200902170335And in our final chart based item for the morning, ICv2 has released an adjusted list of the top-selling graphic novels of 2008, according to BookScan:

The top nine titles remained the same, but beginning with #10, five new titles made the top 20. Two of the Scholastic color Bone volumes, Bone Volume 1: Out from Boneville and Bone Volume 7: Ghost Circles, hit the list at #10 and #12, respectively.

Dark Tower: The Long Road Home, which was given a single ranking for the combined sales of all its covers, is #13 on this more comprehensive list.

Tokyopop’s Warrior’s Refuge, the OEL manga based on the works by Erin Hunter, is #15 on the combined list.

And Pokemon Diamond and Pearl Adventures Vol. 1 from Viz is #16.


A couple of very important things here: When factored into the list, kids comics actually dominate this list by a wide margin. NARUTO, BONE, WARRIORS, FRUITS BASKET.

Also, we can’t help but call out those WARRIORS books from Harper: They are packaged by Toykopop and concern a kitty cat fantasy along the lines of Watership Down, except with kitties. The stories are original. The art, from what we’ve seen, is not that great, but kids seem to be eating it up. We’ll note that Disney has also had success with their Artemis Fowl kids GNs and other properties. This is what the future of mainstream graphic novel publishing is going to look like, like it or lump it.

1 COMMENT

  1. From my casual perusal of BN.com’s Graphic Novel rankings, adaptations of prose fiction is selling very well. Anita Blake, Dark Tower, In Odd We Trust, Welcome to the Jungle, Warriors… fans like to read everything about something they enjoy, be it new stories or adaptations.

    Now… if only Random House would reissue The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy… and Harper imported the Agatha Christie graphic novels…and the rest of the Discworld GNs…

  2. A manga Harry Potter series would do exceedingly well.

    BTW, for the kids titles, never underestimate the power of the Scholastic Book Clubs. And those in-school Scholastic sales.

  3. The FUTURE of mainstream GN publishing? This is the present! It’s just that most fans/bloggers don’t see it, being hung up as they are on Diamond’s Top 300 serialized pamphlets purchased by direct market comic shop owners.

  4. A manga Harry Potter will never happen, and neither will any other form of comic adaptation, at least not until JK Rowling is in desperate need of money (which isn’t really very likely).

    A while back I was working for a design studio and we got a commission for a Harry Potter colouring book, and we wanted to put lines of dialogue underneath the pictures to tie them further into the films and novel. The answer we got back from Rowling’s agent was that if any part of her writing is used, then the novel has to be verbatim, and in its entirety. It’s for this reason that there isn’t an abridged talking book adaptation of any of the Harry Potter novels either.

  5. I really wish people would stop hoping and wishing for Harry Potter comics. I personally would rather see new original works. Most adaptations of prose work I’ve seen has been pretty disappointing but it seems like the easy and economical route for publishers these days.

  7. While the gn adaptations of prose books are doing quite nicely in my library, the original work still out-circulates everything else. Yes, Bone is the all-time champ. But I’ve got several girls who absolutely love the Little Lulu reprints, and I have a LOT of kids (boys and girls in 4th-6th grades) who love Yotsuba&! and can’t get enough of it.

  8. My son and I are reading some of the Bone books right now. He’s 7 and thinks it’s the greatest thing ever except that it’s lacking Clone Troopers. If only Jeff Smith could have given Phoney a lightsaber….