All things I was supposed to have outgrown about five years ago. Your average Joe takes comic books as seriously as the Sunday Family Circus. One glance one week is more than enough to tell you everything you ever needed to know. Comic books and sequential art are the homo superior to books' homo sapien. When used properly they tell and say things books could never dream of.
Books wish they had the ability to utilize visual language the way that comic books do.
We need to pound into people's skulls that comic books are a not a hobby, not a fad, but a medium of entertainment, just likes movies, television, or books. And just like any medium, they are only as good as the talent that works in them. Yes, comics have given us Ambush Bug. No, because those same mediums gave us Citizen Kane, The Simpsons, and countless other works of unbelievable quality. If the industry continues to diversify and put out books separate from the standard capes and tights, then eventually they are going to attract attention.