Here's the truth: Comic book publishing—yes, just the business of selling printed comics—is a billion-dollar industry. This month, 1,194 new comic books and 391 new graphic novels and collections will hit shelves. That's a lot of titles for a single month, and those aren't uncommon numbers. Comics are everywhere; even your grandma knows who Thanos is. If anything, comics are a bigger deal now than they've ever been.

And yet, many people who care about comics seem to live in perpetual fear of the industry's demise.

No matter how many metrics and how much anecdotal evidence shows that things are looking up, there's a persistent undercurrent in comics fandom that seems to want things to go down. Every new storyline is lambasted. ("It's just a gimmick!") Every new publishing initiative is criticized. ("You're disrespecting the real fans!") Every single store closing is met with a strange schadenfreude. ("See? I told you it was all going to hell!") And it's been this way for years.

To quote a well-known comic villain, why so serious? And more to the point, why so sad? Does comics have an inferiority complex?

"We shouldn't, but sometimes I fear we do," says Joe Quesada, chief creative officer for Marvel Comics. "This kind of doom-and-gloom thinking started with Dr. Fredric Wertham [and his 1954 book, Seduction of the Innocent], which then trickled down into American society in general. For decades, comics were labeled a dumbed-down kids medium. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth."

Back in the 1950s, Wertham's book caused a panic over comics. Parents freaked out that the books were warping children's minds. Eventually publishers, fearing the worst, formed the Comics Code Authority, which for years regulated anything even remotely edgy to within an inch of its life. The industry took a big hit, creatively and financially, and ever since worries persist that the business isn't bulletproof. Fans stress that comics are struggling, an (untrue) notion that leads people to believe their beloved medium is shifting focus to save itself, being coopted by Hollywood, or just not what it used to be.

A lot of these apocryphal narratives stem from perceptions of Comic-Con International, which starts this week in San Diego. Generally considered a snapshot of the industry as a whole, it's increasingly become a festival of pop culture—not comics. Tenderfoots, who call it Comic-Con, show up looking to grab the latest Mattel toy. Hardcores, who go to multiple small-c cons each year, call it "San Diego." The former group seems to grow every year, while the latter becomes harder to find.

One of those hardcores is Bud Plant, an exhibitor who was at the very first San Diego con and who has managed a booth on the main convention floor for 48 years running. Now, Plant has pulled up stakes, saying that while more and more people go to the con, fewer and fewer are buying his books.

"Expenses kept going up, and the revenue kept going down," Plant says. "I used to be one of the main exhibitors, before Marvel, DC, and all the movie companies started setting up giant booths. Now I've become a tiny player. Unfortunately, the people who are putting on the show don't seem to be too worried about keeping people like me."

'I used to be one of the main exhibitors, before Marvel, DC, and all the movie companies started setting up giant booths. Now I've become a tiny player. Unfortunately, the people who are putting on the show don't seem to be too worried about keeping people like me.' Bud Plant

Many in the Little Village of comics, Quesada included, were saddened and shocked to hear that Plant wouldn't be back this year. Nor is he the only one to let the con go; Mile High Comics pulled out last year after nearly five decades on the show floor.

But the handwringing around those departures is in many ways a funhouse mirror reflection of what's actually going on in comics shops, where books of all varieties are gobbled up as soon as they hit the shelves on Wednesdays. "The fact that fans may occasionally say, 'This is the death of Marvel! This is the death of DC! Not another crossover! This is the worst thing ever!' I've been hearing that as long as I've been in comics," says Quesada. "It's part of fandom, and believe it or not, I think it's part of the fun of fandom. It's a fandom built on conflict."