New York Comic Con 2013

The Comic Con hit New York's Javit Center last week to hundreds of thousands of would be artists, collectors and dedicated fans, hundreds costumed for the four-day event.

Many die-hards who follow the Big Apple's Con will tell you it's the real thing. "New York is for the real comic book fans, the artists and collectors. San Diego is what it is, more Hollywood freak show if you ask me" said an attendee who was dressed as a combo Iron Man masked Spider-Man.

Regardless of what you think about their devotion, the business of comics is big business in practically all of the media it becomes alive through, be it on traditional paper, digital games or movies.

Take a look at some sobering figures associated with this fantasy world.   

On December 7, 2011, the first issue of Action Comics is sold for a record-breaking $2,161,000 in New York.

Legend has it that this comic book, purchased by the actor Nicolas Cage for $150,000 in 1997 was stolen from him in 2000. It was then recovered in April of 2011, found inside a storage locker in the San Fernando Valley by the Los Angeles Police Department's Art Theft Detail. 

The issue, which hit the street on April 18, 1938, was the first ever appearance of Superman and Clark Kent's co-worker, Lois Lane. 

Minecraft, the immensely popular first-person game where players roam freely through a virtual world of blocks to build, explore and figure out how to survive is mostly played by the 10+ age group on several digital platforms and devices.

The seemingly easy game play has captivated millions of fans throughout the world and has also partnered with the United Nations teaching young people in developing countries urban planning of their communities.   

According to the game's website, 12,425,824 people have bought the game so far.

You'd have to be among the living dead if you hadn't noticed the rising popularity of zombie apocolypse videogames, comics and movies.

There's plenty of money to be made in movies about the absolute end of it all. According to Box Office Mojo, apocolyptic-themed movies are raking it in worlwide: The End of it All - $122,407,338, Elysium - $276,812,297 and The World's End - $45,145,333.

Not one of those 3 movies have comic book tie-ins.

Dead tree media going strong.

According to comics research website Comicchron, up until Sept. 2013, total North American sales of comics, trade publications and magazines were around $382 million, up 10.43% year-over-year.

According to cloud-based digital comics store Comixology, a new customer is emerging: she’s 17-26 years old, college-educated, lives in the suburbs, and is new to comics. More than likely she's never read a print comic and prefers the digital version.

The company also claims that when they launched six years ago, less than 5 percent of its users were women. Now, females comprise 20 percent of the site’s readership.

Long before Micheal Keaton inherited the Dark Knight's crime-fighting workbelt, an inside look at Batman's adventures would only cost you a shiny dime in 1937.  

The first ever appearance of the caped crusader Bruce Wayne came in issue 27 of Detective Comics and sold for $1,075,500 in Feb. 2010.