The Top 50 Graphic Novels in Canada, courtesy of BookManager. The full list is available here. The list is compiled by BookManager based on sales through over 400 independent bookstores. Sales through 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. This list has two parts, the top 50 overall and (at the bottom) the top 25 by Canadian creators.

Top 50 Comics and Graphic Novels in Canada

1. (1) Bleach, Vol. 22, Tite Kubo (VIZ)
2. (4) Naruto, Vol. 2, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
3. (6) Tsubasa 16: Reservoir Chronicle (Paperback), Clamp (Random House)
4. (2) Naruto Vol. 25, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
5. (5) Naruto Vol. 26, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
6. (3) Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (Pantheon)
7. (14) Death Note, Vol. 13, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
8. (9) Senior’s Discount, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
9. (8) Naruto Vol. 27, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
10. (-) Death Note, Vol. 4, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
11. (24) Death Note, Volume 3, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
12. (10) Death Note, Vol. 1, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
13. (7) Naruto Vol. 1, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
14. (40) Vampire Knight Vol. 2, Matsuri Hino (VIZ)
15. (36) Naruto, Official Fanbook, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
16. (31) Death Note, Vol. 5, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
17. (-) Vampire Knight Vol. 1, Matsuri Hino (VIZ)
18. (17) Hack Gu Vol. 1, Hamazaki Tatsuya (Tokyopop)
19. (11) Garfield Goes Bananas, Jim Davis (Random House)
20. (13) Naruto Vol. 4, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
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21. (12) Death Note, Vol. 2, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
22. (-) Naruto Vol. 20, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
23. (45) Dark Tower:The Gunslinger Born, Peter David (Marvel)
24. (-) Naruto Vol. 17, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
25. (16) Absolute Boyfriend, Vol. 5, Yuu Watase (VIZ)
26. (19) Vampire Knight Vol. 3, Matsuri Hino (VIZ)
27. (23) Bleach, Vol. 1, Tite Kubo (VIZ)
28. (25) Bleach, Vol. 2, Tite Kubo (VIZ)
29. (20) Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography, Chester Brown (D+Q)
30. (-) Asterix and the Falling Sky, Uderzo (Orion)
31. (-) Complete Persepolis, Satrapi (Knopf)
32. (18) Naruto Vol. 24, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
33. (-) Hobbit Graphic Novel, Tolkien et al (Harpercollins)
34. (-) Death Note, Another Note (prose novel), Nisioisin (VIZ)
35. (30) Naruto Vol. 23, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
36. (15) Fruits Basket 1, Natsuki Takaya (Tokyopop)
37. (26) Bleach, Vol. 3, Tite Kubo (VIZ)
38. (43) Persepolis 2, Marjane Satrapi (Knopf)
39. (27) Naruto, Vol. 3, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
40. (21) Negima! 16: Magister Negi Magi, Ken Akamatsu (Random House)
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41. (-) Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat, Bill Watterson (Andrews McMeel)
42. (-) Naruto, Vol. 15, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
43. (32) Naruto, Vol. 18, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
44. (-) Shugo Chara! 3, Peach-Pit (Random House)
45. (22) The Far Side 2008 Desk Calendar, Gary Larson (Andrews McMeel)
46. (-) Kitchen Princess 5, Miyuki Kobayashi Natsumi Ando (Random House)
47. (47) Naruto Vol. 16, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
48. (49) Naruto Vol. 5, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
49. (34) Fruits Basket 3, Natsuki Takaya (Tokyopop)
50. (-) Naruto Vol. 19, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)

Lots more Naruto, again. The volumes tend to jump around quite a bit with very few ranks repeated week to week. The highest ranked Naruto always varies, but Naruto 16 hasbeen at #47 for three weeks now. A reflection of the actual market, or a function of BookManager’s tracking software? Who can say? Naruto occupies 17 of the 50 spaces this week. Other titles jump around as well. Over the last 3 weeks, the Dark Tower has ranked 45, 14, and 23. Ditto Louis Riel, which has been 20, 25, and 37.

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.

The BookManager List is a wondrous, scary place, where everyone from Todd Hignite to Charles Schulz to Dan DeCarlo to Oor Willie to Avril Lavigne 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 our Canadian Top 25 comes from:

Sequential’s All-Canadian Top 25
from BookManager

1. (1) Senior’s Discount, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
2. (2) Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography, Chester Brown (D+Q)
3. (4) Jellaby, Kean Soo (Hyperion)
4. (3) Essex County 1: Tales From the Farm, Jeff Lemire (Top Shelf)
5. (7) Essex County 2: Ghost Stories, Jeff Lemire (Top Shelf)
6. (10) Dramacon 3, Svetlana Chmakova (Tokyopop)
7. (12) Teaching is a Learning Experience!, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
8. (19) Scott Pilgrim 4, Bryan Lee O’Malley (Oni)
9. (5) The Plain Janes, Cecil Castellucci et al (DC/Minx)
10. (-) Skim, Marissa Tamaki/Jillian Tamaki (Groundwood)
—–
11. (6) Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea, Guy Delisle (D+Q)
12. (-) Last Straw (1985), Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
13. (-) Never Wink at a Worried Woman, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
14. (9) White Rapids, Pascal Blanchet (D+Q)
15. (8) Therefore Repent! Jim Munroe Salgood Sam (insomniac)
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6. (22) The Collected New Frontier (Paperback), Darwyn Cooke (DC)
17. (-) Scott Pilgrim 3, Bryan Lee O’Malley (Oni)
18. (-) The New Frontier 1 (Paperback), Darwyn Cooke (DC)
19. (-) Northwest Passage: The Annotated Collection, Scott Chantler (Oni)
20. (11) Dramacon 2, Svetlana Chmakova (Tokyopop)
—–
21. (-) Just One More Hug, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
22. (-) 365 Days, Julie Doucet (D+Q)
23. (-) Portfoolio 22, Guy Badoux et al (Mcarthur)
24. (13) Dramacon 1, Svetlana Chmakova (Tokyopop)
25. (14) The Big 5-0, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)

An impressive debut for Skim and slightly less dominance for Lynn Johnston (6/25 vs 10/25 last week).