Comic Book Sales Figures for 1964

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1964 Comic Book Sales Figures
Average Total Paid Circulation as Reported in Publishers' Statements of Ownership

	Title	Publisher	Avg. paid circ.
1)	Action Comics	DC	518,026
2)	Archie	Archie	484,704
3)	Walt Disney's Comics & Stories	Gold Key	456,425
4)	Treasure Chest	Catholic Guild	405,087
5)	Flintstones	Gold Key	379,792
6)	Tarzan	Gold Key	353,237
7)	Uncle Scrooge	Gold Key	336,380
8)	Betty and Veronica	Archie	333,833
9)	The Three Stooges	Gold Key	322,860
10)	Bugs Bunny	Gold Key	322,317

11)	Walt Disney's Donald Duck	Gold Key	316,657
12)	Life with Archie	Archie	311,744
13)	Archie's Joke Book	Archie	295,946
14)	Metal Men	DC	295,513
15)	Tom and Jerry	Gold Key	293,564
16)	Turok, Son of Stone	Gold Key	274,914
17)	Laugh Comics	Archie	271,122
18)	Archie's Pal Jughead	Archie	268,889
19)	Top Cat	Gold Key	266,253
20)	Atom	DC	265,304

21)	Pep Comics	Archie	258,904
22)	Bonanza	Gold Key	253,547
23)	Yogi Bear	Gold Key	252,842
24)	Madhouse	Archie	252,261
25)	Doctor Solar	Gold Key	247,315
26)	Magnus	Gold Key	247,279
27)	Woody Woodpecker	Gold Key	245,885
28)	Twilight Zone	Gold Key	244,886
29)	Little Lulu	Gold Key	239,376
30)	Archie's Pals 'n' Gals	Archie	239,171

31)	Archie Giant Series	Archie	238,137
32)	Phantom	Gold Key	236,028
33)	Lost in Space	Gold Key	231,629
34)	Aquaman	DC	226,578
35)	Strange Tales	Marvel	215,090
36)	Tales to Astonish	Marvel	207,365
37)	Tales of Suspense	Marvel	207,065
38)	Journey into Mystery	Marvel	205,075
39)	Felix the Cat	Dell	199,443
40)	Sea Devils	DC	198,486

41)	Adventures of the Fly	Archie	197,748
42)	Rip Hunter, Time Master	DC	197,398
43)	Rawhide Kid	Marvel	187,190
44)	Kid Colt Outlaw	Marvel	184,405
45)	Forbidden Worlds	ACG	179,330
46)	Unknown Worlds	ACG	174,028
47)	Adventures into the Unknown	ACG	172,819
48)	Little Dot	Harvey	171,642
49)	Adventures of Jerry Lewis	DC	164,364
50)	Adventures of Bob Hope	DC	163,346
	Fightin' Marines	Charlton	158,912
51)
52)	Fightin' Army	Charlton	157,240
53)	Unusual Tales	Charlton	136,036
54)	Strange Suspense Stories	Charlton	130,495
55)	Cheyenne Kid	Charlton	121,963
56)	Outlaws of the West	Charlton	*24,071

	Average for comics		253,015

	Magazines
	Mad	EC	1,424,628

To 1963 The 1960s To 1965

1964
The year in comics

Comics publishers filing Statements: 9
ACG
Archie
Catholic Guild
Charlton
DC
Dell
Gold Key
Harvey
Marvel

Statements confirmed:
56

Average sales of all
reporting titles:
253,015

Another asterisk year as DC returned sales figures to the Statements of Ownership of a seemingly random spattering of its titles.. Sales figures appeared in the Statement for Action Comics, allowing it to take the #1 spot — but not in Superman or Superboy, which had higher reported sales both before and after 1964 and presumably would have been higher on the list. Also odd is that the Action form appeared in the August 1965 issue; DC's custom would have been to publish it earlier in a March or April issue.

There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to which DC titles had numbers in their reports for 1964 — the ones that appeared were not all in one editorial office, for example.

TV phenomenon The Flintstones gave Gold Key a much-needed boost.

Statements appeared for the first time in Treasure Chest, the religious comic book distributed in parochial schools by the Catechetical Guild. There were print subscribers — the comic book wasn't free — so a Second Class permit was probably finally deemed necessary.

Of all Harvey and Dell titles, Statements with numbers has only been confirmed for Little Dot and Felix the Cat. None has been found for Fawcett titles for 1964.

No Statements were filed in 1964 for Fantastic Four and Amazing Spider-Man (they wouldn't start in the titles until 1966), but sales on the horror-turned- super-hero titles Tales to Astonish and Tales of Suspense increased.

The Outlaws of the West figure seems to be in error, but it's impossible to tell from other figures in the Statement what it was intended to be. Odds are it was probably 124,071, given the sales of the other western titles from Charlton.

— John Jackson Miller

THE FINE PRINT

    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.
BOOKS ON COMICS
- All in Color for a Dime
- Standard Catalog of Comics

THE FINE PRINT

BOOKS ON COMICS