Frequent cover illustrator to the New Yorker, and a plethora of other publications, Adrian Tomine drew this brilliant picture for me, once again at SDCC in 2004.  I assume he’s done this drawing before in other sketchbooks, because it perfectly portrays that odd comic book culture mash up that occurs each year at Comic-Con between mainstream super-hero fandom, and the more “Portlandia” fine arts, small press crowd.  Optic Nerve was one of the first “alternative” comics that I read back in the 1990’s, soon after I discovered Eightball, and Pallooka-ville.  It’s refreshing that Adrian Tomine still publishes his personal comics anthology in traditional comic book/”floppy” format, since so many of his peers have abandoned the funny-book for larger hard cover tomes.