Top 20 Canadian Frontlist Comics & Graphic Novels Sales

Negima Volume 13 CoverEveryone loves sales lists! According to Canadian Book Industry periodical Quill & Quire and the graphic novel sales tracking agency Booknet, these are the top 20 frontlist comics and graphic novels sold for the two weeks ending March 11th. This is based on titles first published in August 2006 or later.

This isn’t a regular feature at Quill & Quire, and this information is actually locked behind a subscriber wall. But I figured industry watchers might appreciate a look-see as to what’s selling in Canada.

As to what’s selling? The answer is manga, and most of the titles that you might expect. I remember this list being a lot more Tokyopop-heavy the last time I checked, so it looks like Viz’ Canadian Distributors Simon & Shuster have made significant inroads into the Canadian market over the last 12 months, armed with strong properties like Naruto, Bleach, Death Note, and Full Metal Alchemist.

This reporting is based on Canada’s BookNet Canada Reporting Service, which tracks “over 600 retail locations”. Graphic novels, as a category, are considerably less developed in Canada than in the U.S., and I’d say that the Direct Market here would probably makes a considerably larger impression on the sales charts than the DM in the U.S. would. Of course, most direct market stores here are ordering the totallity of their graphic novels through Diamond as specialty booksellers, so… Anyway, here’s the list:

1. Negima! Volume 13, Ken Akamatsu
(Random House, $13.95 pa, 9780345495051)

2. Tsubasa Volume 12, Clamp
(Random House, $13.95 pa, 9780345485328)

3. Best of Pokemon Adventures: Red, Hidenori Kusaka
(Viz Media/Simon & Schuster Canada, $9.99 pa, 9781424509280)
They got the ISBN wrong, it’s actually 978-1-4215-0928-0

4. Naruto, Masashi Kishimoto
(Viz Media/Simon & Schuster Canada, $9.99 pa 9784421509280)
This ISBN doesn’t exist at all. I’m guessing this is Volume 12, but I have no idea.

5. Fullmetal Alchemist Volume 11, Hiromu Arakawa
(Viz Media/Simon & Schuster Canada, $11.71 pa, 9781421508382)

6. Bleach Volume 17, Tite Kubo
(Viz Media/Simon & Schuster Canada, $9.32 pa, 9781421510415)

7. Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories Volume 2, Shiro Amano
(TOKYOPOP/HarperCollins Canada, $12.50 pa, 9781598166385)

8. Best of Pokemon Adventures: Yellow, Hidenori Kusaka
(Viz Media/Simon & Schuster Canada, $10.99 pa, 9781421509297)

9. Death Note Volume 9, Tsugumi Ohba
(Viz Media/Simon & Schuster Canada, $9.36 pa, 9781421506302)

10. Vampire Knight Volume 1, Matsuri Hino
(Viz Media/Simon & Schuster Canada, $10.54 pa, 9781421508221)

11. Justice Volume 1, Alex Ross
(DC Comics/H.B. Fenn and Company, $26.99 cl, 9781401209698)

12. Fruits Basket Volume 15, Natsuki Takaya
(TOKYOPOP/HarperCollins Canada, $12.99 pa, 9781598160239)

13. The Marvel Encyclopedia, Tom De Falco
(Dorling Kindersley/Tourmaline Editions, $50 cl, 9780756623586)

14. Death Note Volume 8, Tsugumi Ohba
(Viz Media/Simon & Schuster Canada, $9.99 pa, 9781421506296)

15. Scrum Bums: A Get Fuzzy Collection, Darby Conley
(Andrews McMeel Publishing/Canadian Manda Group, $13.95 pa, 9780740750014)

16. Naruto Volume 11, Masashi Kishimoto
(Viz Media/Simon & Schuster Canada, $10.99 pa, 9781421502410)

17. Death Note Volume 7, Tsugumi Ohba
(Viz Media/Simon & Schuster Canada, $10.99 cl, 9781421506289)

18. Absolute Boyfriend Volume 3, Yuu Watase
(Viz Media/Simon & Schuster Canada, $10.54 pa, 9781421510033)

19. Infinite Crisis HC, Geoff Johns
(DC Comics/H.B. Fenn and Company, $33.99 cl, 9781401209599)

20. Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories Vol. 1, Amano Shiro
(TOKYOPOP/HarperCollins Canada, $12.99 pa, 9781598166378)

(Note: I have added additional information on titles and volume numbers where available.) 

For more information on this sort of thing, visit http://www.quillandquire.com/ and the Quill & Quire Blog at http://www.quillandquire.com/blog/. Their prices are really reasonable if you’d like to sign up for this sort of info.

– Christopher

4 Replies to “Top 20 Canadian Frontlist Comics & Graphic Novels Sales”

  1. thanks for the article – just checking out my google alerts and saw the list we put together for quill came up here. if you want to talk about getting more lists like this, drop me a line…

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