Jarod Opperman / The Bulletin Left to right, Cameron Saunders, Ashley Cooper, Matt Funk, Phill Rodrigues, Justin Richards, Krista Glover and Chris Columbus record a podcast on comic books at Geek Geek Nerd Nerd in Redmond on Oct. 11. A resurgence of comic books has meant good business for local stores.

Being a nerd is cool — again. And apparently, there are lots of cool people hanging out at comic book stores.

Perhaps it’s the continued popularity of “The Big Bang Theory” in which a comic store is a common backdrop. Maybe it’s because AMC’s “The Walking Dead” and the movie “Iron Man” came straight from the glossy pages of comic books.

No matter the reason, Central Oregon comic book store owners are reaping the benefits of the near-novelty paperbacks’ resurgence. A new store, weekly podcasts, a desire to craft comic books and a thriving Bend comic store are evidence of the trend.

Geek Geek Nerd Nerd, Redmond’s lone comic book store, moved into a new store front last month. The business started in July 2013 with little more than a booth inside the Redmond Antique Mall to showcase co-owner Chris Columbus’s extensive stockpile of Star Wars memorabilia.

Comic books aren’t just for 20-year-olds and their superheroes of choice anymore. They’re made for and enjoyed by the masses.

“It’s like SpongeBob SquarePants,” Columbus said. “The kids like it because it’s all kid friendly and cartoonish, but the adults watch it because they get all the little nuggets, the double entendres.”

Dresden Moss owns Airship Cascadia Comics in Madras, a self-described clearinghouse for publishers. He’s planning a sequence of classes focused on comic books as an art form at Central Oregon Community College.

“Comic books are a special media for storytelling where a lot of countries have expanded beyond what the American audiences are seeing,” Moss said. “Superheroes are largely an American phenomenon, and we’ve been pretty much stuck in that mode. Japan covers all sorts of social issues and politics through the comic book format.”

Unlike the industry high of the 1990s, the current spike in popularity isn’t driven by those superheroes and their power within the collector’s market. No longer are people stockpiling boxes of the “Spider-Man” series to use as a college fund. That motive has been replaced with a more rational one, according to Pegasus employee Cameron Sanders.

“It’s become more based on reading,” Sanders said. “People who are willing to drop a few bucks each week to read something rather than a die-hard who is attached to a specific character. That’s better for the stores, too.”

Sanders and fellow comic book enthusiast-turned store employee Matt Funk have seen the demographics of the comic book world change dramatically during the five-plus years they’ve worked at Pegasus. Their customer base has grown far beyond the stereotypical teenager with black-rimmed glasses and pocket protectors.

Marvel Comics has published its “Ms. Marvel” series featuring buxom blonde Carol Danvers as the main character since the late 1960s. In 2013, Marvel announced a third incarnation of Ms. Marvel starring Kamala Khan, a Pakistani-American shape-shifter living in New Jersey.

The first volume featuring Khan won the Hugo Award — the industry equivalent to an Oscar — for best graphic story. It’ success is a big reason why young women are the fastest growing demographic when it comes to comic book readers and purchasers, according to Publishers Weekly.

“When you have this really welcoming community, more people are willing to check it out,” local comic book fan Ashley Cooper said. “They identify with a character. It really brings the casual reader into it easier because we have this diverse community.”

The influx of new readers combined with the diversity of material has led Central Oregon’s comic book purveyors to explore ways to solidify the growth locally.

Moss is hoping to showcase the industry’s newfound diversity with an amateur comic book contest earlier this year. The contest is open to anyone without professional experience and a panel of judges will select the best work to be showcased in a full-scale publication effort.

“I’ve noticed that there is a lot of young talent here in Central Oregon that didn’t really have an outlet to highlight their work,” Moss said. “I’m trying to get it off the ground so that we can generate more interest and hopefully involve professional talent that these locals can plug into.”

The industry’s resurgence appears to have staying power based on weekly Sunday night gatherings at Geek Geek Nerd Nerd. While the rest of Redmond’s Antique Mall is dark and empty, the Central Oregon comics community gathers to record a hours-long podcast.

For the digital audio file, Sanders and Funk join Columbus, his daughter Krista Glover, Cooper and a rotation of local collectors and readers to discuss new comic book releases. The glossy-page bibliophiles also debate anything and everything related to comic books.

These hobbyists scoff at the notion of competing with the so-called enemy — other retailers — invoking Spock’s dying words on “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn”: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

“You can only have your private clubhouse for so long, and that’s a good thing,” Sanders later said. “The walls of nerd-dom are undefended right now; everyone is getting in.”

— Reporter: 541-382-1811, wrubin@bendbulletin.com