The first group is of titles for which U. S. Postal Service Statement of Ownership forms were filed in late 1983. The forms were published in early 1984 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 1984. The estimate number is a rounded average of the title's sales from 1981-1982 and 1983-1984.
Mad 879,075
X-Men 336,824
Daredevil 259,745
Fantastic Four 257,298
Amazing Spider-Man 241,762
Avengers 229,645
Conan the Barbarian 206,434
Incredible Hulk 189,337
Iron Man 183,000 (est.)
Star Wars 180,213
Marvel Team-Up 177,259
Spectacular Spider-Man 172,290
Legion of Super-Heroes 166,733
ROM 163,000 (est.)
G. I. Joe 157,920
Thor 147,735
Conan the King 141,669
Captain America 139,674
Dazzler 134,364
Savage Sword of Conan 133,285
Defenders 130,463
Superman 126,279
DC Comics Presents 120,298
Doctor Strange 120,000 (est.)
Power Man & Iron Fist 116,561
Marvel Tales 113,756
Warlord 112,601
Action Comics 105,394
Batman 97,741
Green Lantern 90,545
World’s Finest 89,629
Moon Knight 87,700
Sgt. Rock 81,514
Superboy 81,173
Detective Comics 80,725
Wonder Woman 73,256
Archie 72,876
Flash 72,721
Archie's Girls Betty and Veronica 68,532
Jonah Hex 67,817
Life with Archie 66,111
Archie at Riverdale High 65,789
Archie and Me 65,139
Betty and Me 64,909
Everything's Archie 63,924
Archie's TV Laugh-Out 63,297
Jughead 62,454
Archie's Pals 'n' Gals 61,713
Laugh 60,408
G. I. Combat 58,668
The most striking development this year was the passing of an unfortunate milestone for Mad. While still by far North America's best-selling periodical comic, its average paid circulation fell below one million copies an issue for the first time since 1960, when its sales were initially made public.
Marvel continued exploring new formats. The most important one commercially was the limited series. Marvel had published one-shots and limited series (mostly serialized movie adaptations) in prior sales years. But this was the year that limited series featuring company characters became a mainstay of the publishing line. Among other benefits, the various series took commercial advantage of the high sales collectible speculators were giving first issues.
Marvel also instituted its Epic Comics imprint. Taking its name from Epic Illustrated, the company's magazine-anthology showcase for author-owned material, and its contractual arrangements from the author-owned titles in the Marvel Graphic Novel series, the line was largely devoted to author-owned series by established (and often fan-favorite) talent. The initial titles were only distributed to comics-store accounts. The first Epic Comics series was Jim Starlin's Dreadstar, whose title character had first appeared in the Epic Illustrated serial "The Metamorposis Odyssey," and was title-featured in the third Marvel Graphic Novel. The series debuted in September 1982.
Additionally, Marvel saw continued good sales in its established titles. All 22 for which sales were reported saw average per-issue sales of more than 100,000 copies. Six of the 22 saw average sales in excess of 200,000 copies, and one of those, the now perennial top-seller X-Men, sold better than 300,000.
According to Mile High Comics proprietor Chuck Rozanski, one of the North America's largest comics retailers, Marvel executives credited the non-returnable "direct" market with approximately 20 percent of Marvel's gross sales for the year.
It shoud be noted that early in the sales year Marvel had instituted a policy of canceling any continuing newsstand color title featuring whose average per-issue sales were less than 125,000 copies. It wasn't because titles selling less than 125,000 were unprofitable. According to Jim Shooter, Marvel's editor-in-chief at the time, break-even sales for newsstand titles were just above 80,000 copies an issue. The reason for the new policy was that resources were considered better spent on new titles with hopefully more commercial appeal. That said, three titles--Doctor Strange, Power Man & Iron Fist, and Marvel Tales--were spared the ax in 1982-1983. Doctor Strange was most likely kept going because the baroque visuals that were characteristic of the series made it a magnet for fan-favorite artists, and would help Marvel maintain its relationships with them. Power Man & Iron Fist was the only continuing series that title-featured an African-American, and a determination to maintain at least some diversity among the publisher's title characters was probably what kept it going. Marvel Tales reprinted the story material from Amazing Spider-Man in the 1960s. The editorial overhead for the title was considerably lower than for comics that featured new material. Its profitability was likely comparable to titles above the cancellation threshold, which is why it was continued.
DC once again had only six titles with average reported sales greater than 100,000 copies per issue, and four of those had sales declines from the previous year. A fifth, Action Comics, saw a negligible increase of less than 2%. The sixth, though, was a bright spot. Legion of Super-Heroes, guided by the new creative team of Keith Giffen and Paul Levitz, saw an increase of 30%, making it DC's top-selling title for which sales were reported, and the only one of those with numbers greater than 150,000. This does not take into account the sales of New Teen Titans, reputed to be DC's top-selling title. No Statement of Ownership was filed, meaning no sales were publicly reported.
DC also began its first extended experiment with exclusive comics-store distribution. In August of 1982, it debuted Camelot 3000, a 12-issue limited-series in an higher-quality comic-book format.
The following group are titles that had 20 or more issues published by early 1984, but had no Statement of Ownership filed in 1983. 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 Statement of Ownership could be printed, are not listed, either.
All-Star Squadron
Arak, Son of Thunder
Blackhawk
Fury of Firestorm
New Teen Titans
Pep
Swamp Thing
What If
Other Comics Sales Posts
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--1978-1979
--1979-1980
--1980-1981
--1981-1982
--1983-1984
--1984-1985
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--1988-1989
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