Sources confirm that the venture has been closed. However, in a statement released by Virgin Comics CEO Sharad Devarajan (who is also president of Gotham Entertainment), he also confirmed that the company has closed the New York City office. Devarajan said that the company is "restructuring" and will relocate to new and as yet unspecified offices in Los Angeles.

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Virgin Comics was launched in early 2006 with an ambitious program to create a list of high profile superhero and adventure print comics inspired by Indian/Hindu mythology that could also be licensed as potential film and merchandise properties to a global audience of pop culture consumers. The high profile venture not only included financing by Branson but also included bestselling author Deepak Chopra, who is chairman of Virgin Comics and wrote a comics biography of Buddha for the house. In addition, his son, Gotham Chopra, is chief creative officer and editor-in-chief of Virgin Comics/Virgin Animation.

Mr. Turner died June 27 at a Santa Monica hospital of complications related to cancer, said Vince Hernandez, editor in chief of Aspen MLT, the Santa Monica publishing company Mr. Turner founded in 2003. Through his company, Mr. Turner created online comic adaptations for the NBC series "Heroes" and published his own titles, including the best-selling Fathom, a deep-sea story about a female superhero with water-based powers.

"He was definitely one of the most popular and influential comic-book artists working right now," said Andrew Farago, curator of San Francisco's Cartoon Art Museum. "He was very, very much in demand as a cover artist on high-profile projects." Since 2000, Mr. Turner had battled chondrosarcoma, a bone cancer. The illness hindered his ability to do the labor-intensive sequential art required of comic-book storytelling and was one reason he turned to drawing covers.

He was a bankable name whose ethereal yet dynamic cover art often boosted sales. Ryan Liebowitz, general manager of the Golden Apple Comics store in Los Angeles, said Mr. Turner's name was synonymous with special-edition covers that often became collectibles. "He was doing just the covers for the biggest and best projects -- Justice League for DC or Civil War for Marvel," Liebowitz said. "Fans would clamor for that."

He died Saturday at his home in the Philadelphia suburb of Tredyffrin Township after a 1 1/2-year battle with cancer, his son Peter Key said Monday. "Hazel" was a popular feature in The Saturday Evening Post from the time it debuted in 1943. It evolved into a prime-time series in 1961 that starred Shirley Booth and ran for four years on NBC and one year on CBS.

Key also created the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman for producer Jay Ward. The time-traveling dog/scientist and his boy made their TV debuts in 1959 in segments on the animated show "Rocky and His Friends." He created cartoon panels called "Diz and Liz" for the Jack and Jill children's magazine and produced a number of other animal characters. He also wrote a play for radio, authored and illustrated books, and had freelance cartoons appear in Cosmopolitan, Better Homes and Gardens and Sports Illustrated.

Key literally dreamed up the concept of his wildly popular maid cartoon. "Like a lot of creative people, he kept a notepad near his bedside," Peter Key said of his father. "He had a dream about a maid who took a message, but she screwed it up completely. When he looked at the idea the next day, he thought it was good and sold it to the Post." Key randomly picked the name for the maid and was flattered that it later became synonymous with maids, according to his son.

Key acquired the rights to "Hazel" in 1969 and the comic was picked up for syndication by King Features. King still distributes the cartoon today, using those drawn by Key before he retired in 1993. "Hazel" was so popular that when the first collection of cartoons was published in 1946, E.P. Dutton sold 500,000 copies. In all, Dutton published eight collections of "Hazel" cartoons.

In Holy Terror, Batman!, a new graphic novel by the Batman writer Frank Miller, the Caped Crusader will take on al-Qa'eda when his home town, Gotham City, which is based on New York, is attacked by terrorists.

"It is, not to put too fine a point on it, a piece of propaganda - Batman kicks al-Qa'eda's ass," Mr Miller told a San Francisco comic book convention. "It just seems silly to chase around the Riddler when you've got al-Qa'eda out there.

"Superman punched out Hitler. So did Captain America. That's one of the things they're there for. It's an explosion from my gut reaction of what's happening now, a reminder to people who seem to have forgotten who we're up against." Holy Terror, Batman! does not have a scheduled publication date. It is unlikely to appear until next year at the earliest, when it will do battle with Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden, which was just released in America.

In this compendium of all his statements, bin Laden does not name Batman personally, but attacks America as "the Great Satan" for exporting a culture of pornography and violence.

"If we don't inspire players to role-play, we haven't done our job. But going along, staying in character is something of a trust the players keep. I understand British theater people call unintentional giggling onstage 'corpsing,' as a skit being performed quickly 'dies' from such misbehavior. Similarly, if players don't buy into being an agent of the Merovingian, say, and say or do things that break the illusion, our collective enterprise falters. Ultimately, though, it's incumbent on us to throw enough engaging conflicts, characters and surprises at players that they are content to dwell within the fiction.

"[T]his is kind of funny. I've found myself in an odd position, politically. The Monolith team [which builds the game from Chadwick's directions] shows me far too much deference, being the 'oracle of the Wachowski brothers' as I am. The brothers, of course, are occupied making new movies, and not actively managing the game. Basically, when I finish a new draft of the year's outline, I run it by them, and they offer 'notes' -- corrections and approvals. But nobody's ever given me a deadline schedule, or even pressured me too much to produce more. So far, my healthy guilt complex has caused me to produce enough content to stay ahead. But I could benefit from a rigorously structured editorial process."