“I related most to Batman,” said 56-year-old movie producer Michael Uslan of his childhood comic-book tastes, “because Batman’s greatest superpower was humanity.” Mr. Uslan, like many baby boomers, grew up an avid comic-book reader. But his fandom didn’t stop at 18. As an adult, he parlayed his love of Batman into a successful career in the movie business, producing all five of the most recent Batman movies. His sixth, The Dark Knight, staring Christian Bale and the late Heath Ledger, opens this July.

But Mr. Uslan has a comic-related side career, too, as a comic-art collector. Forget those Cindy Sherman prints, or combing Chelsea walls in search of the next Kara Walker: wealthy ex-nerds looking to make an arty purchase are snubbing the mainstream art world, throwing their bucks at their childhood heros and creating an investment market where there wasn’t one before.  read more »