The Top 50 Selling Graphic Novels For August 2003
This list comes from digging through sales figures, asking too many questions and using Diamond Comics information. The snotty comments in white are mine.
1 SANDMAN ENDLESS NIGHTS HC $24.95 DC 26,230
DC has to be DAMN
happy about this. Neil Gaiman comes back for a Sandman
story that sells 26,000 copies just in comic shops and $25 a pop.
That’s not counting bookstore sales (where he does much
better), foreign, etc. And Neil back on Sandman is pretty
much the best of all possible world for a comics fan, as his
writing is always witty and intelligent. Highly
recommended, but if you read comics and give a damn about
good comics, you already have this book.
2 100 BULLETS
VOL 6 SIX FEET UNDER GUN TP $12.95 DC
6,195
This was Vertigo’s
first jump into Crime comics, and it’s one of the many
comics that reads poorly as individual issues, but works as
collected trade paperbacks. The premise (giving someone 100
untraceable bullets and the name and address of someone who has
done something bad to them) works, and gives a strong framework
for just about any kind of story the creators want to tell.
The first volume didn’t work for me, but the rest have, and
they are all Highly Recommended.
3 JLA JSA VIRTUE
& VICE SC $17.95 DC 5,353
I can’t review
this because my local shop didn’t get a copy for me. Bastards.
4 BATMAN ILLUSTRATED BY NEAL ADAMS VOL 1 HC $49.95 DC 4,863
This WAS listed as
being $75 in Previews, but the demand for it was so great that
they were able to drop the price. I have read complaints
from some people that Adams has gone back and “re-inked”
his artwork, but I don’t see any evidence of that…it’s
just that his early Batman work wasn’t very good. Adams
is an artist that changed how comics were drawn, and every artist
after him in the 70’s did their best to draw his “hyper-realism”
to the best of their ability. These stories are actually
pretty goofy (mostly Batman team-ups written by Bob Haney), but
you can see that Adams was an incredible artist, waiting to break
through and change everything about comics. For hard core
readers only, but the next two volumes will be must haves, just
to get his stories with Dennis O’Neil.
5 BATMAN BRUCE
WAYNE FUGITIVE VOL 3 TP $12.95 DC 4,629
Batman is a comic that
has had the HUGE CROSSOVER events more than any other comic
series in the past 15 years, starting with Batman being replaced
by a psycho, through Gotham City getting infected (ala “Outbreak),
an earthquake, being severed from the US and now this story,
where Bruce Wayne is accused of Murder. And this is the
story that broke the Bat-team. Before this big crossover,
the Batman books had shifted focus to be VERY crime noir driven,
and were the best group of super-hero books on the market at the
time. This story seemed to bring out the worst in the
creative teams, and was just a mess. I’d pass on it.
6 LOVE HINA VOL
14 GN $9.99 TKP 4,442
Sells very well
outside comic shops to younger readers. Too bad comic shops
can’t seem to get those people in their doors.
7 ELFQUEST
WOLFRIDER VOL 1 TP $9.95 DC 3,927
Reprinting Elfquest
stories, but sadly, it reprints a lot of the early 90’s
stories when anyone who could draw an elf was working on an
Elfquest book. Once the Pinis opened the comic up to other
creators, I lost interest, and Elfquest became just another
fantasy comic. But, with the same packaging as the Manga
books, it should appeal to the same audience, which is a good
thing, I guess.
8 JSA STEALING
THUNDER TP $14.95 DC 3,694
Reprinting more of the
JSA series, which is a DAMN good super-hero team book, and if you
like those, you should be reading this one. Recommended for
that audience.
9 DC MARVEL
CROSSOVER CLASSIC IV TP $14.95 DC 3,670
By this time, the DC/Marvel
crossovers had lost their luster and read more like fill-ins than
Big Events. This book is good for the novelty of it all,
but none of these stories are what I would call Classics. For
fanboys only.
10 ULTIMATE
SPIDER-MAN VOL 3 HC $29.99 MAR 3,343
I wish Marvel wouldn’t
print the hardcovers AFTER the paperbacks. That being said,
Ultimate Spider-Man is the best Spider-Man work since Steve Ditko
left, and if you haven’t read it, this is the best way to do
so. Highly recommended
11 DOT HACK SIGN VOL 1 GN $9.99 TKP 3,156
Based on the RPG video
game series, and tells the story of characters in a game who know
they are in a game, as the game world is breaking down. For
console RPG gaming fans only.
12 UNCANNY X-MEN
VOL 3 HOLY WAR TP $17.99 MAR 3,156
Austin’s run on
Uncanny has been…bland. It feels like there isn’t
a lot of difference between it and the stuff that was churned out
by Scott Lobdell through the 90’s, and if you like that sort
of thing, you’re prolly buying the monthly comic.
13 BATMAN BLACK
& WHITE VOL 2 TP $19.95 DC 3,062
This right here?
This is the good stuff. Great creators doing short stories
that not only tell great Batman stories, but show some incredible
artwork. This is highly recommended for anyone who
reads comics, even if they hate super-hero stuff.
14 EXILES VOL 5
UNNATURAL INSTINCT TP $14.99 MAR 3,039
More of the Judd
Winnick series, and is only for hard core fans. If you’ve
been a X-Men reader for 15 or so years, you’ll like this
romp thought alternate universes. If you aren’t you’ll
be confused and think it’s a rip-off of Quantum Leap.
15 GREEN LANTERN
EMERALD TWILIGHT NEW DAWN TP $19.95 DC
3,039
It has been a LONG
time since this was reprinted, I guess. In this story, Hal
Jordan goes nuts, kills everyone and is replaced by someone else.
A story that was more a “Shock tactic” to get new
readers than an actual story, and is STILL widely discussed by
comic geeks with too much time on their hands. And it will
be swept away next year by Grant Morrison, who wants Hal Jordan
as Green Lantern.
16 TOM STRONG
BOOK TWO TP $14.95 DC 2,899
Highly recommended
pulp action from Alan Moore, who can give you a great, fun comic
that is just that much more intelligent than the regular comic.
17 EPICURUS THE
SAGE TP $19.95 DC 2,829
An odd little humor
comic by William Loebs and Sam Keith that is almost impossible to
describe in such a way that conveys just how entertaining the
book is. It’s the story of an ancient Greek sage, told
with humor and is like nothing else you’ve ever read. Even
if you have the old graphic novels, you might want to pick this
one up, since it has new stories, and will help Loebs out of his
current disastrous financial problems brought on by poor health.
Highly recommended.
18 AVENGERS
LEGENDS VOL 3 GEORGE PEREZ BOOK 1 TP $16.99 MAR
2,805
Reprinting some of
George Perez’s Avenger’s work, the earliest was marred
by PAINFUL inking. Perez was one of those artists who came
out of the gate as a fan favorite and only got better over the
years. This book does pretty well at covering his early
Marvel work, but it’s marred by the fact that so many of his
stories were done by multiple artists, making it hard to collect
long runs to show the kind of Big stories done back in the 70’s.
19 SUPERMAN DAY
O/DOOM TP $9.95 DC 2,712
And DC goes back to
milk the “Death of Superman” one more time. This
one tries to show other people’s reactions to the Big Fight
scene that was the Death of Superman, and it reads like someone
trying to get just one more payday out of their past glories.
20 USAGI YOJIMBO DUEL AT KITANOJI TP $16.95 DAR 2,688
21 ART O/JOSEPH
MICHAEL LINSNER TP $24.95 IMA 2,642
Linsner is a great
artist, but tends to have a single overwhelming style and model,
so if you want a whole lot more paintings of his “Dawn”
character, here they are. I like his work, but the man is
the living definition of a “One Trick Pony.”
22 NEW X-MEN VOL
2 HC $29.99 MAR 2,618
Collecting the second
year of Grant Morrison’s mind-blowing run on the X-Men,
blasting away all the crap that has accumulated on the series
over the past 20 years and gives it now life and meaning. Highly
recommended if you don’t already have them.
23 FLCL VOL 1 GN $9.99 TKP 2,618
24 SILVER AGE
TEEN TITANS ARCHIVES VOL 1 HC $49.95 DC
2,525
Oh, the Silver Age
Teen Titans. There is nothing goofier than a bunch of
middle aged men trying to write like teenagers, and this is the
perfect example of that. There is nothing but nostalgia
here, and I defy ANYONE to sit and read more than two or three of
the stories in this in a row. DC in the 60’s was
pretty much aimed at kids, which is why Stan Lee kicked their
asses so hard. For collectors and comics historians only.
25 POWERPUFF GIRLS VOL 1 TITANS O/TOWNSVILLE TP $6.95 DC 2,525
26 POWERPUFF GIRLS VOL 2 GO GIRLS GO TP $6.95 DC 2,385
27 YU-GI-OH VOL 2 CARDS WITH TEETH TP $7.95 VIZ 2,244
28 ABSOLUTE
AUTHORITY VOL 2 OVERSIZED HC $49.95 DC
2,244
Reprinting the second
half of Warren Ellis’s groundbreaking and influential
Authority run (with some Mark Millar issues thrown in). It
was a great comic, but it’s NOT worth the $50 book treatment.
Go buy the trade paperbacks and enjoy.
29 GTO VOL 14 GN (Of 25) $9.99 TKP 2,221
30 KARE KANO VOL
5 GN $9.99 TKP 2,127
A LOT of manga on the
list, and while I buy some, I certainly don’t buy as much of
it as younger readers do. Which is how it should be. I
am an older collector, and comics fan, there NEED to be comics
that appeal to teenagers as much as Claremont and Byrne’s X-Men
did to me. The stuff I do read is good if the subject
matter interests me, but if it doesn’t, I just ignore it.
I am really annoyed by fans who think “manga must go away”
because they don’t like it. Hey, fanboy, not every
comic is aimed at you. Not every comic SHOULD be aimed at
you. When I go to a bookstore, I don’t get MAD that
they have romance novels…I just ignore them.
31 ONE BAD DAY GN $9.95 ONI 2,127
32 PETER PARKER
SPIDER-MAN VOL 5 SENSELESS VIOLENCE TP $14.99 MAR
2,104
Reprinting some really
bad issues of the Peter Parker: Spider-Man series. You can
avoid this and no one will think any less of you.
33 CAPTAIN
AMERICA VOL 1 NEW DEAL TP $16.99 MAR 2,081
Reprinting the first
story from the Marvel Knights Captain America, which has been a
disappointment overall. They had a GREAT base to work with,
and the first issue (which dealt directly with 9/11 in the Marvel
Universe) was amazing. But it fell apart quickly as the
writer got a bit too twee with it all, and they couldn’t
keep an artist on the book. I’m still waiting for a
decent Captain America comic, but the Dave Gibbons run on the
book just starting has some promise.
34 SUPERMAN END
O/T CENTURY TP $17.95 DC 2,081
Reprinting a hardcover
from last year, and the story is good, but it doesn’t
deserve such expensive treatment. It would have been better
as a mini-series or a run in one of the Superman comics.
35 ESCAFLOWNE VOL 2 GN $9.99 TKP 2,010
36 MARS VOL 14 GN $9.99 TKP 1,987
37 TRANSFORMERS ARMADA VOL 2 TP $15.95 DRE 1,940
38 CAPTAIN
MARVEL VOL 2 COVEN TP $14.99 MAR 1,870
Like most of PAD’s
comic book work, this may SEEM like a stand alone graphic novel,
but it isn’t. You have to have read the previous one
at a bare minimum, and the story does not resolve the “Captain
Marvel Is Insane” story that has been going on forever.
Some comics, I suggest that you wait and get the trades, this one
is a super-hero soap opera, and if you want to follow it, it’s
best to buy it as monthly issues.
39 WHATS MICHAEL
VOL 8 SHOW TIME TP $8.95 DAR 1,800
My favorite manga, by
far. A series of short, humorous stories about cats. Some
are little domestic comedies, some are movie or TV parodies, some
are just odd, but ALL of them are fun and well drawn. Highly
recommended to people, even if they don’t like comic books.
40 THOR VOL 4 SPIRAL TP $19.99 MAR 1,753
41 KODOCHA VOL 9 SANAS STAGE GN $9.99 TKP 1,730
42 ROBOTECH
MACROSS SAGA VOL 4 $14.95 DC 1,707
Reprinting more of the
Comico adaptations of the 80’s TV episodes. I would
have to think that there isn’t a LOT of a market for things
like this when you can buy DVD sets and actually GET the 80’s
TV episodes.
43 COURTNEY
CRUMRIN & COVEN O/MYSTICS TP $11.95 ONI
1,683
A GREAT little comic
by the original artist of Gloomcookie, and fits in the same
“Horror/Cute” mold. Highly recommended for people
who love the Addams Family style of humor.
44 ZERO GIRL
FULL CIRCLE TP $17.95 DC 1,613
A sequel to the first
Zero Girl mini-series, and it shows Sam Keith (creator of The
Maxx) at his best. I have always liked his art, and his
stories feel like David Lynch, toned down but not losing the
weirdness. I can only think that hard-core super-hero geeks
would dislike this book, but for everyone else it’s a well
done, incredibly entertaining comic that is just as good, if not
better, than The Maxx. Highly recommended.
45 GRAVITATION VOL 1 GN (Of 12) $9.99 TKP 1,613
46 DRAGONBALL Z VOL 13 TP SHONEN J ED $7.95 VIZ 1,613
47 PEACH GIRL CHANGE O/HEART VOL 4 TP $9.99 TKP 1,590
48 FATHOM COLL
ED #3 $5.95 IMA 1,590
Soon to be self-published
so that it can be EVEN LATER. Michael Turner is a good
artist if you like all of your women to have the same body, just
different lips and hair. But do NOT try to follow his
stories, as they only exist for him to draw a different pose that
he will be able to sell for a few hundred dollars as original art.
A glorified poster book.
49 TRANSFORMERS CYBERTRON REDUX GN $19.95 TIT 1,543
50 BABY BIRTH
VOL 1 GN $9.99 TKP 1,520
I REALLY hope
this isn’t a comic depiction of how babies are born. Especially
from a Japanese artist, since there would probably be tentacles
involved. Ew. Ew ew ew.