Lemire’s Year?

by BK Munn
Part 1 of Sequential’s look back over the last year in Canadian comics.
In 2012 I stopped posting a regular bestseller list on this site, mostly because it was too much work (lots of cutting and pasting) and because I didn’t think focusing on mass market comic sales really served the interests of the readers of Sequential and our stated concern with local and avant garde art. That being said, it’s always fun to see what is popular and have an idea of what’s going on in the comic shops of North America.
Diamond Distributors, the major supplier of comic books to specialty comic shops in North America, released its year-end numbers for 2012 earlier in the month and several sites, including John Jackson Miller’s Comichron, have analysis and estimated numbers of those rankings. Diamond doesn’t prvide separte numbers for the Canadian market, so we can’t see specifically what sold in Canadian shops, but ooking at Miller’s list, we can at least gather what were the best-selling graphic novels by Canadians from 2012:
(below you will see the rankings on our list, followed by the Diamond rankings, and Miller’s estimated number of copies sold through Diamond)
1. (79) Parker: The Score by Darwyn Cooke (IDW) 6,800 copies
2. (88) Scott Pilgrim Color 1 by Bryan Lee O’Malley (Oni) 6,400
3. (113) Sweet Tooth 4 by Jeff Lemire (DC) 5,600
4. (118) Underwater Welder by Jeff Lemire (Top Shelf) 5,500
5. (141) King City by Brandon Graham (Image) 4,900
6. (149) Scott Pilgrim 1 by Bryan Lee OMalley (Oni) 4,800
7. (189) Scott Pilgrim Color 2 by Bryan Lee O’Malley (Oni) 4,100
8. (199) Sweet Tooth 1 by Jeff Lemire (DC) 4,000
9. (218) Sweet Tooth 5 by Jeff Lemire (DC) 3,800
10. (269) Scott Pilgrim 2 by Bryan Lee OMalley (Oni) 3,400
11. (387) Lost Dogs by Jeff Lemire (Top Shelf) 2,800
12. (429) Scott Pilgrim 3 by Bryan Lee O’Malley (Oni) 2,600
13. (504) Scott Pilgrim Vol. 4 by Bryan Lee O’Malley (Oni) 2,400
14. (549) Sweet Tooth Vol. 2 by Jeff Lemire (DC) 2,200
15. (583) Scott Pilgrim Vol. 5 by Bryan Lee O’Malley (Oni) 2,200
16. (609) Hark A Vagrant BY Kate Beaton (D&Q) 2,100
17. (630) Spawn Origins Vol. 1 by McFarlane et al (Image) 2,100
18. (656) Sweet Tooth Vol. 3 Animal Armies by Jeff Lemire (DC) 2,000
19. (674) Scott Pilgrim Vol. 6 by Bryan Lee O’Malley (Oni) 2,000
20. (799) Jerusalem Chronicles From The Holy City by Guy Delisle (D&Q) 1,800
21. (833) Parker The Hunter Sc by Darwyn Cooke (IDW) 1,800
Notes: the reissue of Jeff Lemire’s debut graphic novel Lost Dogs even outranked the latest issue of Love and Rockets on the list. In many ways it was the year of Lemire, with his books actually outselling big books like Chris Ware’s Building Stories (#412; 2,600 copies) and Bechdel’s Are You My Mother (#600; 2,100 copies) in comic shops (those two books did much better in traditional book stores and Amazon/Indigo, I believe). Once you get below about #35 on the Diamond list, you see that most graphic novels generally sold less than 10,000 copies per title.
Overall, including all comics, trades, graphic novels, and magazines, Diamond had sales of around $474.61 million (up 15% vs. previous year).
The overall topsellers? Walking Dead ruled.
1 Walking Dead Vol. 1 $9.99 Image 74,700
2 Walking Dead Vol. 2 14.99 Image 46,200
3 Batman Earth One HC 22.99 DC 45,700
4 Walking Dead Vol. 16 $14.99 Image 42,700
5 Walking Dead Vol. 3 $14.99 Image 34,500
6 Walking Dead Vol. 17 $14.99 Image 29,700
7 Walking Dead Vol. 4 $14.99 Image 26,800
8 Batman HC Vol. 1 The Court of Owls $24.99 DC 26,700
9 Walking Dead Vol. 15 $14.99 Image 26,200
10 League of Extraordinary Gentlemen III Century #3 2009 $9.95 Top Shelf 24,400
11 Superman Earth One HC Vol. 2 $22.99 DC 23,900
12 Saga Vol. 1 $9.99 Image 23,300
13 Walking Dead Vol. 5 $14.99 Image 23,100
14 Watchmen $19.99 DC 21,300
15 Batman Dark Knight Returns $19.99 DC 20,000
—–
35 Batman Year One Deluxe Sc $14.99 DC 12,100

2 Comments

  1. Notably absent from your list (should be at #11) :
    #305 Tale Of Sand (adapted by Ramon Perez) 3,200
    While the script may have been Henson’s it is no less of an adaptation than Cooke’s Parker adaptations.
    Also, I realize your list focuses on cartoonists but Canucks also contributed to:
    #12 Saga (art by Fiona Staples) 23, 300
    #42 Animal Man Vol. 1 (written by Lemire) 9,600
    #48 Civil War (drawn by American in Canada McNiven) 9,100
    #51 Adventure Time Vol 1 (with much Canadian contribution) 8,700
    #69 Y the Last Man Vol 1 (art by Pia Guerra) 7,300
    #71 Swamp Thing Vol 1 (art by Yanick Paquette) 7,200
    #80 Fear Itself HC (art by Stuart Immonen) 6,800 it also sold another 4,200 copies in softcover (#155)
    #85 Batman Incorporated Deluxe (art by Paquette and Stewart) 6,500
    #92 Batman The Return of Bruce Wayne (a few Canuck contributors) 6,200
    and so on…

  2. Author

    Kevin, you’re right. I shouldn’t have listed Parker.

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