* Audio: Time Warner AudioBooks said Thursday...

* Audio: Time Warner AudioBooks said Thursday it has purchased the audio rights to Batman, Han Solo and Henry Rollins. The 10-month-old joint venture of the Atlantic Group and Time Warner Trade Publishing is pursuing plans to produce audio programming in a variety of genres.

A contract with Lucasfilm will see the spoken-word release of the “Star Wars” trilogy and audio comics based on two of Lucasfilm’s “Dark Horse” comic book lines. TWAB will time the release this June of its audio “Wyatt Earp” to coincide with the Warner Bros. film starring Kevin Costner and the Warner Books paperback novel.

TWAB’s audio and Warner Books’ mass market paperback novelization will be released simultaneously with the picture’s theatrical opening. In April, TWAB released the storybook and tape of the Don Bluth film “Thumbelina,” which is being distributed by Warner Bros. “Black Beauty” will be available in July.

TWAB has also acquired the North American audio rights to the DC Comics characters Batman and Superman. In July, TWAB will release “Batman: The Complete Knightfall Saga,” a full-cast audio adventure based on the record-breaking story line in DC’s Batman Comics.

The program will be produced under license with the BBC in England by award-winning producer Dirk Maggs in Dolby Surround Sound. “Superman Lives!” also produced by Maggs, will be available for the first time in video and music stores in July.

For hard-core fans, former Black Flag member Henry Rollins’ account of life on the road with the band is to be released on CD and audiocassette in August. On the more traditional book side of the business, TWAB will produce audio versions of the cyberpunk bible “Neuromancer,” with author William Gibson, and Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” the story that served as the basis for the hit film “Bladerunner.”