Amazon Top 50

Here are the Top 50 Graphic Novels on Amazon this afternoon. All the previous caveats apply.


1 (-). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days *
2 (+23). The Walking Dead, Vol. 10: What We Become
3 (+3). Mercy Thompson Homecoming *
4 (-2). Watchmen
5 (+6). Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History
6 (-2). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw
7 (+2). Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
8 (-5). Asterios Polyp
9 (+4). The Complete Persepolis
10 (-5). Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? Deluxe Edition
11 (+13). Fables Vol. 12: The Dark Ages *
12 (+9). Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began
13 (-5). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules
14 (-7). Diary of a Wimpy Kid
15 (+1). Maximum Ride, Vol. 1 Manga (kindle)
16 (-1). Parker: The Hunter
17 (-3). Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
18 (+5). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
19 (-9). Batman: The Killing Joke
20 (-8). Tumor Chapter 1 (kindle)
21 (+10). Time of Your Life (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8, Vol. 4)
22 (-3). Final Crisis
23 (+3). Angel: After the Fall, Vol. 4
24 (+8). Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War, Vol. 1
25 (R). Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War, Vol. 2
26 (+7). Batman: Arkham Asylum (15th Anniversary Edition)
27 (-10). Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451: The Authorized Adaptation
28 (-10). V for Vendetta
29 (-1). Batman: Year One
30 (+7). Green Lantern: Rage of the Red Lanterns
31 (N). Pax Romana *
32 (R). The Complete Maus: A Survivor's Tale
33 (-4). American Born Chinese
34 (R). The Walking Dead, Book 1
35 (-8). Mouse Guard Volume 2: Winter 1152
36 (R). The Complete Peanuts 1971-1974 Box Set *
37 (R). The Art of Harvey Kurtzman: The Mad Genius of Comics
38 (+7). The Long Way Home (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8, Vol. 1)
39 (+3). Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
40 (-5). Green Lantern: Rebirth
41 (R). Stephen King's Dark Tower: Treachery
42 (+4). Wolves at the Gate (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 3)
43 (-13). The Boys, Vol. 4
44 (N). The Walking Dead, Book 3
45 (N). The Complete Peanuts, 1973-1974 *
46 (-2). Bone: One Volume Edition
47 (R). The Sandman Vol. 2: The Doll's House
48 (R). No Future For You (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 2)
49 (N). Classic G.I. Joe Volume 3


Items with asterisks (*) are pre-order items.

N = New listing appearing on list for first time
R = Item returning to the list after having been off for 1 or more weeks


Commentary:

* Huge movement for The Walking Dead, possibly tied to the announcement that's it's being developed as a television series for AMC.

* Highest debut goes to Jonathan Hickman's Pax Romana. For a collection by a non-name (though very talented) creator and not featuring an established character or franchise, this is quite impressive.

* We may be beginning to see the start of a university effect, where GNs that are assigned as reading in college classes take a bump up at the start of the semester. This would affect books like Maus, Persepolis, Understanding Comics, and Watchmen. Stay tuned over the next few weeks to see if this holds true.

* Is Green Lantern DC's new Batman?

* A GI Joe volume squeaks in at #49, showing that just because you have the top movie in the country doesn't mean that it will translate to big comics sales.

* I added in the 'R' code to differentiate items which are returning to the list, as opposed to items which are appearing on the list for the first time.

Comedy and Tragedy

This makes me laugh and cry simultaneously.

Zombie Therapy

Bizarro is brought to you today by Fashion Police.

Monsters who feel remorse for their behavior is a regular theme in vampire dramas – HBO's "True Blood," the film, "Twilight" – so I thought it might be fun to extend the same feelings to a zombie. He eats people's brains, then feels bad about it. If only Karl Rove were capable of such emotion.

A libertarian reader told me recently that he believed government should stay out of our way because most people are basically good and will do the right thing without government intervention. He called my view that humans cannot be trusted, "cynical."

He's absolutely right, it is cynical. I also happen to think it is realistic and accurate, as witnessed by recent human history. (By "recent," I mean the past 100,000 years.) While most "individuals" might be good, groups of idividuals in power cannot be trusted. Corporations are amoral by definition – their sole purpose for existence is to make money, not serve humanity – and the very small percentage of people who rise to the top of corporations are very often as unethical and unrepentant as a zombie. That's how they get there. Bernie Madoff, Ken Lay, Dick Cheney, everyone on Wall Street, etc.

People who rise to the top of government usually have the same problem, of course; power almost always corrupts. But the difference is that government is not amoral by definition and in a republic such as ours, the politicians eventually, in some way, must answer to the rest of us. That is to say that if things get out of hand we can fire them, as we did to so many Republicans in the last election. (Of course, people have to be smart enough to figure out they are being screwed, which sometimes takes a while, but that's another story.)

It's not perfect, god knows, but it's better than letting markets police themselves and not screw the rest of us (see Wall Street, last eight years), and corporations not to pollute the planet and sell toxic goods to the rest of us (see last 60 years), and people to treat each other fairly and not seek to destroy those with more skin pigment. (See Civil War, civil rights movement, "birthers," current town hall hooliganism over health care, Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, Rush, etc.)

Stories about zombies and vampires are popular because they are a metaphor for our actual lives as we struggle to avoid the bloodsuckers and braineaters at the top. What discourages me most is when the monsters find ways to scare their prey into fighting for them, instead of against, as they have done so often in the past decade and most recently with health care reform.

Enough seriousness, now this.

Stick It

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by Stick Figure Cathedral.

I like these kinds of ideas that require sparse art because I don't have to work on them as long. I like elaborate drawings as much as some of my readers like looking at them, but it is nice to have a simple idea now and then that would not support an elaborate background.

for those of you who miss searching for the hidden symbols, however, I have created the following alternate version.

Please enjoy responsibly.

How Amazon's Bestseller Lists Work

Those of you who have been following our weekly snapshots of the Amazon Top 50 Comics lists—and/or the recent discussion over at Comics Worth Reading of the same—may find the following article of interest

Over on Slate's The Big Money blog, Marion Maneker discusses "Secrets of the Amazon Best-Seller List," with speculation on how the list is derived, and how some authors attempt to game the system.

In short, Maneker quotes author Andy Kessler, who speculates:

"I'm not sure the exact number," Kessler says of the weightings, "but my guess is 40 percent hour, 30 percent day, 20 percent week, and 10 percent month. So if you have a huge spike in sales, you don't completely dislodge books that have been in the top 10 or top 100 for months and months. Though you might pass them for a very fun hour."

(link via Marc-Oliver Frisch)

Of Puke and Professors

Bizarro is brought to you today by Unnatural Acts.

I haven't much to say about this cartoon except that I think it's fun. Horses are great. I've never once opened up a GQ, so I know nothing about the magazine other than what its covers look like on a newsstand. Perhaps some of you already knew that by the way I dress and think I should open one more often.

More importantly, my old humanities professor is coming to visit in about an hour and we've been cleaning the house feverishly for the past 24 hours. It's almost done, but not quite. I like having house guests because it is the only thing that makes us clean up, but I hate it because it's hard work and I know that it will be a complete wreck again not 12 hours after he walks out the door.

My professor is a terribly cool old gentlemen, and visits NYC from time to time to see theater. We might go to see "Hair" with him. What a "hoot," as the homosexuals say. (To be fair, many heterosexuals and bisexuals say it, too, although I believe the term was made popular in the gay community.)

Must conclude now, I have to run around the house with a rag and some floor cleaner and buff out the cat puke stains.

Shoe Art

(Click this image to enlargerate.)

As I mentioned in a previous blog, I'd love to start a blog that just comments on the art of other cartoons every day. I don't have time to do it regularly, but here is a perfect example of what I mean.

Shoe's left arm does not match the rest of his body. The line weight is heavier and it is wearing a suit jacket sleeve, while the rest of him is all Casual Friday with a golf shirt, or whatever you call those things. Jim MacNelly, who created this strip and was a very talented artist, writer and editorial cartoonist, is rolling over in his grave. (I don't know why they "roll," I don't invent the activities of the dead, I just report them.) Somebody hires TWO people to take over his strip and neither of them can be bothered to draw an arm to match the body, or at least steal one that is wearing the correct clothing.

I don't know either of the people who work on this strip now, but it sort of makes me wonder if all of the pictures are stolen from old art and pieced back together.

Oops. I just noticed that his hand is coming out from behind a menu. Never mind.