Demo-Graphics is back with its second entry for 2025! Demo-Graphics was relaunched because the question still remains… who are comic fans? While I got the information for February, I wanted to wait a month to start showing off more trends than a one month change.
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 a clear 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 off the latest entry with the big question…
Facebook “Comic Fan” Population: Around 92.8 million in the United States
2025 is off to an interesting start as we’ve now seen two months in a row in a decrease in the overall population. The loss is nearly across the board as far as age group though 30-34 remained the same and 35-39 increased slightly. These numbers often are ahead of sales trends and we might be seeing unease in the economy playing out in some way. If there’s a continue dip, we mighty see sales issues within a few months.
Gender
Women still make up the majority of comic fans but men have made some gains over the months. Women account for 49.95% of the population while men are 48.92%, and other is 1.13%. The gains in those reported as men as seen gains over the months as “other” has decreased. This could be more due to the current negative climate for those not conforming to a binary choice.
Age
I’ve shifted how I’ve grouped ages so the data is a little different than before this year’s relaunch. 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
Those “married” has decrease over the past few months. It’s possible this is the population that is part of the decrease of the population.
New Stats!
Education has been combined to see how many individuals have at least a college degree. About 26 million fit that which means 28.02%. In 2022, 37.7% of the American population had at least a college degree.
19.15 million fans, 20.64%, are parents!
And finally, what’s the crossover with fans of board games and video games? 33.5 million, 36.10% of comic fans also enjoy board games. 54.55 million, 58.78% 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 continue 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!
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Source: Graphic Policy
