Growing numbers of female and young customers are growing graphic novel sales, not only in bookstores, but also in comic stores, according to a report in the recently released ICv2’s Internal Correspondence #86.  All of the retailers we interviewed for this report were seeing increased numbers of female consumers, although some noted that when it came to pull lists, male customers still predominated.

Bestseller charts abound with titles with strong female appeal, including Roz Chast’s Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, which was the bestselling graphic novel of the summer in bookstores; and Saga, which is beginning to overtake The Walking Dead in some comic stores.

Graphic novels for kids is another big growth area, although the skew is much more heavily toward the book channel in that segment.  But there are comic stores that are emphasizing kids graphic novels and finding success, and some are even having more success with girls than with boys.  And the growth in graphic novels for young readers of both genders is helping fuel the increasingly diverse adult audience as those readers age.

Here’s a list of ICv2’s bestseller charts of the top graphic novel franchises across eight categories for Summer (May-September) 2014, which appeared in Internal Correspondence #86:

Top 10 Genre Graphic Novel Franchises--Summer 2014
Top 10 Fiction & Reality Graphic Novel Franchises--Summer 2014
Top 10 Superhero Graphic Novel Franchises--Summer 2014
Top 5 Comic Strip Franchises--Summer 2014
Top 10 Kids & Tweens Graphic Novel Franchises--Summer 2014
Top 25 Manga Franchises--Summer 2014
Top 10 Shojo Franchises--Summer 2014
Top 10 Shonen Franchises--Summer 2014

For info on how to get your copy of ICv2's Internal Correspondence #86, with the full market reports, Pick Hits of the best upcoming releases, and reviews, see "ICv2 Releases 'Internal Correspondence' #86."