In Scotland, we do things differently. "Cosplay is funny up here," suggests novelist Denise Mina. "It's people who have made costumes out of ginger bottles and stuff. I have seen a whole family of Hulks."

You may too if you go along to this year's Glasgow Comic Festival and Comic Con. Next weekend cosplayers - folk who dress up as their favourite pop culture character - will mingle with comic book creators and readers at the Royal Concert Hall. Manga-loving teenage girls will rub shoulders with middle-aged superhero fans while Q&A panels will be manned by industry legends such as Dave 'Watchmen' Gibbons and Glasgow's own Frank Quitely, and womanned by rising stars such as Kate Leth (Adventure Time) and Marguerite Bennett (X-Men).

This will be the sixth Comic Con in Scotland. It has grown from a one-day event to an event that lasts for the best part of a week, drawing more than 10,000 visitors last year.

It's also concrete evidence of the increasing reach of the form. With Hollywood in thrall to the superhero movie and American television increasingly looking to comics for inspiration (in shows such as Netflix's Daredevil and AMC's The Preacher, and of course the now ubiquitous The Walking Dead) the comic strip has gone mainstream.

And so the Sunday Herald has spoken to comic book readers and writers about their love of the form. You don't have to dress up as the Hulk to read this but don't let us stop you.

Aidan Moffat, musician

Like most Scots, I suspect, my first experience of comics would have been the Beano and the Dandy when I was young. And Oor Wullie and the Broons of course. Then as I got older it would have been Batman. When you're a kid Batman is just cool. Even the word 'Batman'.

I'm still into Batman. He is the most interesting of the superheroes to me. I don't really like that whole dark Batman idea. That he's absolutely mental and he can't get over the death of his mum and dad. I think it's actually more the case that he does this to protect people from the pain he went through. He's the ultimate altruist but that tends to get ignored.

I read far beyond the superhero comics. There was a book this year by Brecht Evens called Panther. It's this absolutely gorgeous stunning thing that looks like a child's storybook full of beautiful watercolours and such wonderful detail. But it has a very dark heart that takes a while to reveal itself and doesn't quite reveal itself. It's a brilliant work.

When comics are done well, when it's the perfect marriage of word and image, you can look at it as long as you want. In a film someone has decided how long you get to look at something but in a comic you can stare it as long as you want or you can go by as quickly as you need to and you can always go back. It can be such an immersive experience.

Denise Mina, novelist and comic book writer

Technically there's nowhere to hide in comics. It's a really, really interesting form. And because you're collaborating with somebody you have to leave room for them to make decisions as well.

Because nobody can move in a comic the reader does so much work that he becomes really invested in it. It's not passive. It's not like the telly's on and you're doing the washing up. The story happens in your head. You have to read quite slowly. It's like poetry.

The comics I had access to growing up were things like Archie comics. I wasn't one of those children who spent her whole life in a library. I was too busy smoking behind bike sheds. So I stopped reading them and started again with Maus. I think it was around the time that Maus won the Pulitzer Prize.

One of my best pals was a web designer and set up a webpage for me, which was very unusual at that time. And the next day DC Comics sent me an email asking me if I'd like to write Hellblazer. I thought it was a wind-up. I wrote that for a year and I set it in Park Circus. But nobody read comics then. That changed really quickly.

Gavin Mitchell, actor

I've read comics for as long as I can remember. When everybody else was into the Beano and Dandy I used to get treated to American comics. And it just took you to another world. Apart from the actual subject matter there were the adverts for X-ray spex and Charles Atlas, Hostess Twinkies food. It was America when America was this amazing foreign land.

As I grew older I started to veer towards Marvel although you're always faithful to characters like Batman who you can still get away with because there's that adult darkness. Superman is too squeaky clean and a bit right wing now.

The appeal for me has never changed. I think there is no better way to tell a story than a comic book. The juxtaposition of artwork and words. There is no other medium like it.

There's a real crossover into mainstream culture now with things like Daredevil and the Preacher becoming TV series. Characters that were kind of cult are now mainstream. And they've taken over how we tell our stories through superheroes, which has been an ongoing thing since 9/11, I guess. They've became another way of expressing politics.

Clare Forrest, cartoonist

I think everybody reads comics. You can't avoid them. Comics are everywhere. They're in adverts. Emojis are so popular.

I've read comics since I was a wee girl starting with the Beano and Calvin and Hobbes. Me and my cousin used to make comics when we were tiny. The tag line was 'for kids by kids'. Pretty smart for a nine year old. We had stories about little puppies going on adventures. Really crap.

I can't help draw. It's like a nervous tic. It kind of happens to you whether you like it or not.

There are no limits with comics. The book that I've just released (Mighty Women of Science) doesn't look like a traditional comic. It's a cross between an alphabet book and comic strips. We've got time travel in there. There are no budget constraints. You can go as far as your imagination takes you.