Comics Sales 1979-1980

This post features the sales of established comics titles published by Marvel, DC, and Archie during the 1979-1980 sales year. A few series from other publishers are also included. Established titles are ones that have had 20 issues or more. The sales year is approximately the spring of 1979 through the winter of 1979 and 1980.

The first group of titles are those for which U. S. Postal Service Statement of Ownership forms were filed in late 1980. The forms were published in early 1981 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.

Estimates are provided for select titles that did not publish a Statement of Ownership in early 1981. The estimate number is a rounded average of the title's sales from 1978-1979 and 1980-1981.

Mad 1,342,640
Amazing Spider-Man 296,712
Star Wars 255,985
Fantastic Four 243,786
Incredible Hulk 240,000 (est.)
Avengers 235,791
Marvel Team-Up 220,746
Conan the Barbarian 215,243
Spectacular Spider-Man 211,327
X-Men 192,514
Iron Man 188,930
ROM 181,506
Thor 179,842
Superman 178,946
Marvel Two-in-One 176,565
Micronauts 165,968
Captain America 165,498
Defenders 151,520
Marvel Super-Heroes 139,765
Marvel Tales 137,595
DC Comics Presents 132,411
Justice League of America 131,714
Legion of Super-Heroes 130,478
Master of Kung Fu 129,874
Batman 129,299
Spider-Woman 128,006
What If 122,402
Action Comics 118,752
Flash 109,883
Brave and the Bold 109,307
Power Man & Iron Fist 107,231
Sgt. Rock 105,855
Doctor Strange 105,000
Savage Sword of Conan 100,793
Green Lantern 99,915
Archie's Girls Betty and Veronica 97,532
Super Friends 95,993
Ghosts 95,317
Wonder Woman 94,901
Betty and Me 94,362
Marvel Super Action 94,267
Unknown Soldier 93,180
Warlord 90,949
Life with Archie 90,039
Archie 89,409
Archie's Pals 'n' Gals 89,160
House of Mystery 89,003
Everything's Archie 87,491
Sgt. Fury 87,148
Archie and Me 86,928
Jonah Hex 86,549
Little Archie 85,719
Pep 85,355
Jughead 84,229
Archie at Riverdale High 84,200
Weird War Tales 83,929
Unexpected 82,387
Superman Family 82,076
G. I. Combat 78,832
World’s Finest 76,689
Vampirella 76,468
Jughead's Jokes 75,095
Adventure Comics 68,808
Detective Comics 64,672
Marvel Preview 55,807

The improved sales situation for Marvel from last year was not a fluke. While some of the previous year's top titles (Star Wars, Fantastic Four, and probably Incredible Hulk) saw small sales declines, others (X-Men, Thor, and probably Amazing Spider-Man and Captain America) saw double-digit percentage increases.

The year marks the beginning of DC's collapse as a viable publisher of comics for the newsstand market. A few titles (Justice League of America, Flash, Green Lantern) were able to maintain their sales from last year, but most saw their numbers drop. With some key titles, the drop was steep. Superman, the company's perennial top-seller, saw its sales fall 37%, and now had the numbers one finds with mid-list Marvel books. Overall, it appears 24 of Marvel's established titles sold in excess of 100,000 copies a month, with eight averaging better than 200,000. (A ninth, the upward-trending X-Men, was selling more than 200,000 an issue by the sales-year's end.) None of DC's 25 established titles averaged better than 200,000 copies per issue, and only eight were doing better than 100,000.

Archie Comics continued to falter as well. Not one series from the publisher had a per-issue sales average of 100,000 copies or more. There were other discordant notes in the sales reports, such as the flagship Archie series being outsold for the first time by other titles in the line. Archie's Girls Betty and Veronica was the year's top-selling Archie series, followed by Betty and Me and Life with Archie.

The following are titles that had 20 or more issues published by early 1980, but had no Statement of Ownership filed in 1979. 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. Titles that were published during the sales year, but were cancelled before the Statements of Ownership could be published, are not listed, either.

Archie's Joke Book Magazine
Daredevil
Secrets of Haunted House

Other Comics Sales Posts

--1969-1970
--1970-1971
--1971-1972
--1972-1973
--1973-1974
--1974-1975
--1975-1976
--1976-1977
--1977-1978
--1978-1979
--1980-1981
--1981-1982
--1982-1983
--1983-1984
--1984-1985
--1985-1986
--1986-1987
--1987-1988
--1988-1989