This page provides lists of best-selling comic book series to date. It includes Japanese
manga
Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...
,
American comic book
An American comic book is a thin periodical originating in the United States, on average 32 pages, containing comics. While the form originated in 1933, American comic books first gained popularity after the 1938 publication of ''Action Comics'' ...
s, and
European comics
European comics are comics produced in Europe. The '' comic album'' is a very common printed medium. The typical ''album'' is printed in large format, generally with high quality paper and colouring, commonly 24x32 cm (9.4x12.6 in), has around 48 ...
.
This list includes
comic book
A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...
s that have sold at least 100million copies.
There are three separate lists, for three different comic book publication formats:
collected comic book volumes, periodical single-issue
floppy comics, and
comic magazines. They are separated because the sales figures of these publication formats are not directly comparable.
Collected comic book volumes
This list is for comics printed in a traditional
book
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arr ...
format (
paperback
A paperback (softcover, softback) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with adhesive, glue rather than stitch (textile arts), stitches or Staple (fastener), staples. In contrast, hardcover (hardback) book ...
or
hardcover
A hardcover, hard cover, or hardback (also known as hardbound, and sometimes as case-bound) book is one bound with rigid protective covers (typically of binder's board or heavy paperboard covered with buckram or other cloth, heavy paper, or occa ...
), typically with a similar number of pages as
novel
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...
s. The list includes
graphic novel
A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...
s printed exclusively in this format, and
trade paperback/hardcover books which compile periodical comic chapters/issues into larger collected volumes. Japanese manga
tankōbon
is the Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or cultur ...
volumes and European
comic album
a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate ...
s account for the vast majority of collected comic book volume sales.
American
trade paperbacks
A paperback (softcover, softback) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with adhesive, glue rather than stitch (textile arts), stitches or Staple (fastener), staples. In contrast, hardcover (hardback) book ...
and
graphic novel
A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...
s are also included in the list.
These comic series were originally serialized either as chapters (typically 15-30 pages each) in comic publications (such as
comic magazines) or as single-page
comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...
s in non-comic publications (such as newspapers), before being collected into a larger comic book volume (which compiles either multiple comic chapters or numerous comic strips).
For comic series originally serialized as chapters in comic magazines or
manga magazines
This is a list of manga magazines or published in Japan. The majority of manga magazines are categorized into one of five demographics, which correspond to the age and gender of their readership:
* ''Children's anime and manga, Kodomo'' – ai ...
, their estimated circulation figures in those magazines are given in footnotes.
Periodical single-issue floppy comics
This list is for single-issue
floppy comics, also known as the
American comic book
An American comic book is a thin periodical originating in the United States, on average 32 pages, containing comics. While the form originated in 1933, American comic books first gained popularity after the 1938 publication of ''Action Comics'' ...
format. Unlike the paperback book format, floppy comics are thinner
periodicals
A periodical literature (also called a periodical publication or simply a periodical) is a published work that appears in a new edition on a regular schedule. The most familiar example is a newspaper, but a magazine or a Academic journal, journal ...
and stapled together. Each floppy comic issue is typically 20–40 pages, and usually consists of a single chapter (as opposed to a larger comic book volume that typically includes multiple chapters). A floppy comic is comparable to a
comic magazine Comic magazine may refer to:
* Comics anthology
* ''Comic Magazine'', a 1986 Japanese film
* Comic Magazines, the parent company of Quality Comics
* Franco-Belgian comics magazines
* Japanese manga magazines
* A periodical containing comic strips, ...
, but is thinner in size and is dedicated to a single character or group of characters (whereas a comic magazine is thicker and serializes multiple different unrelated series).
Single-issue floppy comics are the most common publication format for American comics, and account for the vast majority of American
superhero
A superhero or superheroine is a stock character that typically possesses ''superpowers'', abilities beyond those of ordinary people, and fits the role of the hero, typically using his or her powers to help the world become a better place, ...
comic sales.
This list also contains periodical publications from other countries that are similarly dedicated to a single character or group of characters. Some of the numbers reported here may also include sales of trade paperback volumes, which account for a small portion of American comic sales.
According to the most recently available data, the best-selling American single-issue comic of all time was ''
X-Men
The X-Men are a superhero team appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, first appearing in Uncanny X-Men, ''The X-Men'' #1 by artist/co-plotter Jack Kirby and writer/editor Stan Lee in 1963. Although initially cancelled in ...
'' #1, which was published in 1991 and has since sold almost 8.2 million copies.
Comic magazines
This list is for
comic magazine Comic magazine may refer to:
* Comics anthology
* ''Comic Magazine'', a 1986 Japanese film
* Comic Magazines, the parent company of Quality Comics
* Franco-Belgian comics magazines
* Japanese manga magazines
* A periodical containing comic strips, ...
s, which are
anthology
In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors.
In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically categ ...
magazine
A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combinatio ...
s that serialize multiple different unrelated comic series. This list includes Japanese
manga magazines
This is a list of manga magazines or published in Japan. The majority of manga magazines are categorized into one of five demographics, which correspond to the age and gender of their readership:
* ''Children's anime and manga, Kodomo'' – ai ...
,
European comic magazines, and English-language comic magazines.
In Japan, manga magazines account for the vast majority of manga sales. Most manga series first appear in manga magazines, before later being sold separately as collected tankobon volumes.
See also
*
List of best-selling manga
The following is a list of the best-selling Japanese manga series to date in terms of the number of collected ''tankōbon'' volumes sold. All series in this list have at least 20 million copies in circulation. This list is limited to Japanese m ...
*
List of Japanese manga magazines by circulation
The following is a list of Japanese manga magazines by circulation, during the timespan of April 1 to June 30, 2022. These figures have been collected by the Japanese Magazine Publishers Association, which updates every three months. The updates ar ...
*
''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' circulation figures
*
List of best-selling books
This page provides lists of best-selling individual books and book series to date and in any language. ''"Best-selling"'' refers to the estimated number of copies sold of each book, rather than the number of books printed or currently owned. Com ...
*
List of best-selling fiction authors
This is a list of best-selling fiction authors to date, in any language. While finding precise sales numbers for any given author is nearly impossible, the list is based on approximate numbers provided or repeated by reliable sources. "Best sellin ...
*
List of highest-grossing media franchises
This article lists notable highest-grossing media franchises. Due to companies and corporations rarely reporting the total revenue(s) figures of their franchises, the list uses estimated figures based on publicly available data and includes th ...
Notes
References
External links
The Comics Chronicles
{{Comics
Lists of comic series
Literature records
Lists of bestsellers