Comics might not be for kids anymore, but they’re sure BY kids …

Wow. So something hit me after looking through Flickr photo sets from the 1982 San Diego Comic Con and the 2008 Heroes Con: The industry players have gotten progressively younger. Take a look through the awesome ’82 series by Alan Light and you’ll see a lot of white hair, bald heads and polyester suits at the booths and panels. Then there’s Patman’s ’08 series, in which you’ll see a lot of spiked hair, goatees and t-shirts.

It’s interesting, given that the average comic collector in the early ’80s was probably 25 and now is more like 45 (rough estimates based on no scientific fact at all, kids). As the audience gets older, the creators get younger. Which makes me wonder at what point the disconnect will reverse: Comic creators will be making comics that relate to them but not at all to readers with a generation’s difference in experiences.

But seriously, check out Light’s photos. He scanned them directly from the negatives, so they are bright and clean, and there are folks such as Jack Kirby, Milton Canniff and Carl Barks, as well as a boyish-looking Mark Evanier.