Each month, Diamond Comic Distributors announces its best-selling graphic novels and manga based on total unit sales to comic book specialty shops. To help educators and librarians to be informed about what their students and patrons are buying from their local comic shops, we present the Top 50 Graphic Novels for October.

DC Comics' Doomsday Clock Part 1, a collection of Geoff Johns and Gary Frank's sequel to Watchmen involving the heroes of the DC Universe, was October's best-selling graphic novel.

Also in the top ten from DC Comics, DC Super Hero Girls at Metropolis High ranked #6.

Image Comics had four titles in the top ten: Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie's The Wicked + The Divine Volume 9 at #2; Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen's Ascender Volume 1 at #5; The Walking Dead Compendium Volume 4, compleing Robert Kirkman's zombie series, at #7; and Gideon Falls Volume 3: Stations of the Cross at #10.

Marvel Comics had two titles in the top ten: Chip Zdarsky and Mark Bagley's Spider-Man: Life Story at #3 and Jim Starlin and Alan Davis' Thanos: The Infinity Ending at #4.

Dark Horse Comics' Critical Role Volume 1: Vox Machina Origins ranked #8.

Finally, VIZ Media's My Hero Academia Volume 21 ranked #9 for the month overall and was October's best-selling manga title.

TOP 50 GRAPHIC NOVELS
Based on Total Unit Sales of Products Invoiced in October 2019

This information may not be reproduced in any format without the express permission of Diamond Comic Distributors.

For retailers, Diamond offers the Top 500 Comics and Top 500 Graphic Novels sales charts on the Diamond Tools page of the Diamond Retailer Services website to provide more information about the industry's top selling publications.

How does Diamond calculate the charts? It all starts at the comic book shop.

Data for Diamond’s sales charts — which includes the monthly market shares and all top product charts — are compiled by Diamond Comic Distributors from sales made to thousands of comic book specialty shops located in North America and around the world.  Additional sales made to online merchants and other specialty stores may be included as well.

Unit and dollar market shares are calculated based upon orders for comic books, graphic novels, and magazines invoiced and shipped to Diamond customers during any given month, which comprises pre-orders, advance reorders, and reorders, minus any copies that are received back from a title marked as returnable. Please note that comics marked with an asterisk (*) have had their reported quantities reduced due to retailer returnability, and thus may rank lower on the charts than their actual sales would reflect.

About the Diamond Sales Index: The Sales Index of selected monthly Best Seller Charts is presented as a comparative tool for retailers and publishers. It presents Diamond’s monthly sales for individual titles in relation to Diamond’s total sales for the issue of DC Comics' monthly Batman comic book. (Batman is used as the control title – with a value of 100 – because sales of Batman usually remain relatively stable.) This allows for easy comparison to other titles and helps retailers gauge their orders for all other titles. This formula is only a guide, other factors may impact a titles’ ability to sell in certain locations and clientele.