Comic Book Sales Figures for 1963

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The figures at right are the average paid circulations for the year as reported by the comics publishers named to the United States Postal Service in accordance with Section 4369 of Title 39 in the United States code.

The figures include copies sold through newsstand and other channels, as well as copies sold by subscription. They are not the print runs, which would be higher.

Note that these rankings only include titles for which Statements have been found. Some publishers did not file them; some titles did not have them; and some have simply not been reported as found. The rankings and averages here will be updated periodically to reflect new Statements that come to light.

2008 Year-to-Date Comics Shop Orders
through JUNE
(estimated Diamond sales)

Single copy sales: -6%

Single copy sales (dollars): -5%

Top-selling trade paperbacks: +0.1%

Overall sales to shops:
$208.8 million
-0.6%

2007 Year-end Comics Shop Orders

Single copy sales: +4%

Single copy sales (dollars): +7%

Top-selling trade paperbacks: +18%

Overall sales to shops:
$429.9 million
+9%

Online Resources

British Comics Sales
Interesting circulation info on the many British weeklies.

ComicBase
The longest-running and most successful inventory program for comics, Pete Bickford has incorporated circulation data into recent releases.

ComicBookPage
John Mayo has a number of tools on this site aggregating and sorting monthly sales reports. There's a lot of material here!

Comics Reporter
Tom Spurgeon's blog has many links to articles about the business side of comics publishing.

ComicsResearch
Good starting point for research with lots of links and bibliographies!

Grand Comics Database
An online project similar to the CBG/ComicBase database, this mammoth community undertaking includes justa bot every comic book you can think of — and many you never thought of!

ICv2
Milton Griepp does monthly tracking of Diamond data parallel to what's above — and publishes a lot of great info on the manga and bookstore markets.

Maggie Thompson
Maggie's beginning to post on her site many of the fanzines she was involved with; these include lots of comics history from the 1960s and earlier.

Newsarama
Matt Brady and Michael Doran's long-running news website gets into detail on a lot of behind-the-scenes information from the world of publishing. Now with a Comichron column!

The Comics Chronicles is a free resource for academic research. If you would like to support our ongoing database development efforts, click below.

You are here : Yearly Rankings » 1960s » 1963

Friday, September 05, 2008

1963 Comic Book Sales Figures

Average Total Paid Circulation as Reported in Publishers' Statements of Ownership

The Year in Review

1963's Top-Ranked Title*

Comics publishers filing Statements: 8
ACG
Archie
Charlton
DC
Dell
Fawcett
Gold Key
Marvel

Statements confirmed: 37
Average sales of all reporting comics: 243,891

Just as Statements of Ownership for 1962 went AWOL from most Gold Key/Dell titles, a puzzling and frustrating period for the archivist begins at DC with the 1963 reports. For three years beginning with 1963, DC, alone among publishers, began printing many of its Statements without any sales figures. The only exception in 1963 is, just as inexplicably, Sea Devils. The figures would not return to the entire line until supplemental filings appeared for 1965.

So consider a serious asterisk next to Dennis the Menace — which, while selling a healthy half-million copies here during the height of the TV show's popularity, was almost certainly outsold by Superman, if nothing else.

Statements for Gold Key titles returned, and while they were at much lower levels, titles like Uncle Scrooge had gone from quarterly to bimonthly in the interim.

And the super-hero movement began to move the needle at Marvel, with the publisher's titles fully pulling past ACG and Charlton once and for all and leaving its own Millie the Model in the dust.

-- John Jackson Miller

Title Publisher Circulation

1) Dennis the Menace Fawcett       493,534

2) Archie Archie       471,166

3) Walt Disney's Comics & Stories Gold Key       446,000

4) The Three Stooges Gold Key       354,785

5) Tarzan Gold Key       332,460

6) Flintstones Gold Key
      325,350

7) Betty and Veronica Archie       320,605

8) Life with Archie Archie       316,106

9) Uncle Scrooge Gold Key       299,155

10) Walt Disney's Donald Duck Gold Key       293,800

11) Turok, Son of Stone Gold Key       276,550

12) Archie's Pal Jughead Archie       266,239

13) Laugh Comics Archie       264,863

14) Yogi Bear Gold Key       255,500

15) Pep Comics Archie       252,621

16) Combat Dell       247,959

17) Little Lulu Gold Key       247,530

18) Archie Giant Series Archie       246,857

19) Archie's Pals 'n' Gals Archie       243,652

20) Woody Woodpecker Gold Key       217,350

21) Sea Devils DC       203,150

22) Little Archie Archie       195,414

23) Rawhide Kid Marvel       194,390

24) Kid Colt Outlaw Marvel       192,755

25) Tales to Astonish Marvel       189,390

26) Strange Tales Marvel       189,305

27) Tales of Suspense Marvel       188,110

28) Journey into Mystery Marvel       187,895

29) Millie the Model Marvel       173,925

30) Forbidden Worlds ACG       169,603

31) Fightin' Marines Charlton       154,369

32) Adventures into the Unknown ACG       153,283

33) Unknown Worlds ACG       143,468

34) Unusual Tales Charlton       141,083

35) Fightin' Navy Charlton       136,526

36) Space War Charlton       121,581

37) Space Adventures Charlton       117,623

Average for comics       243,891

Magazines

Mad EC 1,429,080