April 2022 NPD BookScan – Top 20 Author, Manga, Superhero Graphic Novels

Driven by media, Batman and Moon Knight continue to dominate the Superhero chart; webtoon collections are strong on the Author chart; and reflecting his broad appeal, works by Neil Gaiman appear on both.

There are some interesting patterns on the charts of the top 20 Author, Manga, and Superhero graphic novels in the book channel, based on NPD BookScan data for April 2022 (4/3/22-4/30-22) provided to ICv2.

The number of Batman titles on the Superhero chart dropped from 15 in March to 11 in April, but that’s still a lot, even for Batman. Meanwhile, the number of Moon Knight titles has been steadily increasing, from two in February to three in March to four in April. As we discussed last month, sales drivers include the movie The Batman, which premiered at the beginning of March, and the Netflix series Moon Knight, which debuted at the end of the March (see “March 2022 NPD BookScan“).  The top seller, Batman: Year One, and the number three title, The Long Halloween, are two of the books that inspired The Batman. Reflecting the more modest impact of the Disney+ series, the top Moon Knight title on the chart, Moon Knight by Bendis & Maleev: The Complete Collection, is in fifth place, behind Watchmen.

The number two title on the Superhero chart is The Sandman, a property that charts reliably month after month, but The Sandman on this month’s chart is not the same edition that appeared on last month’s chart at number nineteen. In April, DC released a new paperback that supplants the 30th Anniversary Edition; the new book has a similar cover but is twice as thick as the old one, and it’s priced at $29.99, compared to $19.99 for the older edition. With double the pages for only half again the price, that’s a rare bargain in these inflationary times.

Overall, thanks to Moon Knight, two Jonathan Hickman titles, and a new volume of Star Wars, Marvel Comics took seven slots on the chart, with DC Comics filling in the rest.

Five of the top 20 superhero titles were April releases, although both The Sandman and Moon Knight: Legacy are new, larger editions of series that have been collected before. Ditto X-Men by Jonathan Hickman, although Marvel went in the deluxe direction with that one: it’s a hardcover omnibus with a $75 list price that’s higher than the earlier trades combined. The other two April releases on the chart were Hickman’s Inferno (a first-time collection in hardcover with a sticker price of $39.99) and Star Wars: The High Republic: Trail of Shadows.

The top half of the April Author chart looks a lot like the top half of the March Author chart, with one big exception: Neil Gaiman’s Chivalry (from Dark Horse Comics), which debuted at number 4. Gaiman thus manages to make both the Superhero chart (with The Sandman) and the Author chart, and there’s a second new Gaiman title on the Author chart, Volume 2 of Norse Mythology, for good measure. Gaiman is currently on a live appearance tour in the U.S. (he appeared in Madison, Wisconsin last night).

With three volumes of Solo Leveling and both the hardcover and the paperback editions of Lore Olympus hovering close to the top, the April Author chart is heavy on books that used to be webtoons. A year ago, we commented on the number of Instagram comics in the top 20 (see “April 2021 NPD BookScan“), but now new Author titles seem to be coming from webtoons.

As with the Superhero chart, there’s a good handful of titles that are in the top 20 Author titles month after month; Gender Queer seems to have attained that status since the recent controversies. There are six April releases on this chart: Chivalry; The Ghost in You, the latest in Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ Reckless series; Locke & Key: The Golden Age, a hardcover collection of the crossover with The Sandman; the aforementioned second volume of Norse Mythology; Pinball: A Graphic History of the Silver Ball, by Jon Chad; and Volume 4 of Titan Comics’ collected editions of Michael Moorcock’s Elric.

For the fourth month in a row, the entire Top 20 Adult graphic novels chart was manga, so check out our discussion of April’s manga trends (see “April 2022 NPD BookScan – Top 20 Adult Graphic Novels”).

For charts of April 2022 graphic novel sales from NPD BookScan:
April 2022 NPD BookScan – Top 20 Adult Graphic Novels
April 2022 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:
April 2022 NPD BookScan – Top 20 Adult Graphic Novels with Actual Sales
April 2022 NPD BookScan – Top 20 Author, Manga, and Superhero Graphic Novels with Actual Sales
April 2022 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.”

Source: ICV2