Licensing and marketing firm Building Q has entered into a consulting agreement with Comic Images. Building Q will help Comic Images-best known for its line of World Wrestling Federation trading cards-to diversify its product line through the acquisition of key licenses. Comic Images currently markets over 200 lines of cards, with licenses including South Park and G.I. Joe.

American Champion Marketing Group has been awarded the licensing and merchandising representation for Mainframe Entertainment’s Gatecrasher. The animated half-hour series, based on Black Bull Entertainment’s sci-fi comic books, is slated to debut fall 2001.

Newly formed Connecticut-based licensing/intellectual property management firm Bell Consulting recently opened its doors with a diverse roster of clients including YTV’s Nanalan’, chocolate manufacturer RM Palmer Company, Reagan Books and Trinity Products.

Markham, Ontario-based Power Kiosks has signed a licensing agreement with Universal Studios Licensing that allows the company to use a large selection of Universal Studio’s entertainment properties in its network of stand-alone digital photo-imaging kiosks. The renewable agreement runs through December 31, 2003.

Link Licensing (U.K.) and Millimages (France) has granted BBC Worldwide the U.K. publishing, video and CD-ROM rights for Ethelbert the Tiger. The series (52 x five minutes) follows an adventurous tiger cub who travels around the world with the help of his friend Dilip and a magic waterfall. Currently screening on BBC1, the series is set to appear next on La Cinquieme (France). The first books and videos based on Ethelbert will be launched in summer 2001.

Hamburg-based Igel Media is set to market the cartoon heroes of its library via merchandising for the first time ever through StudioCanal Licence Deutschland. The merchandising subsidiary of the French StudioCanal Group will represent The Magician, Space Goofs-Home to rent and Oggy and the Cockroaches in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Germany’s Super RTL will broadcast Oggy and the Cockroaches weekdays, beginning January 2001, and has a 30% share in merchandising revenues. StudioCanal Licence Deutschland is currently in negotiations with licensees in a variety of categories and expects the first contracts to be signed by year-end 2000.

New Line Cinema has appointed The Licensing Company to initiate the U.K. licensing program for J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic property The Lord of the Rings. Fellowship of the Ring, the first installment in The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, is scheduled for simultaneous U.K./U.S. release in December 2001.

Cologne-based licensor and kids TV prodco BKN International has signed a five-year, US$13-million license for non-North American TV, video and merchandising rights to the GoodTimes Entertainment library. The deal excludes non-North American and German-speaking Europe rights to GoodTime’s Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which GoodTimes will retain until 2011. BKN will license the direct-to-video release of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys, set for a September 2001 release. The deal also includes a three-year first-look contract with GoodTimes for future films based on Rudolph characters.