This piece is brought to you by the sponsor for my trip to ComicsPRO, Third Eye Comics. Third Eye is a comic and pop culture-shop chain with eight locations on the East Coast, one that also has an incredible online store that offers fast and cheap shipping. Whether you’re a reader or a creator, Third Eye can help you find the books you need.

It’s a good time in the comics industry. While there are always cons that go with the pros, comic shops and the larger direct market those retailers belong to have reported having a big 2025, and that energy has seemingly kept up in the new year. It’s resulted in good vibes permeating throughout the industry, even if you know there will always be some level of uncertainty behind it.

You could feel the impact of those good times at ComicsPRO, the recent conference put together by the trade organization for direct market comic book retailers, as the buzz was pervasive and the discussions were positive throughout. We know everyone is feeling good right now, but what had the folks attending this event — one that brought out many of the key players in the industry, including publishers, creators, retailers, and beyond — feeling the most hopeful about where things are headed after a very strong year, especially during an invigorating event like ComicsPRO? That’s something I wanted to find out, so I did what I tend to do in a situation like this.

I asked.

While at ComicsPRO, I quizzed an array of people in varying roles about this very question, all with the goal of running the results in full so you could better understand what’s exciting them. The answers were, quite frankly, different than I expected. My belief was it’d almost entirely be about the influx of new readers that are flooding comic shops these days, and while there was some of that, it was far less pervasive than I expected. The responses proved to be surprisingly varied, and I found that to be encouraging in its own right. It really speaks to all the different ways the direct market is flourishing.

You can discover what I mean by reading everyone’s answers below, which have been edited for clarity. They’ve also been ordered alphabetically by first name, save for the multi-person answers, both of which went at the end of the piece.

Eitan Manhoff, Owner, Cape & Cowl Comics, Oakland, California

From here at the meeting, there’s this incredible spirit of collaboration. Everybody wants to work together to make everybody better and make everybody happy and make everybody successful, and it’s at a level that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. There really is no conflict and there was nobody bumping heads about anything. Everybody’s asking questions and giving ideas and working together. That’s really encouraging.

And then back at the store, it’s all these new people. Everybody I’m talking to, every creator I’m talking to, every publisher I’m talking to has these new people. They’re 20 years old. What are we going to give them? And the realization that it doesn’t have to be another Absolute Batman, that that’s not the answer, it’s just something else that’s good. Something else that connects with them as a person. I think everybody is realizing here that we don’t need another Absolute Batman. All we need to do is share our enthusiasm and help people be involved in this thing that we love.

I’m ready to go home and do that.

Esther Kim, Director of Marketing, Storm King Comics

This is the second year that I’ve come to ComicsPRO with Storm King (Comics), and we had an amazing time. We did the roundtables for the first time this year and we got to connect with so many retailers and hear their stories and hear what it’s been like over the past year, which has obviously been a lot for a lot of people.

And what we’re coming out of this with is that this community, in particular at ComicsPRO, are exactly the type of people who are trying to build the path forward. Who are trying to build the community. And anyone who wants to put their hands to that work and be a part of the community…they’re welcome, you know? We’re all trying to figure it out.

That’s the energy that I’m getting off everyone at the show this year, and that’s the energy that I think we’re going to try to bring in 2026 and in 2027, and then just keep that moving forward.

Filip Sablik, Publisher, Ignition Press

We are seeing the entrance of Gen Z and Gen Alpha into the marketplace, and these are two generations that have grown up with comics and graphic novels as part of their entertainment diet since they were old enough to read. This is the…whether you call it the Dog Man generation, the Raina (Telgemeier) generation, the Wimpy Kid generation, they do not look at comics as a niche thing. It is mainstream. They grew up on the MCU.

And they also happen to be on a population basis bigger than the two prior generations. So, the opportunity, and the thing that gives me hope, is we have more readers. They’re primed to be open to comic books and graphic novels, and we have more diversity in terms of storytelling in the industry than I think at any other time in our history.

It not only makes me hopeful, but it makes me think it’s our opportunity to lose.

Jazzlyn Stone, Director of Communications, Tiny Onion

I think there’s more of a willingness to appreciate what sequential art is.

When I first started coming here in 2019, there were a lot of people that were like, comics are superheroes, punch ‘em ups, beat ’em ups, stuff like that. I remember going to a class that was like, How to introduce manga to your fans. And people were like, “What the fuck is manga?” And now I’m having a lot more conversations where people are like, sequential art is the best. Comics, (bandes dessinées), manga, all of it is incredible and all of it has value and our fans and our customers like all of it.

So, the thing that’s most hopeful for me is that there’s a lot less gatekeeping than when I first started coming to cons in general. But my first ComicsPRO, I felt like I talked to a lot more people that were like, “Do you even work here? Do you even read comics?” And now everyone’s like, “Hey, what do you do?” That’s so exciting. That’s so cool.

That willingness to be open and to have less gatekeeping, and how everyone’s talking about, “How do we get new readers in?” Not only into comics, but into different comic shops and “How do we get bookstore people into comic shops? How do we get comic shop people into bookstores?” There’s just a lot more willingness to work together to solve the problem.

And that gives me so much hope.