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. (-) Naruto, Vol. 28, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
2. (-) Negima! 17: Magister Negi Magi, Ken Akamatsu Toshifumi Yoshida Ikoi Hiroe (Random House)
3. (12) Death Note, Vol. 1, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
4. (9) Naruto Vol. 27, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
5. (1) Bleach, Vol. 22, Tite Kubo (VIZ)
6. (5) Naruto Vol. 26, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
7. (13) Naruto Vol. 1, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
8. (11) Death Note, Volume 3, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
9. (4) Naruto Vol. 25, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
10. (21) Death Note, Vol. 2, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
11. (32) Naruto Vol. 24, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
12. (2) Naruto, Vol. 2, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
13. (3) Tsubasa 16: Reservoir Chronicle, Clamp (Random House)
14. (-) Jellaby, Kean Soo (Hyperion)
15. (7) Death Note, Vol. 13, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
16. (6) Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (Pantheon)
17. (10) Death Note, Vol. 4, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
18. (-) Chibi Vampire 7, Kagesaki Yuna (Tokyopop)
19. (19) Garfield Goes Bananas, Jim Davis (Random House)
20. (8) Senior’s Discount, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
—–
21. (-) Death Note 6, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
22. (16) Death Note 5, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
23. (-) Wild Ones 2, Kiyo Fujiwara (VIZ)
24. (-) Black Cat, Vol. 13, Kentaro Yabuk (VIZ)
25. (35) Naruto Vol. 23, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
26. (-) Fruits Basket 18, Natsuki Takaya (Tokyopop)
27. (15) Naruto, Official Fanbook, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
28. (18) Hack Gu 1, Hamazaki Tatsuya (Tokyopop)
29. (-) Bleach 20, Tite Kubo (VIZ)
30. (14) Vampire Knight 2, Matsuri Hino (VIZ)
31. (17) Vampire Knight 1, Matsuri Hino (VIZ)
32. (20) Naruto 4, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
33. (27) Bleach 1, Tite Kubo (VIZ)
34. (-) Bleach 19, Tite Kubo (VIZ)
35. (-) One Piece 17, Eiichiro Oda (VIZ)
36. (-) Bleach 21, Tite Kubo (VIZ)
37. (-) Death Note 11, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
38. (-) Wild Ones 1, Kiyo Fujiwara (VIZ)
39. (29) Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography, Chester Brown (D+Q)
40. (31) Complete Persepolis, Satrapi (Knopf)
—–
41. (28) Bleach 2, Tite Kubo (VIZ)
42. (-) Naruto 22, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
43. (49) Fruits Basket 3, Natsuki Takaya (Tokyopop)
44. (48) Naruto Vol. 5, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
45. (-) Authoritative Calvin And Hobbes, Bill Watterson (Andrews McMeel)
46. (-) Death Note 9, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
47. (-) Fullmetal Alchemist 1, Hiromu Arakawa (VIZ)
48. (26) Vampire Knight Vol. 3, Matsuri Hino (VIZ)
49. (33) Hobbit Graphic Novel, Tolkien et al (Harpercollins)
50. (23) Dark Tower:The Gunslinger Born, Peter David (Marvel)

Well, after skipping a week (the list vanished when my computer crashed), we’re back for the March Break. The new, heavily-hyped volume of Naruto has been at #1 for two weeks now. Kean Soo has displaced Lynn Johnston as the highest ranking Canadian, at #14.

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. (3) Jellaby, Kean Soo (Hyperion)
2. (1) Senior’s Discount, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
3. (2) Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography, Chester Brown (D+Q)
4. (4) Essex County 1: Tales From the Farm, Jeff Lemire (Top Shelf)
5. (5) Essex County 2: Ghost Stories, Jeff Lemire (Top Shelf)
6. (6) Dramacon 3, Svetlana Chmakova (Tokyopop)
7. (10) Skim, Marissa Tamaki/Jillian Tamaki (Groundwood)
8. (15) Therefore Repent! Jim Munroe Salgood Sam (insomniac/IDW)
9. (8) Scott Pilgrim 4, Bryan Lee O’Malley (Oni)
—–
10. (9) The Plain Janes, Cecil Castellucci et al (DC/Minx)
11. (7) Teaching is a Learning Experience!, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
12. (24) Dramacon 1, Svetlana Chmakova (Tokyopop)
13. (20) Dramacon 2, Svetlana Chmakova (Tokyopop)
14. (-) She’s Turning into One of Them!, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
15. (14) White Rapids, Pascal Blanchet (D+Q)
16. (17) Scott Pilgrim 3, Bryan Lee O’Malley (Oni)
17. (-) Albert and the Others, Guy Delisle (D+Q)
18. (13) Never Wink at a Worried Woman, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
19. (-) Family Business, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
20. (-) Graphic Witness: Four Wordless Graphic Novels, ed. George A Walker (Firefly)
—–
21. (-) Degrassi Extra Credit 3: Missing You, J Torres/Eric Kim (Pocket)
22. (11) Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea, Guy Delisle (D+Q)
23. (12) Last Straw (1985), Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
24. (-) The BackBench Collection, Graham Harrop (Ronsdale)
25. (18) The New Frontier 1 (Paperback), Darwyn Cooke (DC)
—–

26. (19) Northwest Passage: The Annotated Collection, Scott Chantler (Oni)
27. (22) 365 Days, Julie Doucet (D+Q)
28. (21) Just One More Hug, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
29. (25) The Big 5-0, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
30. (-) The Spirit (Hardcover), Darwyn Cooke Jeph Loeb J Bone (DC)

I added another 5 this week for variety.