The top selling comics for 1973.

That's pretty interesting. The list, I mean.

Hard to believe that Thor was outselling Batman.

I was very surprised that Archie was the best-selling book.

Simpler Times. I can definitely see the appeal of Archie, especially when you consider how many kids were
getting these books while their parents were grocery shopping.

The first comics that I was buying were pretty much Batman and Detective Comics, and, to a lesser extent,
the Superman and Action Comics. But, as I began picking up more and more Marvel titles, DC books like
Brave and the Bold, World's Finest. Justice League, which I bought occasionally when they looked interesting,
pretty much went by the wayside.

Oh, and Superboy and Legion of Super-Heroes was a steady buy for me. And I would still pick up the 50/60¢
DC Giants because I loved the repeat stories better than their Bronze Age stuff.

Come the later 1970s, though, I was picking up a lot of DC's newer offerings, #1s, and DC Implosion material:
I loved me books like All-Star Comics, Batman Family, Super-Team Family, Black Lightning, Firestorm, Showcase,
Steel the Indestructible Man, DC Super Stars, Freedom Fighters, Shade the Changing Man, Stalker, even the
LSH spinoff, Karate Kid.

That list is interesting. Thor being so high, FF as Marvel's #2 comic at that point. According to what I have read pretty soon after this things were going to alter, with Conan, MOKF, and Star Wars. And wasn't this about the time when Englehart said he had made Captain America Marvel's #1 comic?

Where do these figures come from? Statements of Ownership? Those things are not necessarily accurate, genuine sales figures. Lots of titles missing that should be on there too. Tarzan for example had sales of 209,000 reported on its 1973 Statement.

Fuck Tarzan, amirite?

#HighFive

Looks like Archie, DC, and Marvel pretty evenly divided the top 10 slots among them.

Charlton had only a single title on that whole list! And it was a media tie-in.

Although I am a fan of the company and have several hundred of their books, I was surprised Charlton was on the list at all. I have many of their Ditko books, and by the early 70s they had started getting some new talents I enjoyed like Tom Sutton and Joe Staton. But their licensed books like the Flintstones were dire. I can't believe that sold so well.

For me, it's got to be Marvel.

Marvel was experimenting with so much interesting stuff. Deathlok, Conan, Red Sonja, monster comics and Dracula, Moon Knight, New X-Men, etx.

Marvel all the way!

DC had some great stuff as well- Kirby's Fourth World, Kamandi, the Demon and the Losers, Wein and Wrightson's Swamp Thing, Levitz and Ditko's Stalker, Grell's Warlord, Plop!, Englehart and Simonson/Rogers' Batman, Aparo on the Phantom Stranger and Brave and Bold. Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams on Batman and Green Lantern/ Green Arrow. Ditko's Shade.

I'm switching back to DC

Marvel!

Marvel is landsliding this thing.

Marvel is making DC its b-word.

Totes.

I started my comics buying in 1974. It seems odd to me now that I was immediately pulled to Marvel even though I was not familiar with any of the characters other than Spider-Man. Maybe it was the covers which were mainly by Gil Kane at the time. I did pick-up some of the DC 100 pagers second hand through yard sales and I thought those were great.

I too am surprised that Archie and associated titles did so well.

Gil Kane covers got me to buy repeats of comics that my Dad already owned.

All of these reasons are why I picked DC. 70s Marvel is just kind of treading water, IMO, outside of things like Conan, while DC was mining their past well (unlike the incestuous continuity "fixing" stuff of the more recent past) and being creative in other directions too.