By Mike Towry Next year (2012) will see the 40th anniversary of the first El Cortez Comic-Con, which was held August 18-21, 1972. I was Chairman of the con that year, at the ripe old age of seventeen, and it’s always held a special place in my heart. I’m not alone, however, in looking back […]
Ken Krueger
We were delighted today to receive an email from Stephen McGlone, whom we hadn’t heard from in years. Stephen and his brothers, David and Patrick, joined the San Diego Comic-Con very early on and made substantial contributions in those early years. (You can read Stephen’s brief reminiscence about those days at http://www.sheldorftribute.com/2011/04/06/stephen-mcglone-answers-shel-dorf%E2%80%99s-call-to-join-the-first-year-comic-con-committee/.)
Comic-Con Founder Shel Dorf and Chairman of Comic-Con #1 Ken Krueger will be honored at Comic-Con this year. Shel and Ken, who were friends and mutual admirers, both passed away in November 2009. They are truly missed and will be long remembered. In tribute to them, Comic-Con will be presenting the following two panels this year:
Here’s the third batch of scans from Shel Dorf’s negatives from the 1974 San Diego Comic-Con, which was held at the El Cortez Hotel with Bill Lund as Chairman. (I received the negatives from Shel’s friend and cartooning partner Charlie Roberts. There are over two hundred pictures so I’m going to post them periodically in batches. (You can see the first two batches here and here. Guests, fans, and committee members pictured include Kirk Alyn, Ray Bradbury, Shel Dorf, Ken Krueger, Bjo Trimble, Chairman Bill Lund, Richard Butner, Ed Nizyborski, William Crawford, Bill Schanes, and Eric Hoffman.
On July 19, 1997, after a long day spent at San Diego’s Comic-Con International, author George Clayton Johnson (Twilight Zone, Star Trek, Logan’s Run, Ocean’s 11, Kung Fu) and his wife, Lola Johnson, sat for a videotaped interview at the San Diego, CA home of Roy L. Dobbs, Jr. The interview features the off-camera voices of Comic-Con’s Founder, Shel Dorf, and the Chairman of Comic-Con #1, Ken Krueger. The video is presented here courtesy of George Clayton Johnson and Greg Koudoulian.
I’ve scanned another batch of some of San Diego Comic-Con Founder Shel Dorf’s old film negatives. (I received the negatives from Shel’s friend and cartooning partner Charlie Roberts and I’ve got another 200 to 300 still left to scan from the 1973 and 1974 Comic-Cons.) Below you will find a batch of his black-and-white pictures from the 1973 Comic-Con. I’ve identified people in photos where I was reasonably certain of their identities.
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.
In an article from 1974, Mark Evanier writes of a new wave of Southern California comic mini-con conventions: Greg Koudoulian’s Fabulous First Sunday Club, Terry Stroud and David Alexander’s Super Sunday, and Shel Dorf and Ken Krueger’s King Kon.
