This blog is on lockdown for a few days while I deal with a matter that would be of no interest to any of its readers. I should have known I'd have to break that radio silence to write about a good friend and a good person who left us.
Bill Schelly passed away last Thursday and the cause is being reported as multiple myeloma, which is a cancer of the plasma cells found in the bone marrow. I would imagine he'd been battling this for some time but I sure hadn't heard anything about it. He was 67.
He was a man who did many things well: A writer and an artist and a particularly fine expert on comic books and comic book fandom. I recommend all of his books to you but I'll just mention five of them…
- Otto Binder: The Life and Work of a Comic Book and Science Fiction Visionary, which Bill co-authored with Richard Lupoff, is a fine biography of one of the most important comic book writers of comics' first few decades and an important author of prose science-fiction as well.
- John Stanley: Giving Life to Little Lulu is one of those "Gee, I'm glad someone put in the work to do this book" books. John Stanley was the highly-undercredited wit behind the classic Dell Little Lulu comics and some other pretty good ones, too. Before Bill did this book, not a whole lot was known about the man. That is no longer the case.
- Harvey Kurtzman: The Man Who Created Mad and Revolutionized Humor is also in that category of books someone was going to write and I'm real glad Bill was the guy to do it. Kurtzman, of course, was one of the most important figures in the history of the American comic book and one of the most misunderstood. When I finished reading this book, I called Bill and told him he couldn't have done a better job.
- James Warren, Empire Of Monsters: The Man Behind Creepy, Vampirella, And Famous Monsters is Bill's latest book and when I read this one, I was impressed with how he dug past all the rumors and stories that have been passed around about Jim Warren and got to what I believe and trust is the truth. Warren was a one-of-a-kind figure in publishing, living by his own rule and building a mini-dynasty the hard way: With big ambitions and very little capital. It's hard to capture someone that unconventional but I think Bill pulled it off.
- And then there's Sense of Wonder: My Life in Comic Fandom — The Whole Story, which is Bill's autobiography. With surprising candor, he writes of his life in comic book fandom and of the conflicts and problems he had of confronting his homosexuality at a time when that was even more dramatic than it is now. Bill found great honesty in telling the stories of other folks but it must have been difficult to achieve it about himself. A very good piece of work.
If books with long titles scare you off, be brave. Be very brave. These and his others are quite good. Bill was quite good…just a lovely, talented man. I'm sure going to miss talking to him on the phone and at conventions, and I'm sorry we aren't going to get all the other books that he would have written. Such a loss.