A Coming of Age for Comic Books : The industry is enjoying a boom that has lasted several years, with adults doing much of the buying. To satisfy the older audience, more publishers are offering alternatives to the super-hero comics.

Frank Balkin, a USC graduate and aspiring screenwriter, was browsing in a bookstore on a recent afternoon. He leafed through one selection after another, approving of the sophisticated characters and the diversity of subjects, even though these were comic books.

“There are comics aimed at women,” he said. “There are comics aimed at 35-year-old men. Hopefully someday we’ll have comics aimed at senior citizens.”

Balkin, 22, had himself in mind when he expressed that hope. He started reading comics as a boy and has no intention of stopping.

“When I was 8, people said I’d stop when I got other interests,” he said. “Well, I have other interests, but I still read comics.”

Owners of comic book stores say men such as Balkin are the rule, not the exception. The industry continues in a boom that has lasted several years, with much of the buying power coming from adults. And to satisfy the mature audience, publishers increasingly offer alternatives to such super-hero comics as Batman and Spider-Man.

“The business is very strong right now,” said John Koenig, publisher of the weekly Comics Buyer’s Guide. “Nobody releases their sales data, and a figure would be just a huge sum in the wind. But there are more distributors than ever before, there are more comic books than ever before, and there’s growth in the retail end. Last year more new comic book stores opened than in the past decade.”

The three-store Golden Apple chain, largest in Los Angeles, took part in the expansion. Last year, Golden Apple’s Northridge store opened an annex two doors south on Reseda Boulevard. The annex sells back-issue comics--some of them valuable collectors’ items--along with baseball cards.

Golden Apple’s other outlets are the main store on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood, which offers the most eclectic selection, and a smaller store on Pico Boulevard in West Los Angeles. Staff members at all three stores, and at other comics stores as well, said the average customer is a man in his 20s.

Some, like Balkin, buy comics with adult-themed stories. Among his favorites is a British series called The Question.

“The relationship between the two main characters is one of the best love relationships ever written in comics,” he said.

The hero, TV reporter Vic Sage, is psychologically wounded because his mother abandoned him. He’s not sure whether he’s in love with his girlfriend, Myra Fermin, or whether it’s “a tremendously powerful kind of like.”

Myra is mayor of Hub City, a crime-ridden town with a fiscal crunch so bad that broken street lights aren’t replaced. De spite her career success, Myra feels she is a tramp because she has had a long string of failed relationships.

Other comics customers, such as John Winter, 27, of Northridge buy the new comics principally for their artwork. His current interest is Japanese comic books that are translated into English.

“Comics have a bad reputation, and most of it is well-deserved,” said Winter, who started buying at 15. “Ninety-five percent is garbage, and 5% is good stuff. It takes sifting through it.”

Winter’s favorite artist is Bill Sienkiewicz, who does a remarkable job of capturing nuances of feeling in his characters’ faces. Sienkiewicz has many credits, including the Big Numbers series, written by Alan Moore and notable for its oblique stories of urban malaise.

“I study art, the pre-Raphaelites and so on, and he’s the best,” Winter said of Sienkiewicz. “He’s up there with Picasso as far as raw talent goes.”

Artwork is especially important in the graphic novel, a thick comic book published on good-quality paper and selling for $10 to $18.

The growing variety in comic books is due in large part to two business changes within the industry, said Bill Liebowitz, owner of the Golden Apple chain. One is the emergence about 10 years ago of the so-called “direct distributor,” who wholesales comics to stores on a non-returnable basis. Now stores are stuck with unsold comics that used to go back to publishers. But in the store’s favor, the distributor charges a lower price than before, permitting a retail markup of about 40% as opposed to about 20% formerly.

“That means new, small, independent publishers can know their costs going in,” said Liebowitz. “There aren’t going to be any surprises, so they can do a lower print run of 2,000 to 6,000 copies of new material and make money.”

The second key change is that many new publishers allow writers and artists to retain rights to the characters they create, a practice that attracts talented people to independent publishers and encourages the creation of new works.

Despite a widening selection of new comics, the super-hero genre remains the best selling. Super-hero comics are aimed at adolescent boys, but often the buyers are older. Some hope to make money, since collector’s comics are enjoying a run-up in prices much as baseball cards are. Others are motivated by loyalty.

Clinton Fales, 19, of Northridge started buying Conan comics when he was a boy, and his interest hasn’t diminished.

“I know some of my Conans will be rare one day, but I’d never sell, so it doesn’t matter,” he said.

New episodes come out monthly for most super-hero titles. Prices usually are between $1 and $2.50. Bob Hennessey, co-owner of Hi De Ho Comics in Santa Monica, said a compulsion to have a complete series will make a customer keep buying, even though the super-hero plots become predictable.

“Typically there is resolution of the cliffhanger from last week, then three or four pages of exposition,” he said. “Then there’s a fight scene that’s unresolved because someone gets away. Then more exposition with a new character or a plot wrinkle. Then a big fight scene that ends on a cliffhanger. By the time you’re 13 or 14, you should get tired of that.”

Hennessey said some buyers are graduating to comics that are “like good soap operas.” Love & Rockets, written by brothers Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, follows a cast of mostly Latino characters as they encounter problems with romances, friendships, jobs, drugs and other slice-of-life issues. Love & Rockets is a “crossover” series, meaning it attracts women readers.

There also are adults-only comics, often dealing with sexuality. Jerry Duba, assistant manager of Golden Apple’s Northridge store, said the Yummy Fur series by Chester Brown is one of the better ones.

“It’s very political,” he said. “But your average comic-book guy thinks it’s a sick thing.”

“But we don’t sell many,” Duba said. “We got 10 copies two weeks ago, and there are four or five left.”

By contrast, he said, the Northridge store gets 165 copies a month of the Uncanny X-Men, a super-hero series.

Duba believes that comic-book publishers are milking the market with super-hero material. He points out that four Spider-Man series are currently being produced: Tales of Spider-Man, Amazing Spider-Man, Spectacular Spider-Man and just plain Spider-Man.

This last is a new series written and drawn by popular artist Todd McFarland. Marvel published it with two covers, one scarcer than the other, and promoted it relentlessly as a collectors’ item. The first printing was 2.35-million copies. Store personnel said some customers bought as many as 50 to 100 copies in hopes the price will rise.

“The publishers are putting out more and more product and making it more and more expensive,” said Roger Kahn, manager of Golden Apple’s West Hollywood store. “It’s shoved some people out. But other people buy no matter what the comic is, if they think it might be worth money some day. There’s a lot of hoarding of current comics.”

Tony Edwards, manager of the Golden Apple store in Hollywood, said he urges customers to buy comics that interest them.

“That way if they don’t go up in value, you won’t be stuck,” he said.

Edwards believes that a number of factors have made comics respectable. One is that popular acceptance for decades in Europe, Japan and Latin America has slowly swayed the American public. Another is the mainstream success of comics-based movies such as “Superman,” “Batman,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “Dick Tracy.” Another is favorable treatment in influential magazines, such as a recent issue of “Rolling Stone.”

“It’s gotten so reading comics is a cool thing to do,” said Edwards, who owns a 10,000-book collection himself. “People don’t stop buying them like they used to. It’s not an embarrassment anymore.”