Dr. Edd Schneider from Ithaca College and Peter Cannon from the University of South Florida recently had their journal article titled "Comic Cons and Libraries: Opportunities for Patron Outreach" published in Public Libraries Quarterly, a Taylor & Francis journal.
Comic book conventions are a worldwide phenomenon, with each of the largest events in New York, London, Tokyo, and San Diego drawing over 100,000 people. Dr. Schneider and Dr. Cannon investigated the relationship that comic con attendees have with their local public library system in an effort to help public libraries understand how to reach this audience. They found that the majority of comic con attendees were frequent library users, the average age of attendees was in their late 20's and approximately half of comic con attendees were women.
This research was done partially to inform the new event planning minor in the Communication Management & Design program. Recently Dr. Schneider and Ithaca College rising sophomore Julia Salvatore presented a different research project at San Diego Comic Con.
The paper can be accessed here:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01616846.2019.1648943
https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/20190729104754750