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But most writers working in both fields started out in TV. Mr. Guggenheim says the lure of comic books for such writers is simple. “When you write for TV, you really have to write in some very tight budgetary constraints,” he said in a phone interview. “When you write for comic books, you’re only limited by your imagination, or the artist’s ability to draw it.”

Javier Grillo-Marxuach, a producer for Medium, made his comics debut in 2005 with The Middleman, a series published by Irving-based Viper Comics. He says the temptation of comic books goes beyond the issue of special effects.

“I had an idea about a quirky set of characters that spoke with a verbose rhyme and meter unlike what I was writing at the time, about a series with a truly off-center sensibility,” he said in an e-mail interview. “Comics gave me the opportunity to explore a kind of writing that I could not do on a [TV] series staff, where you are always being steered to write in the voice established by the show’s creator.”

“We sell quite a few comic books but I think mainly what we sell is a lot of graphic novels, which is a compilation of certain runs of comics,” Waldenbooks manager Gary Makries said. No matter what form they come in, comic books have become so popular, that kids aren’t the only ones reading them. You’d be surprised. There’s adults my age buying comics, there’s people in their mid twenties. You’ve got lots of little kids discovering comics for the first time,” Makries added.