In an episode of the popular television series _The Big Bang Theory_ titled “The Bakersfield Expedition,” three girls walk into a comic book store, and the exclusively male customers all turn around and stare until the owner scolds them, “They’re just girls. It’s nothing you haven’t seen in movies or in drawings.” This scene emphasizes the common assumption that comics fandom is an unwelcoming and sexist space. However, this assumption is only partly true, because comics fandom is a broader category, including but not limited to men who shop at comic book stores. In the context of comics, _fandom_ usually means a specific subcultural community: a group of people who are mostly white men and are united by their shared love of, primarily, Marvel and DC superhero comics. This fan community emerged in the 1960s, consciously modeling itself after the much older science fiction fan community, and is organized around institutions such as comic conventions, comic book stores, and fan magazines. Since the 1980s, members of this group are considered the primary audience for American comics. Yet organized comics fandom is much younger than comic books or comics themselves, and since its creation, it has coexisted with other audiences and...