ICv2 awards. The few remaining recipients are equally predictable, if you look at it from a retailer perspective. They're the items and companies that performed well for them. Good enough.

And the Comic Flop of the Year? Well, no real shock there, either: Mark Millar's "Trouble," which was touted as turning the romance genre, and the industry, on its ear.

Says ICv2: "Perhaps a trade paperback edition will find favor with female readers in the bookstore market and reverse the fortunes of this title, but more likely 'Trouble' won't satisfy that audience any more than it did the hardcore Marvel fans."