While some delight has already been taken in the debut of X-Men atop Diamond Comic Distributors' May sales chart -- the title's all-female cast remains a magnet for rancor from some shadowy corners -- the bigger story may be the long-term performance of the first Saga trade paperback.

ICv2 notes that the first volume of Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples' space opera sold an estimated 7,552 copies in May, securing the No. 2 spot on the graphic novel chart, behind BOOM! Studios' Adventure Time: Playing With Fire. That in itself is pretty impressive, but that Saga collection was released eight months ago.

The Image Comics book has charted in the Top 10 in all but one of those months (it slipped to No. 13 in November); however, May's 7,552 copies represents a 65-percent increase from April, and the most in any month since January, when it sold 8,456 copies. In total, Saga, Vol. 1, has sold an estimated 53,000 copies in North American comic shops.

And that's only in the direct market: As ICv2 points out, Saga is creeping back up the BookScan chart for graphic novels sold in bookstores.

Saga's status as a hit and a long-term seller comes as no surprise, but that direct-market surge (65 percent!) and book-market uptick this far from the book's debut are certainly eye-openers. Is the boost a result of good word of mouth, the impending release of the second collection, or the widespread attention given to the merry mix-up in April, when it was erroneously announced that Issue 12 had been banned from the Apple App Store?

I'd place money on the latter (although word of mouth undoubtedly plays a significant role in the book's overall performance). Of course, we should never discount the contributions of Lying Cat ...