A tribute to Shel Dorf, founder of San Diego's Comic-Con International
From the category archives:
On February 20, 2010, the Glendale, California specialty bookstore Mystery and Imagination Bookshop hosted a signing for the new anthology of new and/or previously unpublished weird stories The Bleeding Edge. Authors in attendance included Ray Bradbury, George Clayton Johnson, and many more. At the signing, Bradbury was happy to receive from Greg Koudoulian his very own, personalized Shel Dorf Fan Club Badge.
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Mark Evanier reports that author and Comic-Con guest Jim Harmon passed away on February 16th. Mark’s report and article is at http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2010_02_18.html#018528.
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Greg Koudoulian organized another gathering of the Shel Dorf Fan Club and George Clayton Johnson Entourage in remembrance of Shel Dorf and the early years of Comic-Con. This latest event was on February 13, 2010 and was attended by Wendy All and Greg Koudoulian from the Los Angeles area, Clayton Moore from Victorville, and Richard Alf, Anthony Keith, Alan Scrivener, Mike Rossi, and Mike Towry from San Diego.
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Fan artist Alan White sent us a scan of Shel’s 1970 business card, which Shel gave to him at the first full San Diego Comic-Con (August 1-3, 1970).
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I (Mike Towry) have been scanning some of Shel Dorf’s old film negatives and came across two great pictures of Shel with guests at the 1973 San Diego Comic-Con, which was held at the Sheraton Harbor Island Hotel. Pictured with Shel are voice actress June Foray and D.C. comics artist and editor Carmine Infantino.
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At the ComicConMemories.com web site, you can listen to audio recordings of many committe members and guest speakers from the first San Diego’s Golden State Comic-Con, which was held August 1st thru 3rd, 1970 in the U.S. Grant Hotel. The list of those recorded includes the following: Shel Dorf, Ken Krueger, Barry Alfonso, Greg Bear, Ray Bradbury, Roger Freedman, Mark Hanerfeld, Earl Kemp, Jack Kirby, Scott Shaw!, and Morrie Turner.
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The new online, Fall 2009 edition of the Comic-Con Magazine is available from http://www.comic-con.org/common/cc_magazine.shtml. It features very nice articles on San Diego Comic-Con International Founder Shel Dorf (pages 4-5) and Chairman of Comic-Con #1 Ken Krueger (page 6). There is also a great picture of Ken with some of the original Comic-Con crew at the 2009 Comic-Con on page 36.
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This past Sunday (December 27, 2009) the San Diego Union-Tribune paper published an article titled “The year we lost legends.” The article’s introduction cited the passing, among others, of Walter Cronkite, Patrick Swayze, Farrah Fawcett, Andrew Wyeth, John Updike, Ted Kennedy, and Eunice Kennedy Shriver. It then went on to explain, “But behind the headlines are real people who touched lives. We asked staffers to write a tribute to someone who died in 2009.”
Staff writer Pete Rowe, who has written previously on things Comic-Con, and whom we have been assured by another staffer is
among the “cream of the crop” of Union-Tribune reporters, chose to write about none other than our very own Shel Dorf and Ken Krueger!
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Artist Matt Lorentz sent in the following two new pictures of the giant greeting card that he took around Comic-Con 2009 so that many artist friends and admirers of Shel could sketch on it for him. (See previous article “Artist Matt Lorentz Remembers Shel Dorf”.)
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Inside Comics #2, August 1974 (published by Galaxy News Service) featured a Mark Evanier article titled “The Mini-Cons That Attacked Southern California!” The article focused on one-day mini-conventions, in particular Greg Koudoulian’s First Sunday Club and the Super Sunday convention produced by David Alexander and Terry Stroud. One other small convention that was featured was the King Kon put on by Comic-Con International’s own Shel Dorf and Ken Krueger. The following is an excerpt from that article reprinted with the author’s permission.
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Jack Kirby (left) and Shel Dorf — November 9, 1969