The top selling adult graphic novel was Nathan Pyle’s Strange Planet, based on the Instagram comic, which has over 2 million followers (see "Nathan W. Pyle’s ‘Strange Planet’ Comes to Print"). The comic is a four-panel gag strip featuring alien-type characters speaking about ordinary things (getting a sunburn, climbing a mountain, kissing) in oddly literal terms. Pyle’s simple figures and quirky dialogue make this comic a sort of verbal uncanny valley, and the strips are shared widely on social media.
Last month’s top 20 had four new titles, and three of them have already dropped off the chart: Open Borders, False Knees, and Doomsday Clock. The one that persists is Critical Role: Vox Machina: Origins, showing once more the power of gamer dollars. (That’s also why The Adventure Zone: Murder on the Rockport Limited! is still hovering mid-chart, four months after its debut.)
One series worth watching is Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. Last month, Vol. 8 made the top 20, its second month on the chart; this month, both Vol. 9 and Vol. 1 are on the chart. The manga series seems to be getting a boost from the anime, and VIZ Media announced at AnimeNYC that they are going to speed up the release schedule, going from an every-other-month schedule to monthly releases (see "Anime NYC: VIZ Announces Junji Ito, Splatoon Manga").
On the other hand, this is the first month without a volume of Komi Can’t Communicate on the chart since the series’ debut in June. A new volume is due out next week, so we can expect to see it on next month’s chart.
As usual, the chart is dominated by manga, but DC Comics has managed to get a book into the top 20 that isn’t Watchmen: Tom Taylor’s DCeased, the collected edition of his six-issue series about a virus wreaking havoc in the DC Universe (see "A Pandemic Hits the DCU in ‘DCeased’").
NPD BookScan Top 20 Adult Graphic Novels – November 2019 (11/3/19 - 11/30/19) |
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Rank |
Title |
Author |
Publisher |
1 |
STRANGE PLANET HC |
NATHAN W. PYLE |
MORROW GIFT |
2 |
WATCHMEN (2019 EDITION) |
ALAN MOORE |
DC COMICS |
3 |
MY HERO ACADEMIA VOL. 1 |
KOHEI HORIKOSHI |
VIZ MEDIA |
4 |
BERSERK DELUXE VOL. 3 HC |
KENTARO MIURA |
DARK HORSE COMICS |
5 |
THEY CALLED US ENEMY |
GEORGE TAKEI |
TOP SHELF PROD. |
6 |
MAKING COMICS |
LYNDA BARRY |
DRAWN & QUARTERLY |
7 |
MY HERO ACADEMIA VOL. 2 |
KOHEI HORIKOSHI |
VIZ MEDIA |
8 |
DEMON SLAYER: KIMETSU NO YAIBA VOL. 9 |
KOYOHARU GOTOUGE |
VIZ MEDIA |
9 |
THE WALKING DEAD COMPENDIUM VOL. 4 |
ROBERT KIRKMAN |
IMAGE COMICS |
10 |
MY HERO ACADEMIA VOL. 21 |
KOHEI HORIKOSHI |
VIZ MEDIA |
11 |
UZUMAKI HC |
JUNJI ITO |
VIZ MEDIA |
12 |
MY HERO ACADEMIA VOL. 3 |
KOHEI HORIKOSHI |
VIZ MEDIA |
13 |
THE ADVENTURE ZONE: MURDER ON THE ROCKPORT LIMITED! |
CLINT MCELROY |
FIRST SECOND BOOKS |
14 |
WATCHMEN: THE DLX. ED. HC |
ALAN MOORE |
DC COMICS |
15 |
ONE PIECE VOL. 92 |
EIICHIRO ODA |
VIZ MEDIA |
16 |
DEMON SLAYER: KIMETSU NO YAIBA VOL. 1 |
KOYOHARU GOTOUGE |
VIZ MEDIA |
17 |
JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE: PART 4--DIAMOND IS UNBREAKABLE VOL. 3 HC |
HIROHIKO ARAKI |
VIZ MEDIA |
18 |
MY HERO ACADEMIA VOL. 4 |
KOHEI HORIKOSHI |
VIZ MEDIA |
19 |
CRITICAL ROLE VOX MACHINA: ORIGINS VOL. 1 |
MATTHEW MERCER |
DARK HORSE COMICS |
20 |
DCEASED |
TOM TAYLOR |
DC COMICS |
Source: The NPD Group/BookScan |
For charts of November graphic novel sales from NPD BookScan:
November 2019 NPD BookScan - Top 20 Author, Manga, and Superhero Graphic Novels
November 2019 NPD BookScan – Top 20 Kids Graphic Novels
For the charts with the actual sales numbers from NPD BookScan, see these articles on the ICv2 Pro site:
November 2019 NPD BookScan - Top 20 Adult Graphic Novels with Actual Sales
November 2019 NPD BookScan - Top 20 Author, Manga, and Superhero Graphic Novels with Actual Sales
November 2019 NPD BookScan - Top 20 Kids Graphic Novels with Actual Sales
NPD BookScan collects weekly point-of-sale data on print books from over 16,000 locations including e-tailers, chains, mass merchandisers, independent bookstores, and more. NPD BookScan covers approximately 85% of the U.S. trade print book market. The ranks on this chart are based on piece sales. Some publishers classify titles that are primarily text, or art books, as graphic novels; we've removed those titles from the ranking above.
For past BookScan Top 20 Graphic Novel lists, see the "BookScan Top 20 GN Index."