Demo-Graphics is back with its seventh entry for 2025 (plus some bonus features)! Demo-Graphics was relaunched because the question still remains… who are comic fans?
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 117.95 million in the United States
The first half of 2025 was off to an interesting start as we saw a decrease in the overall population for five months in a row. From January 2025 to June 2025, there was a loss of 8.45 million individuals. But, July stopped the slide with an increase of about 3.5 million individuals. August saw a jump of 24.8 million individuals while Facebook in the United States saw a decrease of about 500,000 individuals. September saw another bump of 850,000 while overall Facebook population increased by 2.2 million. October is a slight decrease in “comic fans” but also in the overall Facebook user population for the US.
Gender
Men had a slight increase in total population with women and “other” both dropping along with the overall “fandom.” As we’ll see below with age, it’s younger fans that are the dip in population.
Age
Age groupings shifted since we last did this report before this year 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.
The overall fandom population is down from the previous month by about 750,000 individuals. That loss is primarily in those age 24 and under which saw a decrease of a bit over 450,000.
Relationship Status
There’s some slight shifts from the previous month with those “in a relationship” and “engaged” decreasing from the previous month but “single,” “married,” and “unspecified” have all increased.
New Stats!
Education has been combined to see how many individuals have at least a college degree. This month saw the same amount of individuals having at least a college degree, 34.9 million. With a smaller overall population, the percentage of the population has increased. In 2024, 31.3% of the American population had at least a college degree.
23.4 million fans are parents! That’s another decrease from the previous month which was 24.8 million. That’s two months in a row this group has decreased in size.
And finally, what’s the crossover with fans of board games and video games? 45.4 million, 38.49% of comic fans also enjoy board/tabletop/card games, an increase from the previous month. 65.6 million, 55.62% also enjoy video games, a decrease from the previous month. Combined, 81.25 million like board games or video games and 29.3 million enjoy board games and 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
