My one-day trip down to the San Diego Comic-Con was loud and crowded and unproductive and yet still worthwhile. I did stop by the Peanuts booth and got the free button of the day – they were all promoting Peanuts on social media sites, and weren’t as cool as the Obscure Peanuts Characters buttons of a couple years back. But the lunchbox they had for sale was indeed cool, covered with comic book-related Peanuts images and strips. I stuck with my rule that I’m a collector of printed Peanuts material; otherwise I would’ve come home with both that and a McDonald’s Peanuts Happy Meal display that one of the dealers was offering for $40.

I did, however, drop ten bucks on getting a copy of Tip Top issue 190, from August 1955. This is from the period when St. John’s was publishing the title, and what they were running was not just reprints of Peanuts strips, but solely reprints of Peanuts strips that had appeared in earlier, United Feature-published issues of the title. Because of this, I haven’t made as much effort in trying to get these issues. But it was nice to simply find the book, pay, and walk away with it; after a while, one gets tired of playing the eBay game. There were a few St. Martin’s issues available, but I grabbed this one because I like the way that there’s a daily Peanuts strip integrated into the front cover, an unusual design choice. The interiors include half a dozen Peanuts Sunday strips, reprinted in  color in a vertical format.

And for those who have never been to the con itself and have only seen the media coverage: yes, there are plenty of people in costume, but they’re only a few percent of the convention attendees; when you see it on the TV news, the news crews simply (understandably) prefer to photograph the costumed. I walked by a number of famous folks doing signings (Adam West, LL Cool J), but the only personal encounter I had was on the train ride home, when I got to chat for a while with one of the cast members of Mad Men.

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