With Avengers Endgame holding the title as the second highest grossing film of all time, superhero movies have become a fan-favorite among audiences from all ages and has cemented itself as a household name in the film industry. According to Business Insider, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is worth more than $25 billion worldwide, turning comic book characters into desired roles by A-list celebrities and dedicated theme park attractions like “Avengers Campus” outfitted with merchandise, rides, and costumed actors.
What was previously considered a genre for “geeks” and “dorks”, these blockbuster films have revolutionized the way super heroes are now seen, and have turned 60% of adults in the United States into superfans.
Today, the emergence of popularity continues to rise to higher heights and their notoriety has sparked the interest in fans of the films visiting comic bookstores to discover where their favorite crime-fighting vigilantes come from.
Geoffrey Patterson Jr., the owner of Hi De Ho Comics in LA and Geoffrey’s Comics in Torrance, spoke on the evolution of the image of comic books through the decades.
Geoffrey Patterson Jr.: I mean, well, this has changed so much because. As recently as just 15 years ago. Comic books like would be looked at differently at a dinner party. If you mentioned you read comic books, you know, and now it’s just another thing that people read. I think that to me is the biggest change is how there are people who just casually read some comic books nowadays.
Although the rapid growth of these movies have only taken increase in the 21st Century, many of these local comic book stores have been around since the mid 70s with passionate comic book enthusiasts like Patterson Jr’s father, opening Hi De Ho Comics in 1977, a store Patterson Jr. expressed held a special connection to through his bonding experience with his father everyday after-school as a boy.
Patterson: Oh, well, my dad opened the comic book store before I was born, and so I was very much born into a comic book store. So just every day after school run from school to the comic book store, because that’s where my dad was. And we would read comic books and watch cartoons and do all kinds of fun stuff. And so that’s kind of what comic books always meant to me was fun and spending time with your dad and just all that kind of good stuff.
Warren Jaycox is the owner of Galaxy of Comics in Van Nuys feels that both the visual creativity that comics have always had along with the film industry constantly producing films have helped to grow comic book popularity.
Warren Jaycox: These are it is a very visual story. So it allows you to kind of put put yourself in it. You know, if you’re if you’ve got a good imagination, you know, sometimes these comics can be read like, you know, like a good movie. And I think a lot of I think a lot of of, you know, producers of television and and movies kind of recognize that, you know what I mean? And that’s why they’ve taken a lot of these stories and made them into movies and television. But yeah, I think that’s why we why we enjoy it. You know, they’re very visual.
Jaycox also spoke on how he sees people of various ages, ethnicities, and cultures in his store who love comics.
Jaycox: Honestly, they’re all over the place. There’s just there’s so there’s so many of, you know, different kinds of customers that we that we’ve got, you know, all the way from, you know, 60 or 70 year olds have been, you know, literally buying the stuff all their lives to, you know, to kids or just discovering them, you know, come in with their families, returning fans who rent them, you know, as a kid or a young adult come back now that they’ve got a family, there’s you know, it’s kind of all over the place.
The film industry using movies and television shows have brought back many industries, and for no industry is that more than comic books.
For Annenberg Media, I’m Jonathan Martin.