Tokyopop's Fruits Basket Vol. 14 soared to the top of the BookScan chart of graphic novels sold in bookstores for the week ending August 6th.  Fruits Basket Vol. 14 sold more than twice as many units as its nearest graphic novel competitor and came in at #29 on USA Today's Book List, which covers all categories.  Del Rey's Tsubasa Vol. 10, which had topped the BookScan chart during the previous week, fell to number 4, just a hair behind Viz's Bleach Vol. 14, which took the third spot.  Another Viz title, Yu Watase's Absolute Boyfriend Vol. 2 moved up to number six, while Nobuhiro Watsuki's Buso Renkin Vol. 1 moved up to the eighth position, which could indicate that the Rurouni Kenshin creator has another hit in the American market.

Tokyopop's Kingdom Hearts Vol. 4 finished at number nine, while the other three spots in the top ten were all filled by various volumes of Naruto, the latest of which (Vol. 10) is now the #2 best-selling graphic novel title of 2006 (Naruto Vol. 9, which has sold nearly 80 K in the bookstores is the clear #1 title so far).  All ten volumes of Naruto ranked in the top 22, and all ten volumes would land in the top 13 in year-to-date sales.

Marvel's Halo graphic novel moved from #5 to #2, earning the highest ranking of any non-movie tie-in, non comic strip reprint graphic novel release in recent years.  Of course it's not as if Halo doesn't have a major media sales driver -- it's based on a video game that has sold over 14 million units worldwide.

Speaking of sales drivers, the effect of the August first DVD release of V for Vendetta is already apparent in sales of the Alan Moore/Dave Lloyd graphic novel, which moved up from #37 to #14.  Retailers should take note that as was the case with the release of the Sin City DVD last year (see 'The DVD Effect Materializes'), DVD releases can provide an extra boost for sales of movie-based properties (in proportion of course to the degree that the theatrical release of the movie actually moved the needle in the first place).