Richard Alf, R.I.P.

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When Shel Dorf and Ken Krueger died in 2009, I wrote on this blog that they were the two most important people involved in the founding of what we now call the Comic-Con International.  You know the Comic-Con International: That nation unto itself that many of us attend each summer in San Diego.  Well, a close third in importance to the con's founding was Richard Alf, who died earlier this evening at a hospice in La Jolla, California at the age of 59.

Richard was a tall, friendly fellow and I do not recall him ever not being in a great mood and smiling.  He was something of a wunderkind: As a teenager, he began dealing in old comic books and he was so successful that when the first San Diego Con was being assembled, Richard was able to front much of the money that was needed to launch the project.

He was on the first committee and very much involved.  The organizers paid several visits to the home of Jack Kirby where they received encouragement and advice.  Richard is the tall guy in the back in this photo taken on one of those visits.  Kirby is in the center and Dorf is in the back on the right

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Richard served as Chairman of the convention at least once and worked on all the early ones before stepping away.  I'd see him at the most of them, though.  He was enormously modest when praised for his role in starting it all…and yet he was enormously proud of having had any sort of role.  At recent cons when they've celebrated the anniversary of that institution and also the anniversary of Comic Book Fandom, we all got to see and talk with Richard and he seemed to be having a great time.  But then he always seemed like he was having a great time.  Sad to see it end.