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Timeline
Helpful dates in comics circulation study
Helpful dates in comics circulation study
Larger things are planned for this section in future, but here are a few handy dates in looking at comics circulation figures:
- May 1934: The first monthly comic book, Famous Funnies, publishes its first issue. By 1937, the title would be audited by the Audit Bureau of Circulation, which tracked its circulation in order to better inform the advertising industry. Many comics would be audited thereafter.
- 1960: Comic book postal Statements of Ownership begin to report circulation figures. Previous statements had included no figures.
- 1980s: Capital City Distribution begins publishing indexed preorder figures in its Internal Correspondence newsletter. Diamond Comic Distributors would follow much later, in its Diamond Dialogue magazine.
- 1987: DC comics stops sending subscription copies Second Class, so it stops printing circulation figures.
- August 1995: Marvel begins exclusively distributing comics to comics shops through its own distributor, Heroes World Distribution.
- July 1996: Diamond Comic Distributors absorbs Capital City Distribution. Its reports now covered most of the non-Marvel comics shop sales.
- April 1997: Marvel folded Heroes World and returned its sales to Diamond. Diamond's sales reports thereafter covered most of the comics ordered by comics shops.
- January
1998: Diamond begins reporting preorders for its top Trade
Paperbacks as a separate category.
- February
2003: Beginning with this month, Diamond shifted to
reporting Final Orders from comics shops, rather than preorder figures.
A work in progress. Select Marvel moments can be found here.
