This study was conducted in partnership with Milkfed Criminal Masterminds, Inc. (MCM) - an independent comic book production studio based out of Portland, Oregon.
The target population of this study was adult comic book readers; responses from participants under the age of 18 were excluded from this study. Participants were primarily recruited via social media; an anonymous survey was distributed via Facebook, Twitter, and digital newsletter service. Data was collected between January and April of 2016.
A total of 566 responses were collected; all responses are included in the analyses presented on this site. The majority of basic results present individual findings either as proportional values (percentages) or in aggregate form (totals/counts). These pages typically present the patterns of responses given; they do not assess responses which were not given. Detailed analyses will present the ways in which data is disbursed and represent the ways variables coincide with one another.
Results of the survey instrument have been coded into binarized, "dummy" variables (yes/no format) for quantitative analysis, as well as thematically coded for qualitative analysis. The findings of this study reflect the coding choices of the research team, and as such the data presented here relies primarily on binary logistic regression and content analysis to inform their conclusions. Analyses which rely on other methods of study may reach alternative conclusions using these data. Variables used in this study include demographic control variables (e.g. gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality), industry-specific occupational control variables (e.g. writer, artist, editor), and community-specific control variables reflecting a variety of related activities which comic book consumers may engage with (e.g. cosplay, meeting comics creators, etc.).