It’s time to compare and contrast the digital comics best-seller lists. What will we learn today?
1. Injustice: Gods Among Us #32
2. Justice League Dark #23
3. Superman Unchained #3
4. Avengers, vol. 5 #13
5. Superior Spider-Man #16
6. Batman and Robin #23: Nightwing
7. X-Men, vol. 4 #4
8. Wonder Woman #23
9. The Walking Dead #113
10. Trinity of Sin: Pandora #3
DC wins the top ten this week, with six titles, while Marvel has four and Image has that old faithful, The Walking Dead.
1. Injustice: Gods Among Us #32
2. Injustice: Gods Among Us #31
3. Injustice: Gods Among Us #30
4. Injustice: Gods Among Us #1
5. Injustice: Gods Among Us #29
6. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
7. The Walking Dead, vol. 1
8. Injustice: Gods Among Us #2
9. Injustice: Gods Among Us #28
10. Batman: The Killing Joke
Well, it looks like the Injustice: Gods Among Us have discovered Kindle; usually only the early issues make the Kindle best-seller list, but this week we’re seeing a good handful of the most recent issues. Batman: The Killing Joke topped the list last week and we see it lingering at number 10 this week, while Batman: The Dark Knight Returns stays solidly in the middle. And eons after it debuted, people are still picking up the first volume of The Walking Dead. Go figure.
1. Injustice: Gods Among Us #32
2. Injustice: Gods Among Us #25
3. Injustice: Gods Among Us #29
4. Star Trek: The Next Generation/Doctor Who Assimilation #1
5. Injustice: Gods Among Us #28
6. Injustice: Gods Among Us #31
7. Injustice: Gods Among Us #26
8. It’s a Dog’s Life, Snoopy!
9. The Walking Dead, vol. 1
10. The World According to Lucy…
This is almost exactly the same as last week’s list, except that the issues of Injustice: Gods Among Us are shuffled.
iBooks
1. Injustice: Gods Among Us #32
2. My Little Pony: Micro Series #7: Cutie Mark Crusaders
3. March (Book One)
4. Injustice: Gods Among Us #31
5. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
6. My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic #10
7. Watchmen
8. Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Search, Part 2
9. The Walking Dead, vol. 1
10. My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic #6
Of the three e-book platforms, this has the most varied top ten list, and it’s hard to imagine a more bizarre juxtaposition than My Little Pony sitting between Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen. I guess it just goes to show how eclectic iBooks readers are. One notable book that pops up here and nowhere else is part one of March, the memoir of civil rights pioneer Rep. John Lewis, who is the last surviving speaker from the 1963 March on Washington. It has been getting a lot of attention in the media (deservedly so—it’s an excellent book) and the print edition topped the New York Times graphic books best-seller list, so it’s good to see people are buying it digitally as well.
In terms of market share, Marvel is completely absent from the three e-book platforms. In fact, the first Marvel book to appear in the Amazon rankings is at number 25 (they had a few that made the top ten a couple of weeks ago because of deep discounts). Injustice and Batman have a lot to do with this, but it’s sort of amazing that Marvel didn’t crack the top ten for Kindle, Nook, or iBooks this week. This may have to do with comiXology having an exclusive on Marvel single-issue comics, which I assume includes their digital-first comics, while DC is selling their 99-cent Injustice issues by the truckload.
A former book editor and newspaper reporter, Brigid Alverson started MangaBlog to keep track of her daughters¹ reading habits and now covers comics and graphic novels for Comic Book Resources , School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly Comics World, Robot 6, and MTV Geek. She also edits the Good Comics for Kids blog at School Library Journal. Brigid was a judge for the 2012 Eisner Awards. Send her an email to wordballoons@gmail.com