TS: 1990s superhero comics vs. 2000s superhero comics

I always see a lot of people on the web who say they gave up superhero comics in the 90s and were drawn back in the 2000s, but sales of these things things have been on a pretty unchanging downward slope since the mid 90s, right? Is the number of people who came back to comics, and would post about it on the internet, just dwarfed by the number of casual news-stand readers they lost?

Or is it that the people who came back were only a minority of those who left in the 90s, and the people who didn't come back aren't discussing comics on the internet so I don't hear from them?

A mix of both. The boom and bust in the 90s took out speculators and any remaining newsstands/casuals. The more the direct market became the only market the creepier comics became to those outside looking in. Wizard has a lot to answer for.

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In hindsight, it's just weird they ever got as popular as they were, so far from their earlier heydays and with growing pocket-money competition from things like video games. I wonder if it was a demographic bubble of some kind, or a double-bubble that lent itself to a decently large Generation X readership (that consumed X-Men and Teen Titans and DKR and so on in the 80s) handing off the hobby to a much bigger readership of their kid siblings born in the late 70s and early 80s. But that might just be me-centric analysis.

I think the comic reading audience is way older now than when I was into the hobby back in the 80s. I think people 'get into' comics more in high school or college now than really picking up the habit when they were 10 or 12 or younger.

The second thing about comics that is harder to gauge is really the monthly sales what the total audience is these days? I think it harder to gauge on some titles popularity as people get into reading series more often as back issue in trade paperbacks or online.

http://gabebridwell.com/index.php/2011/09/07/robert-kirkman-and-the-walking-dead-sales/

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https://sphotos-a-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/1236950_10151603185986596_876472451_n.jpg

Also, Walking Dead trades sell insane numbers in bookstores, moreso than any Marvel/DC trades. At least, according to the local comic shop owner.