Holy frijole! Buried in a fairly moribund report on Q1 ’26 book sales from Jim Milliot was this little nugget:
The graphic novel category also showed signs of rebounding from last year’s collapse of Diamond Comic Distributors, with sales jumping 28.5% in the quarter.
The numbers are those reported by Circana BookScan, and come amid a fairly flat time for books overall:
Unit sales of print books had a slow start in 2026, according to data from Circana BookScan. Total unit sales fell 3.1% compared to a year ago for the quarter ending March 28, 2026, dropping to 163.5 million copies sold. Only the children’s category posted a sales increase over the first quarter of 2025.
Unfortunately I don’t have direct access to more data than was reported above to know what drove the huge increase. The first thing everyone might think is that it was sales of Absolute Batman collections that drove the surge, adding on to the already strong manga sales.
While I don’t have direct access to BookScan, I do have access to ICV2’s monthly sales reports, also based on Circana data. They have top 20 lists without numbers, and with numbers if you subscribe for a measly $12 a month. I was so intrigued by this sales boom that I ponied up the money. I won’t give all the numbers, since it’s proprietary but I will give the top number for the first two months year-to-year in this wee chart:
| Year | January | February |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 31,877 | 23,154 |
| 2026 | 12,743 | 38,632 |
As you can see the bestsellers themselves don’t show a huge surge so one can only conclude that it was the category as a whole that saw a boost. That’s my very back of the envelope math. Hopefully someone with more access can give more of an idea of what is going on. While just a few stronger titles coming out would definitely boost the category, 28.5% is such a big increase it is likely to be more than a few.
At any rate, it’s GOOD news. No wonder everyone at ComcscPRO looked chipper.
If you want to do more sleuthing, here are the Top Ten of each month from ICv2 without numbers. I don’t copy these in general, as they are exclusive to ICv2, however, once in a while it’s worth taking a look.
January 2025
| 1 | CHAINSAW MAN VOL. 17 | TATSUKI FUJIMOTO | VIZ MEDIA |
| 2 | SPY X FAMILY VOL. 13 | TATSUYA ENDO | VIZ MEDIA |
| 3 | SOLO LEVELING VOL. 10 | CHUGONG | YEN PRESS |
| 4 | JUJUTSU KAISEN VOL. 24 | GEGE AKUTAMI | VIZ MEDIA |
| 5 | DANDADAN VOL. 1 | YUKINOBU TATSU | VIZ MEDIA |
| 6 | SOLO LEVELING VOL. 1 | CHUGONG | YEN PRESS |
| 7 | BERSERK DELUXE VOL. 1 HC | KENTARO MIURA | DARK HORSE |
| 8 | JUJUTSU KAISEN VOL. 1 | GEGE AKUTAMI | VIZ MEDIA |
| 9 | SOLO LEVELING VOL. 9 | CHUGONG | YEN PRESS |
| 10 | DESTROY ALL HUMANS. THEY CAN’T BE REGENERATED. A MAGIC: THE GATHERING MANGA VOL. 2 | KATSURA ISE | VIZ MEDIA |
February 2025
| 1 | SOLO LEVELING VOL. 11 | CHUGONG | IZE PRESS |
| 2 | MY HERO ACADEMIA VOL. 40 | KOHEI HORIKOSHI | VIZ MEDIA |
| 3 | KAGURABACHI VOL. 2 | TAKERU HOKAZONO | VIZ MEDIA |
| 4 | DANDADAN VOL. 11 | YUKINOBU TATSU | VIZ MEDIA |
| 5 | SOLO LEVELING VOL. 1 | CHUGONG | IZE PRESS |
| 6 | SOLO LEVELING VOL. 10 | CHUGONG | IZE PRESS |
| 7 | CHAINSAW MAN VOL. 17 | TATSUKI FUJIMOTO | VIZ MEDIA |
| 8 | KAIJU NO. 8 VOL. 12 | NAOYA MATSUMOTO | VIZ MEDIA |
| 9 | THE GUY SHE WAS INTERESTED IN WASN’T A GUY AT ALL VOL. 2 | SUMIKO ARAI | YEN PRESS |
| 10 | SPY X FAMILY VOL. 13 | TATSUYA ENDO | VIZ MEDIA |
January 2026
| 1 | GACHIAKUTA VOL. 1 | KEI URANA | KODANSHA |
| 2 | JUJUTSU KAISEN VOL. 28 | GEGE AKUTAMI | VIZ MEDIA |
| 3 | JUJUTSU KAISEN VOL. 1 | GEGE AKUTAMI | VIZ MEDIA |
| 4 | JOJO’S BIZARRE ADVENTURE: PART 7–STEEL BALL RUN VOL. 5 | HIROHIKO ARAKI | VIZ MEDIA |
| 5 | THE SUMMER HIKARU DIED VOL. 1 | MOKUMOKUREN | YEN PRESS |
| 6 | SOLO LEVELING VOL. 14: SIDE STORIES 1 | CHUGONG | IZE PRESS |
| 7 | DEMON SLAYER: KIMETSU NO YAIBA VOL. 1 | KOYOHARU GOTOUGE | VIZ MEDIA |
| 8 | GACHIAKUTA VOL. 2 | KEI URANA | KODANSHA COMICS |
| 9 | SUPERGIRL: WOMAN OF TOMORROW: DC COMPACT COMICS | TOM KING | DC COMICS |
| 10 | JUJUTSU KAISEN VOL. 2 | GEGE AKUTAMI | VIZ MEDIA |
February 2026
| 1 | JUJUTSU KAISEN VOL. 29 | GEGE AKUTAMI | VIZ MEDIA | |
| 2 | ABSOLUTE BATMAN VOL. 2: ABOMINATION | SCOTT SNYDER | DC COMICS | |
| 3 | JUJUTSU KAISEN VOL. 1 | GEGE AKUTAMI | VIZ MEDIA | |
| 4 | GACHIAKUTA VOL. 1 | KEI URANA | KODANSHA COMICS | |
| 5 | JUJUTSU KAISEN VOL. 28 | GEGE AKUTAMI | VIZ MEDIA | |
| 6 | DANDADAN VOL. 17 | YUKINOBU TATSU | VIZ MEDIA | |
| 7 | KAGURABACHI VOL. 6 | TAKERU HOKAZONO | VIZ MEDIA | |
| 8 | DEMON SLAYER: KIMETSU NO YAIBA VOL. 1 | KOYOHARU GOTOUGE | VIZ MEDIA | |
| 9 | THE SUMMER HIKARU DIED VOL. 1 | MOKUMOKUREN | YEN PRESS | |
| 10 | GACHIAKUTA VOL. 2 | KEI URANA | KODANSHA COMICS |
