Before Comic-Con made cosplay chic, being a manga geek was hard work. Michael Pinto of Fanboy has an interesting trip down memory lane about being an anime fan in New York City back in the 80s:
You know how when you go to a really popular anime convention that there might be say a 100 people waiting on line to get their badge? Well back in the 80s those 100 people would be pretty much the sum total of anime fandom in New York City! Thanks to Saul Trabal (show in the photo above) we have a wonderful little photo essay from that era when anime was limited to getting VHS tapes from friends of friends who had pen pals in Japan.
http://www.fanboy.com/2011/02/what-was-it-like-to-be-an-80s-anime-fan-in-nyc.html