My new favorite diversion: Mary In Comic Con Land. Artist Mary Fleener lives just north of San Diego and as such has attended a *lot* of Comicons over the last 25 years, and now she's sharing a quarter-century of photos. It's a treasure trove featuring just about every alt comix luminary you can think of from the last three decades, from Spiegelman to Bagge to Seda to Clowes to to Groening to Eisner and dozens more. And they're all so young and fresh-faced, positioned against faded convention center walls and faux-wood paneling, with none of the glitzy excess of today's comicon. It's a nostalgia vortex of bad hair and skinny ties and dim yellow light that I just can't get enough of. Time to pull out those old Stickboy back issues. Here's a couple primo examples, the first two featuring a Fanta panel from the late-80s (including Los Bros., Clowes, Bagge, Peter Kuper and Dennis Worden, the second two from a late-80s comicon dinner with Clowes, Kim Deitch, Fleener and Bagge. Good stuff.
