The Top 50 Graphic Novels in Canada, courtesy of BookManager (copyright TBM BookManager). This list is accurate for the week ending December 9. The full list is available here. The list is compiled by BookManager based on sales through over 250 independent bookstores (including at least one comics shop). Sales through the majority of comic shops and larger retailers like Chapters-Indigo and Walmart are not reflected in this list. For balance, you might want to try the Amazon.ca and Chapters-Indigo lists.
Top 50 Comics and Graphic Novels in Canada
1. (1) Senior’s Discount, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
2. (5) The Far Side 2008 Desk Calendar, Gary Larson (Andrews McMeel)
3. (4) Naruto Vol. 27, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
4. (9) Naruto Vol. 25, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
5. (2) Naruto Vol. 26, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
6. (3) Garfield Goes Bananas, Jim Davis (Random House)
7. (6) Dark Tower:The Gunslinger Born, Peter David/Robin Furth (Marvel)
8. (7) Fruits Basket 18, Natsuki Takaya (Tokyopop)
9. (8) Naruto Vol. 24, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
10. (10) Naruto Vol. 22, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
11. (11) Naruto, Volume 1: Vol. 1, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
12. (12) Naruto Vol. 23, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
13. (13) Teaching Is a Learning Experience!, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
14. (29) Death Note, Volume 1, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
15. (14) Bumper Book of Bunny Suicides, Andy Riley (Hodder)
16. (17) Naruto Vol. 21, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
17. (30) Death Note, Volume 2, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
18. (44) The Essential Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson (Andrews McMeel)
19. (15) Naruto Vol. 19, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
20. (37) Buffy 1: The Long Way Home/Season Eight, Joss Whedon et al (Dark Horse)
21. (31) Alternative Zits, Jim Borgman Jerry Scott (Andrews McMeel)
22. (18) Dilbert: Cubes and Punishment, Scott Adams (Andrews McMeel)
23. (16) Naruto Vol. 20, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
24. (20) Herman: Living With Animals, Jim Unger (ECW Press)
25. (19) Naruto Vol. 16, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
26. (-) Naruto, Volume 3: Vol. 3, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
27. (27) The Authoritative Calvin And Hobbes, Bill Watterson (Andrews McMeel)
28. (-) Hobbit Graphic Novel, Tolkien et al (Harpercollins)
29. (22) Naruto, Volume 2: Vol. 2, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
30. (26) Spy vs. Spy 2: The Joke and Dagger Files, Shayne & Abrams (Watson-Guptill)
31. (48) Death Note, Volume 3, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
32. (23) Naruto Vol. 17, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
33. (21) Vampire Knight Vol. 3, Matsuri Hino (VIZ)
34. (-) Naruto, Vol. 13, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
35. (-) Bleach, Vol. 3, Tite Kubo (VIZ)
36. (-) Naruto, Vol. 7, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
37. (24) Chibi Vampire 6, Yuna Kagesaki (Tokyopop)
38. (-) Attack Of The Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons, Bill Watterson (Andrews McMeel)
39. (35) Bleach, Volume 1, Tite Kubo (VIZ)
40. (33) Naruto Vol 15, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
41. (-) Watchmen, Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons (DC)
42. (-) I’m Ready for My Movie Contract: Get Fuzzy, Darby Conley (Andrews McMeel)
43. (-) Bleach Vol. 21, Tite Kubo (VIZ)
44. (25) Tsubasa 15: Reservoir Chronicle, Clamp (Random House)
45. (50) Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography, Chester Brown (D+Q)
46. (-) Big Beastly Book of Bart Simpson, Matt Groening (Harpercollins)
47. (-) Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (Pantheon)
48. (46) Scientific Progress Goes Boink, Bill Watterson (Andrews McMeel)
49. (-) Garfield Fat Cat 3-Pack, Jim Davis (Random House)
50. (-) Kingdom Hearts II Vol. 1, Shiro Amano/Tetsuya Nomura (Tokyopop)
See here for last week’s list. I’ve added last week’s ranking in parentheses, with a (-) indicating an absence from the top 50 last week –although books that were not in the top 50 last week were most likely in the top 100, with the possible exception of a few newly published hits. The pattern that emerges from looking at these lists over a period of weeks is that certain books, especially manga series, continuously jostle with each other, sliding up and down the longer list on the strength of a new volume or a spate of purchases for the kiddies (it is Xmas, after all). While it is still largely a Naruto world out there (aided and abetted by other series that benefit from the YTV-effect like Bleach ), the big news is Christmas and a spate of sales for strip collections and classics. The crossover U.S. graphic novels on the list (Dark Tower and Buffy) are joined this week by Persepolis and Watchmen, while Louis Riel continues its pre-Christmas surge.
The Top 1000 is a wondrous, scary place, where everyone from Todd Hignite to Charles Schulz to the Transformers to Jerry Siegel to Andy Runton duke it out and where one sale in one tiny bookstore can move a book from #999 to #200. This is also the place where you find books by Canadian creators and where the Canadian Top 20 comes from:
Sequential’s All-Canadian Top 20
from BookManager’s Top 1000
1. (1) Senior’s Discount, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
2. (2) Teaching is a Learning Experience!, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
3. (3) Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography, Chester Brown (D+Q)
4. (4) She’s Turning into One of Them!, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
5. (-) Dramacon 3, Svetlana Chmakova (Tokyopop)
6. (7) The Plain Janes, Cecil Castellucci et al (DC/Minx)
7. (5) Never Wink at a Worried Woman, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
8. (-) Scott Pilgrim 4: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, Bryan Lee O’Malley (Oni)
9. (20) Graphic Witness: Four Wordless Graphic Novels, George A Walker (Firefly)
10. (6) The Spirit (Hardcover), Darwyn Cooke/Jeph Loeb/J Bone (DC)
11. (-) the great hopeful someday, Elisabeth Belliveau (Conundrum Press)
12. (11) White Rapids, Pascal Blanchet (D+Q)
13. (8) Suddenly Silver, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
14. (14) Middle Age Spread, Lynn Johnston/Velda Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
15. (-) DC The New Frontier (Paperback), Darwyn Cooke (DC)
16. (16) Northwest Passage: Annotated Collection, Scott Chantler (Oni)
17. (15) The Big 5-0, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
18. (-) Striking A Cord, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
19. (17) Essex County 2: Ghost Stories, Jeff Lemire (Top Shelf)
20. (9) Dramacon 1, Svetlana Chmakova (Tokyopop)
The top 1000 contains more than the usual amount of higher ranking Can-con than usual this week. A revised “Top 24” would include:
21. (10) Dramacon 2, Svetlana Chmakova (Tokyopop)
22. (-) Therefore Repent! Jim Munroe/Salgood Sam (Insomniac)
23. (12) Remembering Farley, Lynn Johnston/Velda Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
24. (13) What Next, Aislin (MacArthur & Co.)
As well, the top 20 features some very high debuts for Svetlana Chmakova, Bryan Lee O’Malley, and Elisabeth Belliveau. Various titles that contain work by Canuck artists (Nextwave and Y: The Last Man, for instance) are quite highly ranked in the top 1000, as are the Flight anthologies and various books published by D+Q featuring foreign creators (Moomin, Rutu Modan, Adrian Tomine, etc). I almost included the Marvel trade paperback Omega Flight: Alpha to Omega at the
#11 spot, but since the only Canadian thing about it is the subject matter… (ditto for Avril Lavigne’s Make 5 Wishes series).