Looking at the list this time (and this is only the 3rd month for this exercise) I don’t see any major changes, nothing unexpected, nothing really out of place. –At least for the top 100. You should see the mess I have when we work our way down to, say, 500th place. (actually, that would be a 7-way tie for 496th place between Civil War: Frontline vol 1, the Fruits Basket Fan Book, Gakuen Alice vol 1, the Best Political Cartoons of the Year 2008, The Physics of Superheroes, Tintin and Alph-Art, and Tower of the Future vol 9 — preceded by the 5-way tie for 491st place and followed by the 9-way tie for 503rd place. Like I said: messy.)

I have 500+ listings to sort (652, actually) because I loaded up the top 100 bestsellers from most of my sources (Amazon, B&N, BAMM, Borders, Buy.com, DeepDiscount.com, Overstock.com, and Powells — with a top 50 from Tower and Virgin to round out the raw data) just like I started doing 2 weeks ago with the manga charts. I still need to tweak these Graphic Novel numbers, but it’s taken me a bit longer to understand 1. what I’m dealing with and 2. why it looks that way, not to mention 3: how to fix it.

Amazon is so whacked out I’m sorely tempted to drop it: Calendars, reference books, biographies, how-to manuals, and even a few novels-that-are-by-no-means-graphic all work their way into the “Comics & Graphic Novels” Category and completely mess up their Hourly Bestsellers. I can only use ~90% of their top 100 — in fact for the third check of amazon I skipped the bestseller link entirely and just went with a ‘graphic novel’ keyword search sorted in ‘bestselling’ order. (The results should be identical, but they’re not — oh you kooky Amazon algorithms & heuristics, what are we to do with you?)

If it weren’t for the volume of sales processed by Amazon, I’d likely have walked away last month.

Some other sites are nearly as bad, but that’s why I check so many: positive information is reinforced, and aberrant data ends up way down at the bottom, tied for 581st or 643rd place. The End of the List is supposed to be messy, because it’s the gravel & dross I dump in the metaphoric hole to level things out — a foundation to build on.

This being December, yeah, we’ve got all the licensed calendars that are selling on Amazon. There were also quite a few more gift-type items that I noticed (Complete Far Side, Calvin & Hobbes, and Peanuts; Absolute Sandman, the Marvel & DC Encyclopedias). Manga also seems to be performing much better this month (check out Naruto 25-27) but past two or three obvious examples (loc. cit.) that impression may just be my bias showing again.

Consolidated Online Sales Rankings
for Graphic Novels
for the Ides of December, 2007

Sources:
Amazon, B&N, BAMM, Borders (beta), Buy.com, DeepDiscount.com, Overstock.com, Powell’s, Tower, Virgin

Top 100 graphic novels
rank. ↑↔↓ (last months rank) Title + Vol# (score)

1. ↔ 0 (1) Stephen King’s Dark Tower 1 (101.4)
2. ↑ 5 (7) Watchmen (74.0)
3. ↑ 5 (8 ) The Marvel Encyclopedia (72.9)
4. ↓ 1 (3) Heroes Graphic Novel 1 (65.9)
4. ↑ 64 (68) Naruto 27 (65.9)
6. ↑ 61 (67) Naruto 25 (65.8)
7. ↑ 63 (70) Naruto 26 (65.6)
8. ↑ 27 (35) Absolute Sandman 1 (63.8)
9. ↓ 4 (5) Absolute Sandman 2 (60.2)
10. ↑ 5 (15) The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier (59.0)
11. ↑ 3 (14) Naruto 22 (56.4)
12. ↔ 0 (12) Complete Peanuts ‘63-66 box set (56.1)
13. ↑ 15 (28) 300 — Miller, Varley (55.6)
14. ↓ 5 (9) Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight 1 (52.7)
15. ↓ 11 (4) The Arrival — Tan (50.3)
16. ↓ 5 (11) Naruto 24 (49.4)
17. ↓ 11 (6) Fruits Basket 18 (48.1)
18. ↓ 5 (13) Naruto 23 (48.0)
19. ↑ 29 (48) Naruto 1 (46.2)
20. ↑ 27 (47) Naruto 18 (45.7)
21. ↓ 2 (19) Naruto 16 (45.4)
22. ↑ 16 (38) Naruto 17 (42.9)
22. ↑ 6 (28) Naruto 15 (42.9)
24. ↑ 41 (65) Naruto 13 (41.3)
25. ↓ 9 (16) Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: Guilty Pleasures 1 (40.7)
26. ↑ 26 (52) Bone 1 (40.1)
27. ↑ 64 (91) Naruto 2 (39.3)
28. ↑ 8 (36) Warriors 1 (38.3)
29. ↑ 45 (74) Batman: the Dark Knight Returns (37.0)
29. ↑ 29 (58) Bone 6 (37.0)
31. ↑ 10 (41) Death Note 1 (36.8)
32. ↑ 49 (81) The Rejection Collection: Cartoons You Never Saw, and Never Will See, in The New Yorker (36.7)
33. ↑ 22 (55) Bone: One Volume Edition (36.4)
34. The DC Comics Encyclopedia (35.1)
35. ↑ 19 (54) Naruto 20 (34.0)
36. The Art of Naruto: Uzumaki (33.8)
37. ↓ 20 (17) Fruits Basket 17 (33.3)
38. ↑ 114 (152) Naruto 4 (33.0)
39. ↑ 91 (130) Fullmetal Alchemist 15 (32.9)
40. ↑ 13 (53) Naruto 19 (32.7)
41. ↑ 10 (51) Marvel Zombies vs Army of Darkness (32.5)
42. ↓ 40 (2) 30 Days of Night 1 (32.0)
42. ↑ 6 (48) I’m Ready for My Movie Contract: A Get Fuzzy Collection (32.0)
44. ↓ 3 (41) Stardust — Gaiman, Vess (31.8)
45. ↑ 131 (176) Naruto 5 (31.7)
45. ↓ 15 (30) V for Vendetta (31.7)
47. ↑ 181 (228) Naruto 10 (30.7)
48. ↑ 96 (144) Death Note 5 (30.4)
49. ↓ 27 (22) Vampire Knight 3 (30.0)
50. ↓ 19 (31) Complete Calvin and Hobbes (29.5)
51. ↓ 24 (27) Diary of a Wimpy Kid 1 (29.4)
52. ↓ 27 (25) Artemis Fowl: the Graphic Novel (hardcover) (29.2)
52. ↑ 214 (266) Death Note 4 (29.2)
52. The Principles of Uncertainty — Kalman (29.2)
55. ↑ 2 (57) Naruto 21 (29.0)
56. ↑ 43 (99) Loserpalooza: a Get Fuzzy Treasury (28.9)
57. ↓ 14 (43) Naruto 14 (28.8)
58. ↓ 40 (18) Schulz and Peanuts: a Biography (28.7)
59. ↑ 60 (119) Naruto 3 (28.0)
60. ↓ 15 (45) Let’s Find Pokemon! Special Complete Edition (27.9)
61. ↓ 35 (26) The Perry Bible Fellowship (27.7)
62. ↓ 23 (39) Artemis Fowl: the Graphic Novel (paperback) (27.2)
63. ↑ 85 (148) Serenity: Those Left Behind (26.6)
64. ↓ 54 (10) Persepolis 1 (26.2)
65. ↑ 16 (81) Positive Attitude: a Dilbert Collection (25.8)
66. ↑ 162 (228) Da Brudderhood of Zeeba Zeeba Eata: a Pearls Before Swine Collection (25.7)
67. ↑ 59 (126) The Marvel Vault: a Museum-in-a-Book (25.5)
68. ↓ 44 (24) Dark Hunger — Feehan (25.3)
69. Sandman 1 (24.8)
70. ↑ 70 (140) The Adventures of Tintin (3-in-1 collection) 1 (24.7)
70. ↑ 101 (171) The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book (24.7)
72. ↑ 119 (191) Cubes and Punishment: A Dilbert Book (24.2)
73. ↑ 27 (100) Death Note 2 (23.7)
74. The Rejection Collection, vol 2: The Cream of the Crap (23.6)
75. And When She Opened the Closet, All the Clothes Were Polyester: a FoxTrot Collection (23.5)
75. ↑ 19 (94) Bone 5 (23.5)
77. ↓ 16 (61) The Completely MAD Don Martin (23.1)
78. Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Snow Goons: a Calvin and Hobbes Collection (22.8)
79. The Simpsons 2008 Fun Calendar (22.6)
80. ↑ 130 (210) Naruto 12 (22.5)
81. ↓ 48 (33) Complete Peanuts ‘65-66 (22.3)
82. ↑ 184 (266) Complete Peanuts ‘59-62 box set (22.0)
82. The Amazing Marvel Universe (22.0)
84. ↑ 162 (246) Death Note 9 (21.7)
84. ↓ 34 (50) Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules 2 (21.7)
86. ↑ 142 (228) Death Note 3 (21.4)
87. ↓ 16 (71) Death Note 12 (20.9)
88. ↓ 26 (62) Bleach 20 (20.8)
89. ↓ 15 (74) The Sopratos: a Pearls Before Swine Collection (20.4)
90. ↓ 28 (62) Bone 2 (20.3)
90. ↑ 24 (114) Death Note 11 (20.3)
92. Dilbert 2008 Day-to-Day Calendar * (20.0)
93. Alternative Zits: a Zits Treasury (19.2)
94. ↑ 58 (152) Bone 3 (19.1)
94. Death Note 10 (19.1)
96. Warriors 2 (18.6)
97. The Trivial Simpsons 2008 366-Day Calendar * (18.5)
98. Death Note 6 (18.1)
99. Get Fuzzy 2008 Day-to-Day Calendar * (17.9)
100. ↓ 80 (20) Shortcomings — Tomine (17.7)

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The end-note-bit:

For these rankings I looked at 12 different Top 100 Bestseller lists, from 8 different online sales sites, and two top 50 lists from two additional sales sites (Tower & Virgin)

Amazon and B&N were checked 3 times on consecutive days. Everyone else was checked once.

For the list found each time, titles scored 1 point for placing at 100, and an additional point for each rank above 100. (#1 = 100 points; if a title was #1 for the entire time period at Amazon, for example, it would have scored a total of 300 points.) Similarly, the top 50 lists score 50pts for #1, down to 1pt for #50. After adding up the points, I divide all scores by 10 — this last bit of math doesn’t change anything; the telling, uneven decimal is intended to serve as a indicator that the scores are not actual dollar or unit sales numbers.

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The manga list will follow tomorrow (Monday) afternoon.