Jack Kirby

Here’s the second 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. Guests, fans, and committee members pictured include Forry Ackerman, Kirk Alyn, Frank Capra, Mike Friedrich, Jack Kirby, Russ Manning, Roy Thomas, Danton Burroughs, Camille “Caz” Cazedessus, Barry Alfonso, Igor Goldkind, and Eric Hoffman.

The cover of YUBBA #4 featured Scott Shaw!’s comic version of the goings on at “the comic convention held in San Diego of Earth-Two,” which were a more extreme version of actual events from the Earth-One San Diego West Coast Comic-Con held August 18-20, 1972 at the El Cortez Hotel. Here is that cover for your viewing pleasure.

I have been scanning 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.) Below you will find a batch of his color pictures from the 1973 Comic-Con. I’ve identified people in photos where I was reasonably certain of their identities. Also Bill Lund (San Diego Comic-Con Chairman in 1973 and 1974), with an assist from Jean Graham, was able to identify a number of others. Some of the professional guests pictured are Neal Adams, Bob Clampett, June Foray, Carmine Infantino, Jack Kirby, and Larry “Seymour” Vincent. Comic-Con committee members pictured include Barry Alfonso, William Caron, Shel Dorf, Vicky Kelso, Ken Krueger, Bill Lund, Bill Schanes, and Steve Schanes.

I was there at the 1970 Comic-Con. I was 15 and my mother drove me down there from L.A. It was a big thing for me, my first contact with fandom in the flesh. I was so in awe of Kirby, Bradbury and all the other guests, just in awe of the whole situation, that I was at a convention for comic books. They auctioned off some sketches that Kirby did, right there in person.

In 1975, the San Diego Comic-Con committee produced two conventions: one from July 30th through August 3rd and a second from November 7th through 9th. This article is about that second convention. It originally appeared on November 21, 1975 in the University of California at Irvine student newspaper New University (where the author had been the editor-in-chief a year earlier).

This article is about the July 30th through August 3rd, 1975 San Diego Comic-Con and first appeared on August 22, 1975 in the Los Angeles Free Press (where the author was Book Editor). It is presented here by permission of the author, David Laurence Wilson.

The following audio recordings were made at the first, full San Diego’s Golden State Comic-Con (as it was known in those heroic days of yore). The convention dates were August 1st through 3rd, 1970. The site was the basement of the U.S. Grant Hotel in downtown San Diego. The audio segments are presented in the order they were recorded.

Streamable audio from Alan Light’s 1975 San Diego Comic-Con LP record. Contains recordings of Ray Bradbury, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Jim Steranko, Jerry Siegel and Joanne Siegel, Chuck Norris, June Foray, Daws Butler, Robert Bloch, and Will Eisner. Listen to it here!

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.