Comic Book Popularity Soars To 20-Year High (And We Have Margot Robbie To Thank)

Comic book circulation has hit its highest level in 20 years and DC comics are leading the way.

Over the past decade the comics industry has been through a fair share of ups-and-downs. One of the biggest shake ups happened in the early 1990s when the comics market completely crashed.

Nine out of ten comic book shops in America were forced to shut their doors and the prices of high-value comics plummeted. The entire disaster even left Marvel bankrupt, who at the time was the industry's biggest player.

Yep, it was a pretty grim time.

Luckily, fast forward a bit through time and things are looking much rosier today in the realm of comics.

According to data analyst John Jackson Miller, a whopping 10.26 million copies of DC's Rebirth series were dispatched by Diamond Comic Distributors to stores across North America this past August.

Yes, yes, we know - 10.26 million might not seem like diddly-squat compared to something like Fifty Shades of Grey, which sold over 100 million copies worldwide. Cut the comics industry some slack though! It's actually the first time since 1996 that stores are confidently ordering in such large quantities.

Part of what's driving this popularity is quite simply the huge increase of comic book adaptations gracing the box office.

DC Comics has been dominating sales of late (despite Marvel movies trumping them at the box office); DC distributed nine out of ten bestselling issues in August with Harley Quinn #1 as the top seller, likely due to the release of Suicide Squad. It was so popular that DC even decided to release the issue in several different covers. So, thanks Margot.

There are so many amazing #HarleyQuinn #1 variants for #DCRebirth, this isn't even all of them! pic.twitter.com/W4pY1kIcGe

— David McGreavy (@DominusNoctis) August 17, 2016

Facebook data gives us a better indication of the overall popularity of comic-culture with analysts estimating more than 41 million people in America "like" and are engaged in the fandom.

Despite the popularity of Hollywood adaptations, we're also suckers for the retro-factor of paperback comics.

Photo: DC.