Who Are the Comic Book Fans on Facebook?
During yesterday’s weekly #comicmarket chat a discussion about data and the cost to reaching new customers arose. That got me wondering, who are self-identified comic book fans? One of the easiest ways to find this is through Facebook, who along with Google is one of the kings of consumer data. Below is what I found diving in.
The Methodology
I’m not going to give away the complete method to the madness but I looked at various ways folks could identify they enjoy comic books on Facebook (this was done through Likes). I found nine likes that comprised this universe. Beyond the nine, the overall universe didn’t expand too much.
Keep in mind, this is self identification, I’m sure there are numerous other fans of the medium who have not marked themselves as much. The second major thing is, the data below is for those living in the United States. Moving it beyond this one country created a data set too large to handle through the way this was gathered.
I played with some ways to get a large base to work from and found 9 key identifiers. Going above this nine added to the universe, but not to the point that it mattered much. In my eyes, this nine were some of the top identifiers covering fans of mainstream comics and indie comics. I then took this universe and broke it down numerous ways. Here’s what I found.
Total United States Comic Book Fan Facebook Population = over 1,215,960 – this is the total number of people who identified themselves through these nine items.
Men vs. Women
The first look was to see how this population broke down through gender. The second part was to look at their education. Keep in mind that totals might not equal the complete universe as not everyone identifies themselves in every category.
| College Grad | In College | In High School | ||
| Total | 1,215,960 | 336,260 | 141,680 | 79,020 |
| Men | 905,100 | 249,260 | 94,800 | 57,580 |
| Women | 304,700 | 84,780 | 46,000 | 21,200 |
27.65% of the individuals marked themselves as College Graduates. With 27.54% of men having a degree and 27.82% of women. As a whole according to this data, the women outperformed the men when it came to education.
Age
When you see the age 
breakdown things get interesting with the majority of the population falling into the 18 to 30 year old range. 31 to 45 year olds out-numbering the 17 and under crowd. It seems there’s tons of potential growth in that 17 and under crowd but also would worry me as generations age and fans die off. Get them while they’re young.
| Men | Women | ||
| 17 and under | 168,280 | 118,920 | 49,020 |
| 18-30 | 771,340 | 558,340 | 208,900 |
| 31-45 | 233,240 | 195,200 | 36,720 |
| 46+ | 43,080 | 32,600 | 10,060 |
Relationship Status
Are comic fans really the stereotypical lonely nerd living in their parents basement? By a slim majority out of a total population of 966,620
individuals, 50.27% are either engaged, in a relationship or married. A whopping 49.72% mark themselves as single. I’ll bring future analysis of how this breaks down by age and gender.
| Single | 480,600 | 49.72% |
| Engaged | 42,740 | 4.42% |
| In Relationship | 256,580 | 26.54% |
| Married | 186,700 | 19.31% |
But who are they interested in? I dove in deeper to see how individuals identified themselves as to which gender they’re interested in.
| Men | Women | |
| Men | 14,940 | 616,640 |
| Women | 152,320 | 27,940 |
811,840 individuals identified what gender they’re interested in. 5.28% marked same gender preference. We’ll break this down in the future based on age and relationship status.
That’s it for now. I’ll be making this sort of information a regular feature and we’ll see how things like this summer’s numerous comic book movies and events like Free Comic Book Day moves these numbers. But, I throw this to you, what would you like to see? More regional information? This expanded to international figures?
I wonder if you managed to pick me up in that poll.
I’m horrible at math thingers (unless it has a network card and speaks ethernet packets I’m useless) so I wonder what percentile I fall into.
I’m:
Male
35
Married
Great stuff by the way, linking to ya.
According to those figures, less than 2.4% of the males are gay, but over 15% of the women are lesbian. And there are nearly twice as many lesbians as there are gay men in this population.
This is counterintuitive, to say the least. Estimates of how much of the general population is gay/lesbian vary of course, but the estimates usually show a lower percentage for women than for men.
No idea on the why, keep in mind this is public self-identification. I’m sure stigma has something to do with it.
That is about the same figure I reported when I looked reviewed a research article on gender and gaming. The researchers looked at Everquest 2 players and found about a 14% female bisexual player base which is about 5 times the national average. They could not figure out why and really had no guesses. By the way, a fantastic article.
http://geekeryonline.com/gamergeek/gender-roles-in-mmos/
Interesting. I unfortunately don’t know the why, maybe escapist fantasies appeal to that demographic? The thing though is the numbers are definitely skewed for this for the following reasons:
1) People could be looking for activity partners, or friends, or to network, so might list a gender they’re not necessarily attracted to.
2) This is public, so I’d imagine that number is under reported possibly
3) There’s a strange phenomenon (at least I don’t get it) where people mess with their relationship status/interest and place a friend there, even though that’s not their orientation.
The reference to sexual preference is in error. “Preference” implies a choice as in one is better than the other. Not true. Sexual orientation is the correct reference.
Well, it’s hard to call it orientation, because we don’t know if they’re really gay or not. This is indeed a preference, in that they say they’re interested in a certain gender. It’s a bit different than asking one’s orientation.
Right, but what Scott is intimating is that one’s sexual attraction to others is not a “preference” (as in, “I have decided that I prefer steak over chicken”) so much as it is an undecided orientation, not based upon any single decision.
Interesting data, by the way!
I don’t disagree at all with that. I just don’t think what one checks on Facebook is necessarily their “orientation.” Even Facebook says “interested in.”
Absolutely there’s a difference, I’m presenting it as they are. If it said, Gay, Straight, Bi-sexual, or labels along those lines, I’d have used the word “orientation.”
Hi Brett,
Can you delve into the methodology a bit? How was this data pulled succinctly from Facebook?
Thanks,
AD
Well, the follow up article this past Tuesday explains it a little more. I used some search methods in Facebook to allow me to pull “likes” people listed on their profiles. This first one I used 9 likes, the second one I expanded it to 28.
I’m curious to know if you got a sense of the % of total FB users who identified as being interested in comics vs those that didn’t. Basically trying to figure out the percentage of Americans that are interested in comics…?
That’s sort of what this is Tal. I looked at the number of Americans who like comics on Facebook. There are far more updated stats on this site you can find through the tags.
You’ve done a fantastic job collecting all kinds of data, but from what I can find all your stats deal with the demographics WITHIN those that identify as being comic readers, not % of comic readers within the ENTIRE US population, which is really the number I’m after.
That’s right, this is self identified individuals. There’s no mechanism currently to gather what you want, so this is the best there is right now.
OK, thanks for responding.