The first group is of titles for which U. S. Postal Service Statement of Ownership forms were filed in late 1972. The forms were published in early 1973 in the titles' letter columns. The accompanying numbers are the average per-issue paid circulations reported in the forms. The titles are listed from the highest sellers to the lowest.
Mad 1,905,973
Archie 390,408
Superman 317,990
Archie’s Girls Betty and Veronica 293,297
Amazing Spider-Man 288,379
Superboy 265,877
Life with Archie 263,434
Laugh 258,876
Jughead 257,415
Action Comics 252,317
Betty and Me 250,350
Fantastic Four 245,695
Archie’s Joke Book 244,956
World’s Finest 234,878
Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane 232,067
Pep 231,963
Archie’s Pals ‘n’ Gals 222,929
Adventure Comics 216,879
Tarzan 209,064
Archie and Me 208,328
Thor 207,179
Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen 203,492
Archie Giant Series 202,944
Incredible Hulk 202,223
Little Archie 192,219
Avengers 189,961
Batman 185,283
Daredevil 180,765
Brave and the Bold 179,819
Captain America 178,193
Sgt. Fury 176,011
House of Mystery 175,134
Justice League of America 168,871
Unexpected 168,430
House of Secrets 168,256
Witching Hour 168,005
Our Fighting Forces 164,142
Our Army at War 161,861
Rawhide Kid 161,577
Detective Comics 158,638
G. I. Combat 158,312
Phantom Stranger 155,641
Flash 152,221
Millie the Model 146,093
Star Spangled War Stories 145,869
Mad House Glads 143,371
X-Men 140,848
Josie and the Pussycats 138,871
Strange Adventures 135,706
Wonder Woman 133,918
Falling in Love 125,959
Young Love 124,326
Young Romance 124,091
Love Stories 118,749
After two years of mildly declining sales, things at Mad turned around. Sales were not only up, but the year had the best per-issue average in the publication's history up to that point.
The Archie and Superman lines of comics both had substantial drops in sales. The top Archie title saw a decrease of 19% in its per-issue average for the sales-year, and most of the other books in the line saw similarly falling numbers. The main Superman series shed over 25% of its readership from the previous year, and the numbers for the other titles saw declines between 25 and 32 percent.
DC's only significant bright spot for the year came at the beginning. House of Secrets #92, which went on sale in April of 1971, cover-featured a story titled "Swamp Thing" by scriptwriter Len Wein and artist Bernie Wrightson. It was considered responsible for the issue selling approximately 200,000 copies, for a sell-through of over 60 percent. The success of the issue prompted the development of a Swamp Thing series by Wein and Wrightson that would debut in the 1972-1973 sales year.
Gold Key stopped filing Statement of Ownership forms with the 1971-1972 sales year. As such, their titles are no longer listed.
The following group are titles that had 20 or more issues published by early 1972, but had no Statement of Ownership filed in 1971. Publishers often did not file the form for titles that had not published at least 20 issues when forms were due to be submitted, so those are not listed. Marvel did not file Statements of Ownership for any series that began publishing in 1968 or later until 1978. Titles that were published during the sales year, but were cancelled before the Statement of Ownership could be printed, are not listed, either.
Captain Marvel
Chili
Conan the Barbarian
Creatures on the Loose
Everything’s Archie
From Beyond the Unknown
Iron Man
Jughead’s Jokes
Kid Colt Outlaw
Marvel’s Greatest Comics
Marvel Super-Heroes
Marvel Tales
Mighty Marvel Western
Monsters on the Prowl
Our Love Story
Sub-Mariner
Where Monsters Dwell
Wyatt Earp
Other Comics Sales Posts
--1969-1970
--1970-1971
--1972-1973
--1973-1974
--1974-1975
--1975-1976
--1976-1977
--1977-1978
--1978-1979
--1979-1980
--1980-1981
--1981-1982
--1982-1983
--1983-1984
--1984-1985
--1985-1986
--1986-1987
--1987-1988
--1988-1989
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