Big Numbers: Brian's Tilting... on the 2011 Bookscan Numbers at CBR

Hey, everyone.  Since Brian is off doing what Brian does best--pestering comic book publishers for hard data--(and let's face it, that isn't very pretty), he asked me to give all y'all a link to his latest Tilting at Windmills over at CBR.  It's his annual review of the Bookscan numbers which I think makes it even more of a look-see than usual. This is the ninth time Hibbs has sat down and crunched numbers of the Bookscan report (the sixth time he's looked at *all* the numbers for the year) and, as always, the results are fascinating, terrifying, and stultifying all at once.  This year's report runs approximately 15,000 words which is...pretty god-damned daunting, so my brain always breaks when I start thinking about what went into writing it, separate and apart from all the sorting, adding, and comparison-making.

I know in the past Bri has taken some heat from any number of crazy judgments he made in the past and I think this column may be one his least biased Bookscan reviews ever.  He does present an unending stream of interesting trivia--if you ever wanted to know approximately how many copies of Walking Dead were sold through Bookscan dealers last year (a fuckton) or how many books Geoff John placed in the Top 750 titles, this is the column for you--and asks some pretty challenging questions without presuming to know the answers.  Like Hibbs, I always find myself hoping someone takes him up on his challenge to sort the data themselves and see what conclusions they can draw.

And, as always, feel free to leave comments and questions here if you don't want to do it over there.