Comic Book Sales Figures for 1963

Average Total Paid Circulation as Reported in Publishers' Statements of Ownership and Filed with the United States Postal Service

This list includes only those titles which offered subscriptions via the USPS Second or Periodical Class, and which published their sales reports in their titles.

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. There are only a handful of exceptions in 1963, including, for whatever reason, Sea Devils, which first ran a data-free form followed by a corrected form with numbers later in the year. 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.

Magazines with comics content (like Mad) are sorted separately at the bottom.

—John Jackson Miller

Title links below lead to current listings for the issues on eBay. As an eBay Partner, this site may be compensated if you make a purchase.

	Title	Publisher	Average Copies Sold Per Issue
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	Charlton	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	Patsy Walker	Marvel	174,375
30	Millie the Model	Marvel	173,925
31	Forbidden Worlds	ACG	169,603
32	Fightin' Marines	Charlton	154,369
33	Adventures into the Unknown	ACG	153,283
34	Unknown Worlds	ACG	143,468
35	Unusual Tales	Charlton	141,083
36	Strange Suspense Stories	Charlton	133,788
37	Fightin' Navy	Charlton	136,526
38	Space War	Charlton	121,581
39	Space Adventures	Charlton	117,623
999	Mad	EC	1,429,080

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About a hundred more Statements exist for this year and have been collected by Comichron. They'll appear here soon!

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