This just in: Comics aren't (just) for kids

The New London, Conn., Day pays a visit to Sarge's Comics, and walks away with a grim portrait of the comics market:

Most of the folks coming into Sarge's nowadays are between 25 and 55 years old. They come trying to recapture a piece of awe or adventure from the days when they would go down to the corner drug store every Friday and search the spin racks for their favorite weekly.

... Most new comics are being written for and by the people who collect and browse, people who have grown up on the comic culture, but have, well, grown up. The writing is better, geared towards twentysomethings instead of 12-year-olds. Plots and characters are more interconnected. Not all heroes are 100 percent good or evil, or even “super.” They have their own interests, their own social and emotional problems. They have sex out of wedlock, and the sex is more strongly implied or documented, picturing protagonists in bed together or using other methods of suggestion.