The way we were: At Newsarama, Matt Brady dissects Diamond's figures to come up with the top-selling comics and graphic novels for 2003.

It comes as no suprise that "events" like Batman: Hush, 1602 and JLA/Avengers dominate the Top 25 books of the year, with Batman #619 (the end of "Hush" storyline) clocking in at No. 1. Newsarama estimates that issue "saw over 310,000 copies ship through Diamond in total." I know it did well by today's market standards, but that seems high to me. Eh, what do I know?

DC held the first three spots on the Top 25 graphic novels list with JLA: Liberty & Justice, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 1 trade paperback and Sandman: Endless Nights. IDW's 30 Days of Night trade paperback clocked in at No. 4.

Perhaps most interesting, at least to me, is the contrast between the Top 10 comics (by quantity) for 2002 and 2003. While 2002 was dominated by the likes of Transformers and Origin, 2003 saw Batman take firm control of half the slots.

But what does it all mean? Damned if I know. Clearly, marketing gimmicks disguised as storylines sell lots and lots of books, but we already knew that. So, there's no lesson learned.