Comics Bestsellers - February

Take a look at Publishers Weekly's February Comics Bestsellers List, which is really a Graphic Novels Bestsellers list, but whatever.

An interesting list, in that Anglophone comics actually managed to get two spots on the top ten, one at #1, and neither are properties owned by Marvel or DC. And the top spot was an indie comic.

And HOLY #$%@*! look at how Naruto sells. That's a damn good argument for having your backlist in print ...

And why is Publishers Weekly's list better than those found in Wizard or Diamond Comic Distributors' Previews? Because the latter two publications cater to the extremely insular direct sales market, whereas Publishers Weekly gives a far more accurate picture of what the public as a whole is buying and reading, as they monitor bookstores.

And as you can see, manga are still kicking the ass of American comics. Which is too bad, really. And no, I don't think that Marvel's recent announcement to publish more Eurocomics will help them very much. DC tried this with both Humanoids Publishing and 2000 A.D., and the effort was swiftly abandoned. Then again, DC didn't exactly fall all over themselves in their effort to advertise or promote those publishing ventures, either.

And this post went a lot longer than I meant it to.