Demo-Graphics is back! After an almost 4 year break since the last report, I’m relaunching Demo-Graphics because the question still remains… who are comic fans? With a new year, it felt like the right time to bring back the feature monthly and see how trends shift over time.

What is Demo-Graphics?

Each month I dive into data from Facebook looking at the various demographics it can tell us about comic fans. This isn’t hard numbers, purchasers, or “Wednesday warriors,” but best used to show trends in the industry and the potential of the market out there. This has shown the shift towards women being a major force in readers and a shift to the younger demographic.

How does it work?

We use key terms, “likes”, that users have indicated and have come up with our own set to measure each month. There’s over 50 terms used (and no I won’t release them). We stick to specific terms for the industry such as “comics” and “graphic novels” and “one-shots” as well as publishers and leave out broad terms like specific characters or stories. Just because someone likes Batman doesn’t mean they like comics.

Other things to know…

This data is important in that it shows who the potential comic audience could be. These are not purchasers, these are people who have shown an affinity for comics, are potential purchasers, and those with an interest.

Also, with this being online/technology, due to laws and restrictions, those under the age of 13 are underrepresented.

Since the last time this feature was run, Facebook has made adjustments as to what it can report so some data is no longer available and we’ve also added in new data that hasn’t been reported before, and it now presents the data as a wide range. I’ve taken the average of the range. So, if it’s presented as somewhere between 500 and 1,000 people, the number would be 750.

So, let’s kick things off with the big number…

Facebook “Comic Fan” Population: Around 98 million in the United States

I’m honestly kicking myself that I wasn’t tracking this during the pandemic. Interest in collectibles blew up during that time and it’d have been interesting to track how things have shifted. Never before revealed, in January 2023 data was pulled and it revealed a population of 118.3 million. We’ve seen a 17.16% decrease in that two year period and that could match the reported cooling in sales and/or it could also be a decrease in the overall number of individuals on Facebook which was not recorded at the time. In January 2021 the same population was 73 million and in January 2018 it was 57 million.

Gender

Women still make up the majority of comic fans but those listed as “other” (Facebook is not good on this data) has increased a lot over the years. Women account for 47.12% of the population while men are 43.98%, and other is 8.90%.

Age

I’ve shifted how I’ve grouped ages so the data is a little different than before. While before “under 18” was one, it’s now “18 and under” with each subsequent grouping being 5 year blocks. This data is absolutely skewed as 1) It is believed younger individuals don’t use Facebook as much in the past and have migrated to other platforms; and 2) Laws restrict what can be collected based on age, ie those under the age of 13 shouldn’t even have accounts. So, younger readers are absolutely under-counted.

Relationship Status

It feels like more are married now with the largest segment being exactly that and the second not reporting their relationship status. It could very well be a sign of an aging population of fans.

New Stats!

Education has been combined to see how many individuals have at least a college degree. About 28.15 million fit that which means 28.72%. In 2022, 37.7% of the American population had at least a college degree.

14.2 million fans, 14.49%, are parents!

And finally, what’s the crossover with fans of board games and video games? 33.5 million, 34.18% of comic fans also enjoy board games. 59.5 million, 60.71% also enjoy video games. Get your licensing engines revving!

What’s Next?

All of this is a re-starting point. Things have shifted in how I’m collecting the data, like age, but it’s been quite a while since I’ve regularly done this. As we move along, we’ll start to look at trends over time.

There’s some legacy data I’m going to try and fill in so we can get a better sense of how things have shifted over time that will hopefully be available next month. And, part of that will be me trying to find the original data files from many computers ago. Lots of work so we can all have a better sense of where things stand! Until next time… what gets measured, gets done!