So all that talk about the return of the NY Times’ Graphic Books bestseller list yesterday got me thinking of the OTHER bestseller list that people care about, Publishers Weekly’s charts, which are based on Bookscan sales data. So I happened to go over and check, and reader, it must have been the Sale Charts Gods looking over me, becuase what did I find except Raina Telgemeier’s new book Guts at the very top of the chart.

Not the graphic novel bestseller list, not the kids bestseller list.

THE REGULAR OLD BOOK/BOOK BESTSELLER CHARTS, with 76,216 copies sold that week. Looks like that 1 million copy first printing was a good idea.

And the second best part of all this?

Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man: For Whom the Ball Rolls: From the Creator of Captain Underpants was the #3 book overall. Looking at the data I see this book also debuted at #1. The gods did not send me to check in that week, but I won’t make the same mistake in the future.

So two out of the five bestselling books OVERALL IN THE US this week were graphic novels for young readers.

Is there any wonder why this is one of the hottest categories in the publishing world?

While we all hail Queen Raina and her new memoir – which is a marvelous look at overcoming anxiety and the other every day battles we all face – we also need to salute King Dave.

The new Dog Man has already sold 595,890 copies.

I say this on the PW podcast all the time, but probably haven’t said it here at The Beat as much – these are REAL numbers. These are numbers every one in publishing wants a piece of. Hence the establishment of a kids GN line at virtually every book publisher – and even comics publishers – in the last year or so.

And credit where due to the comics world, where publishers like Dark Horse, Boom! and IDW have been putting out kids comics for quite a while – most of them licensed books like Disney and Avatar but they stayed the course.

And props to DC for sticking with the books once under Zoom and Ink – and getting strong sales as a result.

And props to Viz for making manga mainstream for a long time, long before everyone thought it could work. Oh how many stories about “Is manga a fad?” I wrote back in the aughts.

And props to Scholastic Graphix, which has really been the one leading the way on this since they started publishing Bone in color and Raina on The Babysitters Club, with First Second charging right alongside.

People used to laugh at me when I said kids liked reading comics. Now everyone laughs while they count their money.

* * * * *

Looking at PW’s comics bestseller list we find this:

RANK BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION (Click title for review) PUB DATE UNITS 1 My Hero Academia, Vol. 20 Kohei Horikoshi, Author Viz Media, $9.99 (200)

978-1-974707-73-7 Aug

2019 17,200 2 The Adventure Zone: Murder on the Rockport Limited Clint McElroy, Author, Griffin McElroy, Author, Justin McElroy, Author, Travis McElroy, Author, Carey Pietsch, Illustrator, Carey Pietsch, Author First Second, $19.99 (240)

978-1-250-15371-5 Jul

2019 10,256 3 One-Punch Man, Vol. 17 One, Author, Yusuke Murata, Illustrator Viz Media, $9.99 (208)

978-1-974707-45-4 Aug

2019 9,161 4 The Walking Dead Volume 32 Robert Kirkman, Author, Charlie Adlard, Artist, Stefano Gaudiano, Artist, Cliff Rathburn, Artist, Dave Stewart, Artist Image Comics, $16.99 (224)

978-1-5343-1241-8 Aug

2019 9,070 5 My Hero Academia, Vol. 1 Kouhei Horikoshi, Author, Kaouhei Horikoshi, Author Viz Media, $9.99 (192)

978-1-4215-8269-6 Aug

2015 6,380 6 Komi Can’t Communicate, Vol. 2 Tomohito Oda, Author Viz Media, $9.99 (192)

978-1-974707-13-3 Aug

2019 5,063 7 The Boys Omnibus Vol. 1 Tpb Garth Ennis, Author, Darick Robertson, Artist Dynamite Entertainment, $29.99 (344)

978-1-5241-0859-5 Apr

2019 4,580 8 My Hero Academia, Vol. 2 Kouhei Horikoshi, Author Viz Media, $9.99 (208)

978-1-4215-8270-2 Nov

2015 4,515 9 Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Part 4–Diamond Is Unbreakable, Vol. 2 Hirohiko Araki, Author Viz Media, $19.99 (400)

978-1-974708-08-6 Aug

2019 4,119 10 One Piece, Vol. 91 Eiichiro Oda, Author Viz Media, $9.99 (200)

978-1-974707-01-0 Aug

2019 4,026

Mostly manga but The Boys has been a bestseller on all the charts I check regularly since the Amazon show debuted. A big streaming/publishing win there. And bye bye Walking Dead – booksellers are really going to miss you.

(BTW this info is behind a paywall and I won’t make a habit of cutting an pasting but just this once….esp. since PW doesn’t seem to archive these lists.)

The children’s fiction list is a whole lot of Pilkey with a little Wimpy Kid and Babysitter’s club mixed in to the top 25. There are also books without pictures, I should point out.

Anyway, congrats to Raina. She has earned every bit of this success.