Better believe it: Smart, Dempsey and Pilkey make a splash in comics
NielsenIQ BookScan’s Children’s Comic Strip Fiction & Graphic Novels category might feel like the darling of the kids’ market at the moment, but it is worth noting that in 2025 it was only the fifth biggest category in the sector – beaten by Children’s Fiction, Novelty & Activity Books, Picture Books and Young Adult Fiction.
With £26m spent on the category last year through BookScan’s Total Consumer Market (TCM) – which was by far the biggest haul for comics since records began – it comes in just ahead of the £24.8m spent on Children’s General Non-Fiction but significantly behind the £44.9m spent on fourth-placed YA Fiction, while Children’s Fiction leads the pack.
In the first 18 weeks of 2025, Smart chalked up £2m through the TCM – 90% of which was from the Bunny vs Monkey series. In 2026, that figure is £2.8m (a rise of 40.2%)
Where comics did win, though, was the genre’s year-on-year growth. With an extra £5.7m in 2025 compared to 2024, it had a sales rise of 28% – the second-biggest jump in children’s publishing across the 12 months. The only genre to grow more was YA General Interest & Leisure, which was up 150.8%, thanks to the Coco Wyo colouring books.
Things look even brighter in 2026 for the children’s comics sector: while children’s books overall have experienced a fall of 1.7% across the first 18 weeks – driven by a £5.4m loss in YA Fiction as it annualises the fifth Hunger Games novel – Comic Strip Fiction & Graphic Novels has risen 3.8%.
At the top of the charts in 2026 are two World Book Day (WBD) titles: Jamie Smart’s Bunny vs Monkey: Total Chaos! and Sheena Dempsey’s Pablo and Splash: Castle Quest, which add a collective £294,910 to the total. However, strip the WBD books out and sales are up just 0.6%.Smart – who also had a big night at this week’s Nibbies, winning the inaugural Graphic Novel of the Year gong – continues to grow his sales.
In the first 18 weeks of 2025, Smart chalked up £2m through the TCM – 90% of which was from the Bunny vs Monkey series. In 2026, that figure is £2.8m (a rise of 40.2%). Some of that rise is associated with his WBD title, but even excluding that the Bunny vs Monkey series has pulled in £2.2m, with Megalomaniacs: The Invasion Begins!, the first in a new series, adding £242,581.
It is impressive that though Smart only makes up half of Pilkey’s sales contraction, the category is in growth, helped by some authors coming up the ranks: Neill Cameron is the third-biggest author of the year so far, with his Donut Squad series rising 611%, while fourth-placed Dempsey’s sales have risen 483%, in part due to her WBD title.
All eyes are now on the remainder of the year. While Alice Oseman has started the year with a 33.1% decline compared with 2025, the sixth and final instalment in her Heartstopper series is due at the beginning of July and will surely boost both Oseman and the category even further to another record-breaking year.
Children's Comic Strip & Graphic Novels Top 50
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Source: NielsenIQ BookData, Weeks 1-18 2026
