PerrybiblesweetoWe were tooling around on Amazon the other day, and happened to notice what the best selling graphic novels were. #1 is something called DARK HUNGER by Christine Feehan, apparently a manga-ized version of a dark Vampire tale. To be honest, we never heard of this, but perhaps it’s another plank in the bridge between grown women and comics. (It’s currently Amazon’s #3 bestselling ROMANCE.)

The #2 GN seller is, just as surprisingly, the first collection of The Perry Bible Fellowship by Nicholas Gurewitch. Dark Horse has been the leading publisher to bring webcomics to print, and they look to be doing very well with his one. At press time here’s how it ranked:

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #449 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Popular in these categories:
#1 in Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Publishers > Dark Horse
#1 in Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Comic Strips
#2 in Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Graphic Novels


The best part? The book isn’t even out yet.

1 COMMENT

  1. OK. Funny thing about this… while reading the story, I immediately thought of those long gone dark ages when you could only find any comic book material hidden in the humor section of the bookstore, right? And the PBF book would fit pretty squarely into the humor category, more so than graphic novels. So, anyway, I checked and it’s only at 11 there. This web comic is mad huge. I can’t believe how many people have mentioned it to me.

  2. Looks like the Amazon description neglected to mention Dark Hunger was a graphic novel. It’s funny to read all the flaming reviews by the romance-novel literati who feel sullied by this accidental exposure to a *shudder* “comic book.”

    This one is my favorite:
    “I would rather use my own imagination rather than read a comic book. It is like a short story with pictures. I felt definitely ripped off. ”

    Thank God for that handy supply of bonbons. Existential crisis averted!

  3. If you take a closer look at the Dark Hunger comic, however, you’ll see that the majority of people who appeared to have bought it and thought to talk back . . . thought it would be a book. -_-;

    And Oooh! Candyland art! XD I’ve always found the art style in the board game oddly appealing . . .

  4. I flipped through an advanced copy of this at Stumptown (my table was next to the Dark Horse booth) and it looked GREAT. Big thanks to Max for letting me take a peek.

  5. I’m not suprised by the reaction of the romancers… The Dark Horse/Harlequin manga died a silent death at my bookstore. (the Harlequin staff at BookExpo was clueless when I asked them about it.)
    I recommend Julie Kenner’s Aprhodite series of superhero romances. And for something spicier, Literotica has both slash fiction and original stories involving superheroes, vampires, werewolves, BEMs, and other things.
    oh, and getting back to the topic, the new Artemis Fowle GN is selling nicely. It has an animation feel to it, with simple, straightforward layouts.

  6. I’ve been tracking Dark Hunger for a while now (about 5 weeks) on my online sales recap over on Comicsnob.com — the fact that this aberration kept making the charts, week after week, prompted me to take another look at the title. It’s a recycled story from a novel of the same name that dates back to 2004. The art was subcontracted out to Imaginary Friends Studio in Indonesia/Singapore. The adaptation was done by Dana Kurtin, formerly of DC.

    Neither Berkley nor parent Penguin has a manga line; I don’t know if this is a one-off, a closely watched experiment to test the waters, or the thin edge of the wedge.

    I do know that the author has had a link on her website to Amazon for ages, which likely explains both the strong pre-orders and current sales.

  7. Hee, I liked this review!

    ‘If this was an experiment, please let this dud be the first and last! As a retired teacher, I know children are getting a dumbed down education nowadays, but hopefully authors and publishers won’t succumb to the practice of making EVERYTHING look like a video game. Part of the fun of reading is using your imagination to form images from the words of the author- in the case of the Carpathians, I would bet readers have all sorts of different ideas of what things look like. Just a first glance at the pictures in this book turned me off.
    I realize these types of books make lots of money for the publishers and authors without a whole lot of time invested. ‘

    …funny…

  8. That’s hilarious. Best selling comic was an accident. We need more accidents in different genres. The comic industry could use some James Patterson/ Dan Brown money.

    Now I wonder how many people are buying PBF for the colorful cover. I think they will be more disturbed than the romance readers.

  9. Surely it can’t be selling that well entirely on mistaken purchases? (Or even mainly?) How did these people find out about it to order it in the first place?

  10. Is anyone disturbed by the fact that nowhere on the listing for the Dark Hunger book – on either the cover, the Amazon page, or the author’s website- are the artists LISTED? We are forced to believe that the author is also an artist.

  11. I’m guessing this book is the first in what I’ve been predicting so far: mainline properties being outsourced to anonymous artists or studios for cheap, to skilled artists or companies who have less economic leverage to haggle for such things as copyright or even acknowledgement in print. Even the Tokyopop artists and Marvel/DC artists get a byline on the books they don’t own. Even a crappy contract I was given by a different company offered “my name on the final product” as an incentive (uhuhhh).