Demonstrating the continuing strength of the game and anime-based Yu-Gi-Oh! property, Viz Media’s Yu-Gi-Oh!: GX Vol.4 topped the BookScan chart of graphic novels sold in bookstores in January.  The new YGO manga was one of five new titles in the top ten along with new volumes of three other Viz Media manga series, Naruto (Vol. 47 at #3), Full Metal Alchemist (Vol.22 at #4), One Piece (Vol.24 at #8) and the first volume of Yana Toboso’s Black Butler from Yen Press.

After a strong run including topping the charts for the past two months, R. Crumb’s adaptation of the The Book of Genesis slipped to number two.  Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen trade paperback continues to hang in the top five, while zombies also demonstrated their popularity with The Zombie Survival Guide at #6 and Robert Kirkman’s latest The Walking Dead volume, Fear the Hunters making its presence felt at #18.

Interestingly all five volumes of Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece, the rollicking pirate saga Viz Media has placed on an accelerated release schedule in order to catch up with the Japanese release (see “Viz Speeding Up One Piece”), made the list during the first month of the program.  Also fascinating is the continued strength of the first volume of the long finished Death Note manga, which was originally published in October of 2005 and still managed to fight its way into the top 20.

Manga dominated the top 20 in January with 16 (including two OEL titles, adaptations of James Patterson’s Maximum Ride) titles.  Viz Media dominated with 13 of the top 20 followed by Yen Press with 3 and Norton, DC Comics, Three Rivers, & Image Comics with one each.

The rankings, provided by Nielsen BookScan, track the bestselling U.S. adult graphic novels in major book chains, mass merchants, online retailers, and some independent retailers using POS data from December 6th to January 3rd.  Titles racked in the Kids or YA sections do not appear in this list.

For charts from other months, see the "BookScan Top 20 GNs Index."