The Walking Dead was 2012's top-selling comic

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Stilted gaits and mindless shambling did nothing to stop demand for Image Comics' The Walking Dead series, with the 100th issue of Robert Kirkman's acclaimed series garnering the spot as 2012's top-selling comic book.

The book, published by Image Comics, led the annual list of top-selling comics compiled by Diamond Comic Distributors, the Baltimore company that distributes comics, graphic novels and pop-culture merchandise worldwide.

The series' 100th issue was published in July and has been garnering new readers, thanks in part to the ongoing television series of the same name that runs on AMC. In it, Kirkman shocked long-time readers by graphically killing off a key character that saw the issue sell out and go through three printings because of demand.

Readers were also keen on capes and villains, too, and demand for Marvel Entertainment's Avengers Vs. X-Men, a 12-issue miniseries written by Jason Aaron, Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction and Jonathan Hickman, and illustrated by artists John Romita Jr, Olivier Coipel and Adam Kubert, helped the publisher grab eight of the top 10 spots on Diamond's chart.