by 
Updated on December 10, 2021
Here’s my monthly look at the New York Times’ graphic novel best seller list.
The top five best sellers
- “Class Act” by Jerry Craft. (Amazon, Bookshop, Kobo)
- “New Kid,” by Jerry Craft (Amazon, Bookshop, Kobo)
- “My Hero Academia,” vol. 25, by Kohei Horikoshi (Amazon, Kobo)
- “The Horrifyingly Haunted Hack-a-ween,” by Meredith Rusu (Amazon, Bookshop, Kobo)
- “Guts,” by Raina Telgemeier (Amazon, Bookshop, Kobo)
(Disclosure: The blog is an affiliate of Bookshop.org, and will earn a commission for purchases made through Bookshop links.)
Jerry Craft takes the top two spots
Jerry Craft’s two graphic novels are the top entries this month. They’re joined in the top five by “My Hero Academia,” a Halloween themed “Captain Underpants” book, and perennial mainstay Raina Telgemeier.
“Class Act” is a follow-up to “New Kid”; it centers around a kid dealing with not having the same advantages as his privileged classmates at his school.
There’s a short animated trailer for this book:
A strong showing for manga
Manga made a pretty strong showing on the list this month, claiming several spots. Three are from the popular “My Hero Academia” series; they’re also the only superhero entries on this list aside from “Captain Underpants.”
Several TV-based entries
A few graphic novels based on TV shows appear this month. An “Avatar: The Last Airbender” omnibus, “The Search,” appears at #10.
Following it at #11 is “Through the Moon” by Peter Wartman and Xanthe Bouma. It’s based on “The Dragon Prince,” a fantasy animated series on Netflix now heading into its fourth season.
Graphic novel book channel sales still strong during the pandemic
Not from the New York Times, but related to graphic novel sales, is this year’s ICv2 conference, held online. The conference reports that graphic novels sales have stayed fairly strong. That’s thanks in part to parents looking for something for their quarantined kids to read.
“Juvenile fiction” currently makes up 37% of book channel graphic novel sales, followed by manga at 31%. The “big two” superheroes are down to 7%, in a 10% year-over-year drop from 2019.
Even despite the pandemic-led shutdown earlier this year, that’s a good sign for graphic novels.
Image from “New Kid.” Art by Jerry Craft. (Quill Tree Books)
