Wednesday, February 20, 2008  
Weekly Bestsellers in Canada: Feb 20

:: Posted by Bryan @ 2/20/2008 12:01:00 PM

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. (4) Bleach, Vol. 22, Tite Kubo (VIZ)
2. (10) Naruto Vol. 25, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
3. (12) Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (Pantheon)
4. (43) Naruto, Vol. 2, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
5. (6) Naruto Vol. 26, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
6. (1) Tsubasa 16: Reservoir Chronicle (Paperback), Clamp (Random House)
7. (15) Naruto Vol. 1, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
8. (2) Naruto Vol. 27, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
9. (3) Senior's Discount, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
10. (5) Death Note, Vol. 1, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
11. (7) Garfield Goes Bananas, Jim Davis (Random House)
12. (16) Death Note, Vol. 2, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
13. (24) Naruto Vol. 4, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
14. (-) Death Note, Vol. 13, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
15. (-) Fruits Basket 1, Natsuki Takaya (Tokyopop)
16. (9) Absolute Boyfriend, Vol. 5, Yuu Watase (VIZ)
17. (-) Hack Gu Vol. 1, Hamazaki Tatsuya (Tokyopop)
18. (11) Naruto Vol. 24, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
19. (32) Vampire Knight Vol. 3, Matsuri Hino (VIZ)
20. (37) Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography, Chester Brown (D+Q)
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21. (22) Negima! 16: Magister Negi Magi, Ken Akamatsu (Random House)
22. (8) The Far Side 2008 Desk Calendar, Gary Larson (Andrews McMeel)
23. (19) Bleach, Vol. 1, Tite Kubo (VIZ)
24. (28) Death Note, Volume 3, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
25. (-) Bleach, Vol. 2, Tite Kubo (VIZ)
26. (-) Bleach, Vol. 3, Tite Kubo (VIZ)
27. (25) Naruto, Vol. 3, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
28. (13) Godchild, Vol. 8, Kaori Yuki (VIZ)
29. (-) Naruto, Vol. 7, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
30. (17) Naruto Vol. 23, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
31. (-) Death Note, Vol. 5, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
32. (-) Naruto, Vol. 18, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
33. (-) Asterix at the Olympic Games, Goscinny & Uderzo (Orion)
34. (-) Fruits Basket 3, Natsuki Takaya (Tokyopop)
35. (-) Fruits Basket 2, Natsuki Takaya (Tokyopop)
36. (-) Naruto, Official Handbook, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
37. (-) Fall In Love Like a Comic Vol. 2, Chitose Yagami (VIZ)
38. (-) Hana-Kimi, Vol. 22, Hisaya Nakajo (VIZ)
39. (29) Naruto Vol. 22, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
40. (36) Vampire Knight Vol. 2, Matsuri Hino (VIZ)
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41. (18) Fullmetal Alchemist Vol. 15, Hiromu Arakawa (VIZ)
42. (-) Naruto, Vol. 9, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
43. (33) Persepolis 2, Marjane Satrapi (Knopf)
44. (31) Fruits Basket 18, Natsuki Takaya (Tokyopop)
45. (14) Dark Tower:The Gunslinger Born, Peter David (Marvel)
46. (46) The Best of Pokemon Adventures: Yellow, Hidenori Kusaka Mato (VIZ)
47. (47) Naruto Vol. 16, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
48. (-) The Best of Pokemon Adventures: Red, Hidenori Kusaka Mato (VIZ)
49. (-) Naruto Vol. 5, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
50. (48) The Authoritative Calvin And Hobbes, Watterson (Andrews McMeel)

Whew! It's quite an effort to keep track of all those Naruto, Death Note, and Bleach volumes. I find it hard to believe that the Bookmanager lists are sophisticated enough to keep track of these differences, especially when I see such wild fluctuations in rank from week to week. That being said, the most salient aspect of this week's list, as with the last several months' lists, is that all volumes of Naruto are popular (there are 16 in the top 50).

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. One other note: if the publishers of Persepolis would concentrate on a single volume, wouldn't they have a higher ranked book?

The BookManager List is a wondrous, scary place, where everyone from Todd Hignite to Charles Schulz to Dan DeCarlo to Jerry Siegel to Tove Janssen 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 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. (5) Essex County 1: Tales From the Farm, Jeff Lemire (Top Shelf)
4. (3) Jellaby, Kean Soo (Hyperion)
5. (10) The Plain Janes, Cecil Castellucci et al (DC/Minx)
6. (4) Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea, Guy Delisle (D+Q)
7. (12) Essex County 2: Ghost Stories, Jeff Lemire (Top Shelf)
8. (16) Therefore Repent! Jim Munroe Salgood Sam (insomniac)
9. (6) White Rapids, Pascal Blanchet (D+Q)
10. (8) Dramacon 3, Svetlana Chmakova (Tokyopop)
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11. (9) Dramacon 2, Svetlana Chmakova (Tokyopop)
12. (7) Teaching is a Learning Experience!, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
13. (18) Dramacon 1, Svetlana Chmakova (Tokyopop)
14. (19) The Big 5-0, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
15. (21) The Spirit (Hardcover), Darwyn Cooke Jeph Loeb J Bone (DC)
16. (11) Middle Age Spread, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
17. (25) Keep The Home Fries Burning, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
18. (14) She's Turning into One of Them!, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
19. (-) Scott Pilgrim 4: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, Bryan Lee O'Malley (Oni)
20. (15) Graphic Witness: 4 Wordless Graphic Novels, George A Walker (Firefly)
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21. (-) Family Business, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
22. (-) The New Frontier (Paperback), Darwyn Cooke (DC)
23. (-) Striking A Cord, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
24. (-) It'S The Thought That Counts, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
25. (-) It's All Downhill From Here, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)

That last one was published in 1987. Lynn Johnston collections (10 in all) continue to be the favourite snack food of Canadians (or maybe it's more accurate to say that For Better or For Worse is the Naruto of Canada (except that Naruto is already the Naruto of Canada)). Svetlana Chmakova, Darwyn Cooke, and Jeff Lemire also score with multiple books on the list.

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