{"id":5779,"date":"2009-02-26T16:34:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-26T16:34:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-07-28T03:07:38","modified_gmt":"2020-07-28T03:07:38","slug":"comics-sales-in-1930s-famous-funnies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/26\/comics-sales-in-1930s-famous-funnies\/","title":{"rendered":"Comics sales in the 1930s: Famous Funnies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I am often asked about comics sales in the old days \u2014 meaning the really<\/span> old days of the Golden Age. One of the people who’s done a lot of work in this area is Russ Maheras<\/span>, who provided me his Audit Bureau of Circulation research on Famous Funnies<\/span> a few years back.<\/p>\n

Launched in 1934 as an added way for Eastern Color Printing<\/span> to keep its presses rolling, Famous Funnies, <\/span>initially filled with comic strip reprints, is regarded by some as the first traditional comic book for comparison purposes. While there have been unending debates on that distinction that would bore you to tears, the relevant matter to circulation research is that it was a monthly 10\u00a2 four-color magazine similar in size to conventional comic books, and sold via newsstand sales. Whatever came before, Maggie Thompson<\/span><\/a> and I agree that its publishing and distribution model became a standard for the business, thus providing a dividing line for us later folks looking to compare apples to apples whenever possible.<\/p>\n

So never mind Buck Rogers in the 25th Century \u2014 what was he doing in the 1930s and 1940s? Well, while there are no subscription numbers from back then \u2014 postal statements did not require them until 1960 \u2014 Famous Funnies<\/span> does have overall figures from the auditing agency. And it is especially helpful in that its ABC figures are for a single title, and not pooled as many listings are. That’s been the bane of much audit agency research in those days \u2014 it is not always clear what issues are included in a given month’s sales figures. Here, it is exact:<\/p>\n

#30 \u2022 Jan-37 \u2022 485,136
#31 \u2022 Feb-37 \u2022 460,468
#32 \u2022 Mar-37 \u2022 380,427
#33 \u2022 Apr-37 \u2022 396,371
#34 \u2022 May-37 \u2022 351,913
#35 \u2022 Jun-37 \u2022 371,202
#36 \u2022 Jul-37 \u2022 438,824
#37 \u2022 Aug-37 \u2022 485,151
#38 \u2022 Sep-37 \u2022 530,824
#39 \u2022 Oct-37 \u2022 440,837
#40 \u2022 Nov-37 \u2022 429,298
#41 \u2022 Dec-37 \u2022 456,050<\/p>\n

#42 \u2022 Jan-38 \u2022 438,937<\/span>
#43 \u2022 Feb-38 \u2022 420,162<\/span>
#44 \u2022 Mar-38 \u2022 401,002<\/span>
#45 \u2022 Apr-38 \u2022 349,070<\/span>
#46 \u2022 May-38 \u2022 324,698<\/span>
#47 \u2022 Jun-38 \u2022 323,795<\/span>
#48 \u2022 Jul-38 \u2022 378,122<\/span>
#49 \u2022 Aug-38 \u2022 373,295<\/span>
#50 \u2022 Sep-38 \u2022 425,970<\/span>
#51 \u2022 Oct-38 \u2022 343,233<\/span>
#52 \u2022 Nov-38 \u2022 312,589<\/span>
#53 \u2022 Dec-38 \u2022 331,827<\/span><\/p>\n

#54 \u2022 Jan-39 \u2022 357,386
#55 \u2022 Feb-39 \u2022 356,893
#56 \u2022 Mar-39 \u2022 348,914
#57 \u2022 Apr-39 \u2022 334,377
#58 \u2022 May-39 \u2022 280,350
#59 \u2022 Jun-39 \u2022 328,153
#60 \u2022 Jul-39 \u2022 367,736
#61 \u2022 Aug-39 \u2022 389,005
#62 \u2022 Sep-39 \u2022 408,545
#63 \u2022 Oct-39 \u2022 311,541
#64 \u2022 Nov-39 \u2022 310,173
#65 \u2022 Dec-39 \u2022 327,685<\/p>\n

#66 \u2022 Jan-40 \u2022 329,629<\/span>
#67 \u2022 Feb-40 \u2022 319,277<\/span>
#68 \u2022 Mar-40 \u2022 266,483<\/span>
#69 \u2022 Apr-40 \u2022 241,918<\/span>
#70 \u2022 May-40 \u2022 218,009<\/span>
#71 \u2022 Jun-40 \u2022 203,608<\/span>
#72 \u2022 Jul-40 \u2022 239,716<\/span>
#73 \u2022 Aug-40 \u2022 249,258<\/span>
#74 \u2022 Sep-40 \u2022 281,761<\/span>
#75 \u2022 Oct-40 \u2022 225,236<\/span>
#76 \u2022 Nov-40 \u2022 198,228<\/span>
#77 \u2022 Dec-40 \u2022 214,825<\/span><\/p>\n

#78 \u2022 Jan-41 \u2022 251,900
#79 \u2022 Feb-41 \u2022 224,942
#80 \u2022 Mar-41 \u2022 219,904
#81 \u2022 Apr-41 \u2022 227,062
#82 \u2022 May-41 \u2022 165,922
#83 \u2022 Jun-41 \u2022 175,561
#84 \u2022 Jul-41 \u2022 193,805
#85 \u2022 Aug-41 \u2022 212,435
#86 \u2022 Sep-41 \u2022 204,397
#87 \u2022 Oct-41 \u2022 191,517
#88 \u2022 Nov-41 \u2022 191,406
#89 \u2022 Dec-41 \u2022 186,991<\/p>\n

#90 \u2022 Jan-42 \u2022 183,938<\/span>
#91 \u2022 Feb-42 \u2022 167,988<\/span>
#92 \u2022 Mar-42 \u2022 163,628<\/span>
#93 \u2022 Apr-42 \u2022 201,141<\/span>
#94 \u2022 May-42 \u2022 185,609<\/span>
#95 \u2022 Jun-42 \u2022 208,536<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We see sales dropping off in the immediate prewar period; competition was a lot greater, by then. 1942 was likely the first year with more than 1,000 individual comic book issues released. Newsstand comics circulation probably hit its high-water mark in the early 1950s, just as Famous Funnies<\/span> was winding down; I haven’t seen numbers from that end of the run, but would suspect it was probably underselling a lot of the newer competition by then.<\/p>\n

The numbers are exact enough, incidentally, for someone to take a stab at matching circulation changes with cover subject. Famous Funnies had rotating cover subjects, most early issues spotlighting humor comics; action covers, like the one above, mostly came along later. I note that #82 there sold more poorly than some of the humor covers in the stretch on either side, but someone would really need to square up the subjects and numbers to see if there was a direct relationship or not. My hunch is that newsstand sales in those very early days were incredibly fluke-y, with newsdealer accounts shifting around and draws changing at random \u2014 and print runs bouncing around depending on what else the publisher needed the resources for. But it would be an interesting study for someone, especially if more titles and issues are brought in.<\/p>\n

Just a glimpse at some of the older data out there…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am often asked about comics sales in the old days \u2014 meaning the really old days of the Golden Age. One of the people who’s done a lot of work in this area is Russ Maheras, who provided me his Audit Bureau of Circulation research on Famous Funnies a few years back. Launched in … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8,9,13,107],"class_list":["post-5779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-1930s-sales","tag-1940s-sales","tag-audit-bureaus","tag-golden-age"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5779"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5781,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5779\/revisions\/5781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}