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(CNN) -- Everyone from "Twilight Moms" to "Family Guy" fans is waiting in line at Comic-Con. This nearly 40-year-old convention is mainly devoted to comic books, and it was sold out before the exhibitors and speakers were even announced this year. Why are so many people there? In 2009, Diamond Comics, one of the world's largest comic book, graphic novel and merchandise distributors, sent out 79 million comic books and 15 million graphic novels to stores. It's not only geeky, teenage boys reading the comics. Buyers include include teenage girls, college students and professionals in their 40s, comic book store owners and industry experts say. Many people, including Mike Van Houten, started reading comic books as children. Van Houten, who has owned Oxford Comic Books in Atlanta, Georgia, for 30 years, still remembers the first comics he bought. "I started collecting comic books when I was a little kid, maybe 12 years old. I went into an old-timey drug store -- it still had a counter that had a malt shop --and back in the back it had a rack of comics," he said. "I remember buying three comics, all Marvel. "Fantastic Four," "Captain America," and "Spiderman," and I fell in love with them." But comic books weren't always designed to attract children's allowance dollars. American comics started out in the 1930s as a successful way to sell newspapers, said Mike Richardson, CEO of Dark Horse Comics. "The Sunday paper was literally wrapped in funnies to get people to buy that newspaper as opposed to the competition," he said. "The comic strips were so popular that two salesmen had the idea to repackage them." After the success of Action Comics No.1, which was the first appearance of Superman -- and a failed comic strip, Richardson pointed out -- a flood of copycat superhero comic books appeared. "For many years comics were taken as children's entertainment," Richardson said. "But we've seen the graying of the comic book audience. Because we have an older clientele, the subject matter has matured. There was a poll done...
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Almost 100 million comic books and graphic novels were distributed last year .
The average comic book buyer is no longer a teenage boy .
Manga is a mainstay of the Japanese publishing industry .
Hollywood has had great popular success with movies adapted from comic books .