Over at Comic Book Resources,

Brian Hibbs has done his annual analysis on BookScan’s sales figures for graphic novels.

First thing you have to say about BookScan is the standard disclaimer that we don’t really know what percentage of retail sales it represents. Barnes & Nobel, Borders and Amazon: Yes. Wal-Mart, book clubs, many independent bookstores and libraries: No. Conventional wisdom is that it captures around 75% of outlets, but if a book gets picked up by a lot of bookstores or a big box, high volume place like Wal-Mart, it could be way off. Your mileage may vary by title, but this is a decent gauge of what sells in chain bookstores and online.

One of the interesting things about the full list is the amount of old titles at the top of the list. Watchmen and Dark Knight are old enough to drink in bars. Batman has a lot of old backlist. Perisopolis isn’t a new book, and so on and so forth. if the date column was accurate, I’ve filtered the list for titles released in 2008 and deleted anything I recognized as new printing of an old book, and here’s your chain book store top 50 NEW graphic novels of 2008.

rank / copies sold / title / Publisher

1. 103,848 NARUTO V28                    VIZ MEDIA
2. 76,442 NARUTO V29                    VIZ MEDIA
3. 64,481 NARUTO V30                    VIZ MEDIA                        
4. 55,637 NARUTO V31                    VIZ MEDIA                        
5. 49,154 FRUITS BASKET V 19            TOKYOPOP
6. 46,406 BONE GHOST CIRCLES            GRAPHIX                          
7. 43,513 FRUITS BASKET V 20            TOKYOPOP                         
8. 41,396 POKEMON V1                    VIZ MEDIA                        
9. 37,419 VAMPIRE KNIGHT V4             VIZ MEDIA                        
10. 35,881 NARUTO V32                    VIZ MEDIA                        
11. 35,783 BONE TREAS HUNTERS            GRAPHIX                          
12. 35,617 BLEACH V22                    VIZ MEDIA                        
13. 35,310 DEATH NOTE 13 HT READ         VIZ MEDIA                        
14. 34,919 DEATH NOTE ANOTHER NOTE       VIZ MEDIA                        
15. 33,201 POKEMON RISE OF DARKRAI       VIZ MEDIA                        
16. 31,301 RISE OF SCOURGE WARRIORS MANGATOKYOPOP                         
17. 30,803 KINGDOM HEARTS II V 2         TOKYOPOP                         
18. 30,644 FRUITS BASKET V 21            TOKYOPOP                         
19. 29,572 NARUTO THE OFF FANBOOK        VIZ MEDIA                        
20. 28,337 VAMPIRE KNIGHT V5             VIZ MEDIA                        
21. 27,724 BLEACH V23                    VIZ MEDIA                        
22. 27,664 JOKER                         DC COMICS                        
23. 25,588 IN ODD WE TRUST               DEL REY BOOKS                    
24. 24,576 BLEACH V24                    VIZ MEDIA                        
25. 21,695 COMP POKEMON PKT GDE V2       VIZ MEDIA                        
26. 21,448 ROSARIO+VAMPIRE V1            VIZ MEDIA                        
27. 20,972 INTO THE WOODS WARRIORS TIGERSTOKYOPOP                         
28. 20,775 FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST V16       VIZ MEDIA                        
29. 20,542 ABSOLUTE BOYFRIEND V5         VIZ MEDIA                        
30. 20,196 NARUTO V33                    VIZ MEDIA                        
31. 19,778 COMP POKEMON PKT GDE V1       VIZ MEDIA                        
32. 18,918 DRESDEN FILES WELCOME TO THE  DEL REY BOOKS                    
33. 18,735 PEOPLES HIST OF AMER EMPIRE   METROPOLITAN BOOKS               
34. 18,367 NEGIMA V17 MAGISTER NEGI MAGI DEL REY BOOKS                    
35. 18,252 BUFFY TVS SEASON 8 V2 NO      DARK HORSE COMICS                
36. 17,107 POKEMON V2                    VIZ MEDIA                        
37. 17,050 LAURELL K HAMILTONS ANITA BLA MARVEL COMICS                    
38. 16,894 STAR WARS THE FORCE UNLEASHED DARK HORSE COMICS                
39. 16,591 ROSARIO+VAMPIRE V2            VIZ MEDIA                        
40. 16,259 NEGIMA V18 MAGISTER NEGI MA   DEL REY BOOKS                    
41. 16,248 ABSOLUTE BOYFRIEND V6         VIZ MEDIA                        
42. 16,172 HACK G U V 1                  TOKYOPOP                         
43. 15,096 MARVEL CHRONICLE              DK PUBLISHING (DORLING KINDERS   
44. 14,988 CHIBI VAMPIRE V 7             TOKYOPOP                         
45. 14,843 LEGEND OF ZELDA V1            VIZ MEDIA                        
46. 14,835 TSUBASA V16 RESERVOIR CHRONICLDEL REY BOOKS                    
47. 14,507 DC COMICS ENCY REV            DK PUBLISHING (DORLING KINDERS   
48. 14,312 GENTLEMENS ALLIANCE V5        VIZ MEDIA                        
49. 13,741 DC VAULT A MUSEUM-IN-A-BOOK W RUNNING PRESS BOOK PUBLISHERS  
50. 13,686 NEGIMA V19 MAGISTER NEGI MAGI DEL REY BOOKS                 

How’s that stack up by publisher?

Viz – 26 titles
TokyoPop – 8 titles
Del Rey Books – 6 titles
Dark Horse Comics – 2 titles
DK Publishing – 2 titles
Graphix (Scholastic) – 2 titles
DC Comics – 1 title
Marvel Comics – 1title
Metropolitan Books – 1 title
Running Press Book Publishers – 1 title

The #50 title released in 2008 was #138 in overall sales.

Now, to be fair, Marvel’s Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born was released in late ’07 and would have been ranked at #19.

With the exception of DC’s “Joker” orignial graphic novel, new books about DC and Marvel’s respective superhero universes are selling better than the actual comics, or at least their current ones. Five titles are adaptions of prose books (6 if you want to count the Dark Tower book). One video game adaptation. Two non-anime TV/Film adaptations. Two colorized editions of the ever-green Bone (I’m counting these because they’re new as color comics).

For new in 2008 titles, the best-selling Vertigo book would be the final volume of Y- The Last Man at #58 with 13,213 copies. The highest selling Marvel Universe title is Marvel Zombies 2 at #62 with 12,906 copies. If you don’t count that as Marvel Universe, the next best selling Marvel book is Marvel Adventures Iron Man at #65 with 12, 581 copies. If you don’t count that as Marvel Universe, then we finally have an event book with World War Hulk at #70 with 11,911 copies.

Manga is still winning the war for the chain book stores. DC still is able to flex their muscles a little on original graphic novels (those Joker sales occurred in 2 months). But collected editions of the current monthly DC and Marvel super hero universe titles aren’t even sniffing the top of this market.