Shel Dorf – Action Hero!

May 31, 2010

I recently scanned over two hundred of Shel’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.) The first two photos show Shelf posing as an action hero. They were in poor condition but are fun to see and are posted below.

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Shel Dorf and Bette Davis

May 11, 2010

Alan Light has previously written about how he and Shel attended the 60th Academy Awards ceremony in 1988 together using tickets that originated with Bette Davis. However, Shel had at least one additional, earlier connection to Bette Davis. Having been a great fan of Bette Davis for years, Shel wrote her a fan letter in 1987 and received a grateful reply. Retyped versions of these letters follow (with some typos corrected) with scans of the originals thereafter along with a 1948 sketch by Shel that looks a bit like Bette Davis.

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Shel Dorf Benefit Art Show to Run Concurrently With Comic-Con 2010

April 19, 2010

Wild Monkey Works, Skidone, and KidRobot present
The First Annual AFTERCON 2010
An artshow to benefit The Shel Dorf New Talent Encouragement Fund that will run concurrently with San Diego’s Comic-Con International 2010, July 22-24, from 8pm to midnight @ SUTURE GALLERY
655 10th Avenue, San Diego , CA 92101
(5 blocks from the SD Convention Center, cross streets are 10th and G)

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Shel Dorf, Matt Lorentz, and Ray Bradbury Together in 2004

March 29, 2010

In March of 2004, Shel Dorf and artist Matt Lorentz attending a lecture by Ray Bradbury at the University of San Diego. Charlie Roberts, who took this picture, says it may be the last photograph he ever took of Shel.

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Video: George Clayton Johnson and Friends Talk About Shel Dorf

March 24, 2010

We previously recounted how on Saturday, October 17th, 2009, a group of fans and professionals from the Los Angeles, Riverside County, and San Diego areas got together to visit Shel Dorf in the hospital. On the morning of the next day, Sunday, October 18th, author George Clayton Johnson, former Comic-Con committee member Clayton Moore, comic artist William Clausen, and Shel Dorf Fan Club co-founder Greg Koudoulian visited Shel’s former residence in Ocean Beach, San Diego, CA. While there, Greg videotaped George, Clayton, and William talking about Shel. (The following video is made available courtesy of Greg Koudoulian.)

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Shel Interviews George Clayton Johnson in 1997

March 23, 2010

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), who is a long-time and much-beloved Comic-Con guest, 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 may be viewed at http://www.comicconmemories.com/2010/03/23/video-conversations-with-george-clayton-johnson-and-lola-johnson courtesy of George Clayton Johnson and Greg Koudoulian.

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Shel’s Painting of Frankenstein’s Monster

March 21, 2010

We recently discovered that Shel had done a painting of Frankenstein’s Monster in the late seventies or early eighties. Shel gave the painting to Ken Krueger who later passed it along to San Diego fan John Thibodeau. Recently, John gave the painting to Troy Beaver, who owns and operates the Footnote Books store in San Diego’s Hillcrest community.

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Phil Yeh Receives His Shel Dorf Fan Club Badge

March 14, 2010

On Sunday, March 14, 2010, comic artist, publisher, and mural master Phil Yeh was a guest at a Girl Scout Environmental event at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda. At the event, Phil has happy to receive his own personalized Shel Dorf Fan Club and Entourage badge from Greg Koudoulian and comic artist William Clausen.

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Pictures of Shel Dorf and David Scroggy Together in 1993

March 12, 2010

Shel’s friend David Scroggy just sent in the above two photographs with the accompanying description: “I was looking for something else and came across these two photos. They are from 1993. I was acting as an artist agent and also director of Comic Book Expo, which was the trade show associated with Comic-Con. I had an office on Fifth Ave. in the Gaslamp District of downtown San Diego. This office adjoined the Comic-Con office on the second floor of a Victorian building. Shel Dorf dropped in one afternoon and had whomever he was with take these.”

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Shel Dorf Memorial Page at Museum of Modern Mythology and Pop Culture Website

March 8, 2010

David Lemmo, who was a friend and admirer of Shel’s, has put up a nice memorial page for Shel at his Museum of Modern Mythology and Pop Culture website. Click here to visit it.

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