Comic Book Sales Figures for 1965

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.

A singularly peculiar year for Statements of Ownership, 1965 saw DC running two sets of forms in many of its comics: Ones without sales figures, and then again later on with them. Whatever the reason, it brings in many new data points, giving us more than 90 titles with circulation figures for the first time.

Marvel's super-hero titles continued to grow in circulation — although only Thor's title, Journey into Mystery, cracked the top 50.

Non-super-hero publishers continued to hemhorrage readers. In five years, Uncle Scrooge had lost fully two thirds of its readership. And every single one of the bottom 13 titles on the list is from Charlton.

Also worthy of note is that this is the last full pre-TV show year for Batman. As a comparison with 1966 will show, super-heroes would only get hotter.

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

—John Jackson Miller

Links lead to current listings for these titles on eBay. Further detail may be found in our Title Spotlights.