When it comes to comic books, people are likely to be more familiar with them having separate issues for their headline stars. Aside from some little strips, adverts or the like, aSupermancomic is going to be about the Man of Steel,Batmanis going to feature the Dark Knight, and aJojo’s Bizarre Adventurevolume will be about one Jojo or another adventuring bizarrely.
However,Jojo’s chapters were originally published as one of many strips in a comic magazine. It’s pretty much standard practice for most manga, but they didn’t invent the practice. Nearly every nation has its ownpopular comic magazine, with some catching on so well they sell in their billions. Whether they’re old-school curios or modern classics, these are the best-selling comic magazines around.
Anarchic Satirical Magazine Falls to the Tides of Time
Comic books are essentially a product of American pop culture, yetMAD Magazineis the only active US entry on this list. Kind of. It’s now only available from comic book stores or by subscription these days. Even then, it mostly republishes its old content now, since real life has managed to be madder than anything a satirist today could conjure up.
Nonetheless, for decades, it was the premier satire magazine, poking fun at everything from Hollywood actors to politicians, TV shows to movies, and more. Its bite influenced a host of strips, series, and shows across the decades, likeThe Simpsons, who would reference the magazine from time to time. Though this didn’t stopMADfrom satirizing them back, producing their first (if unofficial) crossover withFamily Guy.
9Ribon
The Original Home of Magical Girl Comics
Shueisha turns up for the first time on this list, and not for the last time either. The publisher is better known for their shōnen magazines, yet they’re no slouch in the shojo department either, as they’ve been printingRibonmagazine since 1955. It’s also managed to pip its rivalNakayoshi(the original home ofSailor Moon)out of the top 10 by 200 million extra sales.
The magazine produced the first magical girl stories inHimitsu no Akko-chanandSally the Witch, alongside the more slice-of-lifeChibi Maruko-chanandthe romcomMarmalade Boy. It’s also credited with printing the first yuri strip inShiroi Heya no Futari, though the bulk of its tales tend to be straight romances likeHoney Lemon SodaandUi x Kon.
8Classics Illustrated
How Novels Got Turned into Graphic Novels
MAD Magazineis the only US entry that’s still in print, yet their multiple decades only amounted to less than half the sales of the long-since-defunctClassics Illustrated. Part of this may be because subsequent publishers have since managed to reprint their older issues, or that there are more schools out there eager to get kids into novels than there are people into Alfred E. Neuman.
Throughout its original run,Classics Illustratedwas meant to adapt the likes ofThe Three Musketeers,Moby Dick, andThe Iliad,among others, into abridged comics to introduce kids to something more cultured and refined than superheroes. Not that this helped them escape the ire of Dr Frederic Werthem, who found room to condemn the strips for dumbing the novels down to their base elements. There’s no winning with some people.
7Micky Maus
German Disney Comics Prove to Be Best Sellers
Here’s an odd one. US comic books may not need the magazine format to survive, but other nations have managed to profit by doing it for them. For example, Egmont Ehapa has been printing Disney comics in German viaMicky Mausmagazine since 1951, selling more issues thanRibonandMADcombined.
It helps that little kids worldwide still love Disney’s cast of characters, though it hasn’t escaped the slow dwindling of print media. The magazine reached its peak of 1 billion issues sold in 1998, right in the middle of the Disney renaissance. Since then, it’s slowed down to approximately 75,000 sales per issue on a bimonthly basis.
6Weekly Young Magazine
Seinen Magazine Skips the Kids' Games
Print publications are still going fairly strong in Japan, since their magazines tend to be as thick as phone books, offering more bang for a reader’s buck (or yen in this case). Though whileMicky Maushas been fueled by eager Disney kids,Weekly Young Magazineis kept going by older readers, as it’s Kodansha’s premier seinen magazine.
It wasthe original home ofAkira, the racing stripInitial D, and CLAMP’s seinen strips, likexxxHolicand its sequelxxxHolic: Rei, which is due to resume running in April 2025. Though if it remains on hiatus, readers can check outToxic Daughter: Chi-chanfor more psychological domestic drama fromBlood on the Tracksauthor Shuzo Oshimi.
5Weekly Shōnen Sunday
Shogakukan’s Best Selling Shōnen Magazine
Shōnen Jumpis generally seen as the be-all, end-all home of shōnen magazines, but it’s not the only one. It’s not even the first magazine to pack shōnen comics together, asWeekly Shōnen Sundaybeat it by about a decade. Without it, the manga landscape might look very different today, as its strips rivalJump’s host of iconic comics in fame.
Most notably, it was where Rumiko Takahashi got to publish her most famous works, fromUrusei YatsuratoInuyasha.Case ClosedandFrieren: Beyond Journey’s Endstill run in its pages too, as didKomi Can’t CommunicateandBe Blues!Its curious pointing finger design on its interior pages also inspired the design for Friend in the epic mystery manga20th Century Boys.
4The Beano
Iconic British Comic Still Has a Place in Print After Nearly 90 Years
Japanese comic magazines are pretty much at the top of the tree in terms of sales these days, yet the relatively slight pages ofThe Beanohave managed to break their strong hold on the upper echelons of this list. As a result, it’s become the best-selling Western comic magazine in the world, as well as the oldest one, with its first issue debuting way back in 1938.
It’s most famous for being the home ofDennis the Menace(not that one), whose success inspired a whole wave of street-smart punk kid strips, likeMinnie the Minxand theBash Street Kids. That said, they’re more a series of one-off gag strips, where its kiddy protagonists outfox dopey parents and stuffy teachers, so readers over the age of 15 might not get much from it compared to its cruder and ruder spoofs likeViz.
3Weekly Young Jump
Jumping Off to Appeal to Older Readers
The terms used for demographics can be relative. For example,Weekly Young Jump, alongsideWeekly Young MagazineandYoung Animal, are all seinen magazines aimed at older readers. But those readers are still young men. After that, they tend to move on to more mature publications, like manga about golfing or whiskey or the like.
Nonetheless,WYJis Shueisha’s seinen offshoot toShōnen Jump, offering strips with more mature content.Mad Bull 34,Gantz,Elfen Lied, andTokyo Ghoulgave them blood and guts.Boy’s Abyss,The Climber, andCatenaccioprovided the raw, emotional drama. Though it can offerthe occasional romcomto lighten the mood too, likeKubo Won’t Let Me Be InvisibleandYokai Girls.
2Weekly Shōnen Magazine
The Birthplace of Tokusatsu Strips
Popping up around the same time asWeekly Shōnen Sunday,Weekly Shōnen Magazinealso beatShōnen Jumpto the punch by 10 years and has its own litany of iconic strips. From the cyborg and sci-fi drama works of Shotaro Ishinomori (Cyborg 009,Genma Wars), to the edgy, borderline seinen likes of Go Nagai’sDevilmanandViolence Jack.
It’s still a popular magazine for action strips today, like the arched tokusatsu parodyGo! Go! Loser Ranger!, the samurai dramaThe Blue Wolves of Mibu, and the classic boxing mangaHajime no Ippo. It’s also where CLAMP brought together characters fromWYM’sxxxHolicandNakayoshi’sCardcaptor Sakuratogether inTsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle.
1Weekly Shōnen Jump
The Home of Some of the Most Famous Shōnen Strips in Print
Perhaps least surprising of all,Weekly Shōnen Jumpis at the top, and by a significant margin, having sold 2.4 billion more issues than the next bestseller inWeekly Shōnen Magazine. For many, Shueisha’s magazine might as well be the home of all manga, as it’s produced some of the most famous strips out there, likeDragon Ball,Naruto,One Piece,Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure,Fist of the North Starand more.
However, whileWSJhas sold the most out of all the other magazines on this list, it’s just as vulnerable to the print sales plughole asMAD,The Beano, and other mags out there, as the rise of digital media has seen its physical sales plummet too. There may come a time when its newer strips,likeAkane-banashiandKagurabachi,may end up on an app service too, with maybe the odd tankobon release for dedicated fans.
