Craig Thompson's Blankets reached number 46 on the manga-dominated list of top-selling graphic novels compiled by Bookscan.  The achievement is especially noteworthy because Blankets' $29.95 cover price is three times that of the typical manga title -- of course at 592 pages, Blankets is nearly three times as long as the typical manga collection and it is printed in a larger, more art-friendly format.  Since the Bookscan list is based entirely on the number of units sold, Blankets was easily in the Top 10 in terms of dollars generated. 

Diamond Book Distributor's Ku Yu Liang was impressed by Blankets strong debut in the bookstore market and told ICv2: 'This is quite an achievement, and we extend our congratulations to everyone at Top Shelf and especially to Craig Thompson, who's created that rarest of all things: an instant classic.'  Like the American Splendor titles, which are selling well in the wake of the American Splendor movie, Blankets is an autobiographical, reality-based graphic novel.  Blankets focuses on the coming-of-age experiences of ordinary teenagers that would sound horribly banal in a one-sentence synopsis, but Craig Thompson narrates his tale so skillfully and makes use of the potential of the comic book medium so well with subtle and deeply rooted symbolism that he has produced the most poetic evocation of life in the Upper Midwest since the early novels and stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald.