Artist Matt Lorentz (who co-produced the AfterCon art show to benefit the Shel Dorf New Talent Encouragement Fund during Comic-Con 2010) just sent us the above picture. Here’s what he wrote about it.
Shel Dorf
If a year were to be chosen for the founding of comic fandom, 1961 is the best choice, that 2011 will be the 50th anniversary of that founding – without which there would be no comic cons – and that this would make a great and appropriate theme for Comic-Con International 2011. Now I know that with Comic-Con International 2010 little more than a month in the past and the APE and Wondercon conventions looming ahead, the Comic-Con staff and board members are probably not particularly anxious to start programming for CCI 2011, but I think the best possible guest of honor to invite would be Roy Thomas and that Jerry Bails – who passed away in 2006 – should receive recognition as a posthumous guest of honor in spirit. I think it would also be very cool if Dick and Pat Lupoff and Maggie Thompson were invited as special guests in connection with the anniversary theme. Anyone else agree?
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.
