November Comics Bestsellers
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week November 3, 2009 Sign up now!
By Calvin Reid -- Publishers Weekly, 11/2/2009 4:16:00 PM
1. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days.
Jeff Kinney.
Abrams/Amulet, $13.95 ISBN 978-0-8109-8391-5
Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series is a publishing phenomenon. Dog Days, the fourth book in the hybrid comics and prose series sold more than 1 million copies at launch and went back to press for 500,000 copies. Store events attract mobs and the series is a global bestseller. Number two on the list? Wimpy Kid: Last Straw, the previous book.
2. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Last Straw.
Jeff Kinney.
Abrams/Amulet, $12.95 ISBN 978-0-8109-7068-7
3. Naruto, Volume 46.
Mashashi Kishimoto.
Viz Media, $7.95 ISBN 978-1-4215-3304-9
4. Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks.
Max Brooks and Ibraim Roberson
Three Rivers Press, $17. ISBN 978-0-307-40577-7
Based on Max Brook’s 2003 hit, Zombie Survival Guide, which now has over a million copies in print; Recorded Attacks, with drawings by Ibraim Roberson, is a graphic novel update that now has 133,000 copies in print after 3 printings. The book just won’t die!
5. The Book of Genesis Illustrated.
R. Crumb..
W.W. Norton, $24.95 ISBN 978-0-393-06102-4
R. Crumb calls, The Book of Genesis Illustrated, a “straight illustration job,”—there’s no satire or visual jokes, just a serious transformation of Genesis into comics. Norton released 50,000 copies initially; has gone back to press for 30,000 more and Crumb’s signing at B&N Union Square was packed with more than 600 rapt fans.
6. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8: Predators and Prey, Volume 5.
Jane Espenson and Steven S. DeKnight et al.
Dark Horse, $10.99 ISBN 978-1-59582-342-7
7. Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth.
Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos H. Papadimitriou, Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna.
Bloomsbury, $22.95 ISBN 978-1-59691-452-0
Bloomsbury’s Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth, an unusual graphic biography and intellectual adventure focused on the life of the great mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell, has more than 35,000 copies in print after three printings. Publicity director Peter Miller says, “backorders are still coming in; demand is steady and retailers plan to promote beyond the holidays into the new year. We couldn’t be happier.”
8. Rosario + Vampire, Volume 9
Akihisa Ikeda..
Viz Media, $9.99 ISBN 978-1-4215-2354-5
9. Chibi Vampire, Volume 14.
Yuna Kagesaki.
Tokyopop, $10.99 ISBN 978-1-4278-1625-2
10. Full Metal Alchemist, Volume 20.
Hiromu Arakawa.
Viz Media, $9.99 ISBN 978-1-421-53034-5
Take Note: Umbrella Academy: Dallas (#12 on the list), the Eisner Award winning series about a dysfunctional family of superheroes, was created by Gerard Way, a talented comics writer when he isn’t singing for the band My Chemical Romance, with drawings by Gabriel Ba. Dark Horse publicity coordinator Melissa Richardson says Dark Horse sold more than 60,000 copies of volume 1, Apocalypse Suite (about 1/3 of that was in the book market and the rest in the direct market or comics shop market), while Dallas has sold more than 25,000 copies of the $17.95 paperback over the last month and about 2500 copies of a $76 limited edition boxed hardcover set.
