Nerd News Roundup – 1.29.08

- The canceled while in it's prime TEEN TITANS cartoon will be making a comeback of sorts. It's been announced that the TT will be joining Boomerang's Boomeraction lineup as of February 2nd.

- For some reason, toy sales in the UK last year are about the only area in the global economy where companies saw growth, up 8% over 2007.

- Fancy yourself a writer? Submit your manuscript to BookRix.com for a chance to have other folks vote on it in their Web Your Book contest. Winners receive $2000, $1000 or one of 3 Kindles.

- Neil Gaiman's recent Newbery award for THE GRAVEYARD BOOK isn't the end of the good news for the author. Fans of the book will be stoked/horrified to hear that it's also been optioned for a movie by Neil Jordan.

- The first ever motion comic produced solely for the iPod Touch and iPhone has been released. Sparks will run you 99 cents and is a continuation of the comic book that was published in 2008.

- If you live in or around San Francisco, then you may want to make time to take the kids to see the Stan Sakai retrospective at the Cartoon Art Museum. The show opens on February 27th. If you get up there right now, you can see the Art of CORALINE exhibit, running through February 15th.

- Due to an impending crisis in the Japanese population -- it's aging faster than any country in the world -- some corporations are essentially ordering workers to go home and make babies. Revealing/scary quote: "It's great that we can go home early and not feel ashamed," said employee Miwa Iwasaki."

- STAR TREK will be attacking the younger demographic when the JJ Abrams flick drops. New toy deals have been announced all over the place, including remote controlled flying vehicles from Tyco, multiple Trek-branded games like Uno and Scrabble and, of course, the pre-requisite action figures.