Comichron's Postal Comics Sales Data Repository

Sales Figures as Reported in Publishers' Statements of Ownership, Management, and Circulation to the United States Postal Service

Since the 1800s, the United States Postal Service has required publishers who mail magazines Second Class (now Periodical Class) to file an annual report attesting to the ownership of their companies, which they then must publish a copy of in their periodicals. Beginning in 1960s, that report included average sales per issue — whereupon it became the first real place that average comics fans got a notion as to how many copies were in circulation.

Continuing a collection begun in the early 1990s, Comichron curator John Jackson Miller has located and recorded information from most of the suspected 4,000 comic books which have included Postal Statements from 1960 to present. A small amount of this material appears in the Top Sellers lists for each year linked below, but much more will soon be available. You can also see the Statements for many sample titles in our Title Spotlights section.

To learn more about Statements of Ownership, visit our FAQ section.