New York Times Drops Graphic Novel and Manga Best Sellers List

The New York Times has quietly ended its Graphic Books Best Sellers list. The New York Times informed subscribers of changes to their best sellers list, beginning with next week’s edition dated February 5. Subscribers with early access to the lists publication confirmed that the graphic novel and manga best sellers lists had been removed from the publication.

ComicBook.com reached out to the New York Times, who said that they were “focusing on its core lists” moving forward beginning with the February 5 edition. As the Graphic Books and Manga lists do not appear in next week’s edition of the Best Sellers lists, it seems that neither list qualifies as a “core list”.

The change is perplexing in part due to the enormous growth of graphic novels in recent years. According to industry publication ICv2, comics were the largest area of growth for the book market in 2016 and the National Book Award winning March graphic novel recently skyrocketed to the top of Amazon’s best seller list after co-author John Lewis made headlines for feuding with then president-elect Donald Trump.

The New York Times graphic novel and manga best sellers lists were started in 2009. Interestingly, the New York Times decided to refer to graphic novels and comics as “graphic books”, in part to make the list more inclusive to various types of comic formats. The lists were divided into three subcategories: softcover best sellers, hardcover best sellers, and manga. In addition to providing a brief summary of the books, the lists also included information on how many weeks the books had been on the lists.

The first New York Times best seller was Watchmen, while the most recent best selling softcover book was Raina Telgemeier’s Ghosts.

ComicBook.com has asked New York Time for additional comment as why the Graphic Books and Manga lists were dropped, but have not yet received a reply.