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. (2) The Far Side 2008 Desk Calendar, Gary Larson (Andrews McMeel)
2. (1) Senior’s Discount, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
3. (3) Naruto Vol. 27, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
4. (6) Garfield Goes Bananas, Jim Davis (Random House)
5. (5) Naruto Vol. 26, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
6. (4) Naruto Vol. 25, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
7. (7) Dark Tower:The Gunslinger Born, Peter David/Robin Furth (Marvel)
8. (-) Fullmetal Alchemist Vol. 15, Hiromu Arakawa (VIZ)
9. (13) Teaching Is a Learning Experience!, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
10. (9) Naruto Vol. 24, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
11. (8) Fruits Basket 18, Natsuki Takaya (Tokyopop)
12. (24) Herman: Living With Animals, Jim Unger (ECW Press)
13. (10) Naruto Vol. 22, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
14. (11) Naruto Vol. 1, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)(
15. (18) The Essential Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson (Andrews McMeel)
16. (27) The Authoritative Calvin And Hobbes, Bill Watterson (Andrews McMeel)
17. (12) Naruto Vol. 23, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
18. (21) Alternative Zits, Jim Borgman Jerry Scott (Andrews McMeel)
19. (22) Dilbert: Cubes and Punishment, Scott Adams (Andrews McMeel)
20. (26) Naruto, Volume 3: Vol. 3, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
21. (-) Calvin and Hobbes 10th Anniversary, Bill Watterson (Andrews McMeel)
22. (14) Death Note, Volume 1, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
23. (47) Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (Pantheon)
24. (-) Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat, Bill Watterson (Andrews McMeel)
25. (-) The Calvin & Hobbes Lazy Sunday Book, Bill Watterson (Andrews McMeel)
26. (-) Naruto, Vol. 4, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
27. (-) And When She Opened the Closet, All the Clothes Were Polyest: A FoxTrot Collection, Bill Amend (Andrews McMeel)
28. (15) Bumper Book of Bunny Suicides, Andy Riley (Hodder)
29. (30) Spy vs. Spy 2: The Joke and Dagger Files, Shayne & Abrams (Watson-Guptill)
30. (-) Loserpalooza: A Get Fuzzy Treasury, Darby Conley (Andrews McMeel)
31. (19) Naruto Vol. 19, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
32. (-) Tundra Comics Presents: True North, Chad Carpenter (Altitude)
33. (-) Dramacon 3, Svetlana Chmakova (Tokyopop)
34. (20) Buffy 1: The Long Way Home/Season Eight, Joss Whedon et al (Dark Horse)
35. (16) Naruto Vol. 21, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
36. (-) The Indispensable Calvin And Hobbes, Bill Watterson (Andrews McMeel)
37. (-) The Best of Pokemon Adventures: Red:Red, Hidenori Kusaka Mato (VIZ)
38. (29) Naruto, Volume 2: Vol. 2, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
39. (35) Bleach, Vol. 3, Tite Kubo (VIZ)
40. (17) Death Note, Volume 2, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
41. (33) Vampire Knight Vol. 3, Matsuri Hino (VIZ)
42. (-) The Complete Persepolis: Now a Major Motion Picture, Marjane Satrapi (Knopf)
43. (-) Stick To Drawing Comics Monkey Brain, Scott Adams (Portfolio)
44. (-) Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History, Art Spiegelman (Knopf)
45. (23) Naruto Vol. 20, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
46. (-) Vampire Knight Vol. 1, Matsuri Hino (VIZ)
47. (37) Chibi Vampire 6, Yuna Kagesaki (Tokyopop)
48. (28) Hobbit Graphic Novel, Tolkien et al (Harpercollins)
49. (45) Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography, Chester Brown (D+Q)
50. (-) Trivial Simpsons 2008 366 Day Calendar, Matt Groening (Harpercollins)

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 continues to be Christmas and a spate of sales for strip collections and classics, including tons of Calvin and Hobbes. Calendars (technically comics collections) are also big and one of the many Far Side calendars finally succeeded this week in knocking Lynn Johnston out of the top spot.

The Top 1000 is a wondrous, scary place, where everyone from Todd Hignite to Charles Schulz to the Transformers to Jerry Siegel to Linda Medley 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. (5) Dramacon 3, Svetlana Chmakova (Tokyopop)
4. (3) Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography, Chester Brown (D+Q)
5. (12) White Rapids, Pascal Blanchet (D+Q)
6. (4) She’s Turning into One of Them!, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
7. (8) Scott Pilgrim 4: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, Bryan Lee O’Malley (Oni)
8. (-) The BackBench Collection, Graham Harrop (Ronsdale Press)
9. (7) Never Wink at a Worried Woman, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
10. (9) Graphic Witness: Four Wordless Graphic Novels, George A Walker (Firefly)
11. (13) Suddenly Silver, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
12. (6) The Plain Janes, Cecil Castellucci et al (DC/Minx)
13. (17) The Big 5-0, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
14. (-) Portfoolio 22 [political cartoons], Guy Badeaux, et al (Mcarthur & Company)
15. (20) Dramacon 1, Svetlana Chmakova (Tokyopop)
16. (-) Extraction!: a comix reportage, Marc Tessier Fredric Dubois (Cumulus Press)
17. (11) the great hopeful someday, Elisabeth Belliveau (Conundrum Press)
18. (16) Northwest Passage: Annotated Collection, Scott Chantler (Oni)
19. (18) Striking A Cord, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
20. (19) Essex County 2: Ghost Stories, Jeff Lemire (Top Shelf)

The list continues with Therefore Repent!, Family Business: A For Better or For Worse Collection, With This Ring: A For Better or For Worse Collection, Dramacon 2, Remembering Farley, The Spirit Hardcover, Lynn Johnston’s Last Straw, It’S The Thought That Counts: A For Better or For Worse Fifteenth Anniversary Collection, Middle Age Spread-Fbfw Collection, and The New Frontier, in that order. Yes, there are that many Lynn Johnston books in the top 1000.