To read the previous chapter of this tale, click here. To go back and start at the beginning, click here.
In order to explain how the Ackerman/Schwartz/Bradbury panel came about in 2003, I need to explain how the Schwartz/Bradbury panel of 2002 came about. The following is an excerpt from an article I posted here in 2012. If you've read it and remember it, you can skip this excerpt. If you never read it, you can read it here. Hey, you might enjoy it. Either way, here's the excerpt…
[Schwartz's] retirement came shortly after Jean, his wife of 34 years, passed away. He filled both voids in his life to some extent with fandom — going to conventions, working on his memoirs, getting himself interviewed, etc. Mostly though, it was the conventions. It was oddly appropriate that Julie "lived" for the conventions as he was one of the founders of science-fiction fandom. S-F fandom later branched off into comic book fandom so he could claim some parentage of that whole institution, as well. He went to every con that would have him and even a few that wouldn't. Attending the annual monster in San Diego was, of course, the high point of his year.
For a time, he came out on the DC Comics dime, all expenses paid by his longtime employer. In the nineties though, they could no longer find it in the budget to fly him out and put him up. The con made him a Guest of Honor and paid his way out once or twice and I think Julie paid his own way once or twice…but it was an expense he could not justify on an annual basis. If he'd been a veteran artist instead of an editor, he could probably have made money there selling artwork. But he just wanted to be there to be there and he couldn't really afford it. So what did he do? He called folks he thought might have some clout to persuade the convention to bring him out…and he called us a lot. I'm pretty sure I got the highest number of these calls. One year, Harlan Ellison phoned me and we compared Schwartz Calls as of late. I was the clear victor, having received ten in the last two weeks whereas Harlan had only received seven.
"Make a deal with you," he said. "We'll split the cost of flying him out and the cost of the hotel…anything to stop these pain-in-the-ass calls." I agreed but it never came to that. I and maybe some others beseeched by Julie nudged the convention into covering the cost of Schwartz that year. I believe this was 2001.
The following year, Julie didn't need us. He had an idea…and an ingenious one it was. Instead of placing umpteen calls to folks like Harlan and me, he put in but one…to his friend and one-time client, Ray Bradbury. As I mentioned here before, Ray was one of the first Guests of Honor at the Comic-Con International, dating back to well before it was called the Comic-Con International. He would come down for one day — usually Saturday — and give a talk and work the dealers' room. The convention and its attendees were of course very glad to have him there. In 2002 to help Julie, Ray decreed that his appearance in San Diego would be a joint speech/panel with Julius "Can you get the con to fly me out?" Schwartz. Informed this was what Ray wanted, the con had little choice but to fork up the bucks to bring Julie out. It was not a huge burden.
Score one for Schwartz: A clever notion on his part. I liked it because it would create an interesting program event, quite different from Ray's usual presentations, not that there was anything wrong with them. But I really liked it because it meant I didn't get all those calls from Julie nagging me to talk to the con about bringing him out, nor did I get all those calls from Harlan telling me Julie was nagging him to talk to the con about bringing him out.
A win for all, even the convention. Julie did phone me about the con but it was to ask me to be the moderator of this panel. I, of course, declined. I said, "You and Bradbury on stage? You don't need me up there. Every second I speak will be a second neither of you is talking. Save me a seat in the front row."
So after that, I no longer got calls from Julie nagging me to get the convention to make him a special guest. I instead got calls nagging me to agree to be the panel moderator. I dealt with these calls by employing the only possible strategy that would make them stop: I agreed to be the moderator. The resulting program item at the 2002 Comic-Con was wonderful and people loved it and there was then very little resistance the following year when Julie tried a similar tack to get his way paid to the convention…
He contacted whoever he contacted at the con and said something like, "Hey, how about if this year's Ray Bradbury Spotlight is him, me and Forrest Ackerman? It would be magical the way last year's panel was magical!" Whoever he contacted saw the wisdom in that and it was arranged, complete with the same moderator. Julie had again engineered a way to get the convention to pay his way out to San Diego.
A week or two before the con though, he called and said — and I could tell it killed him to utter these words — "I won't be coming out."
I asked him why and he told me how his legs had been failing him. There was just too much walking involved in attending Comic-Con, he explained. I replied, "We shouldn't let that stop you from being here. The convention has a very dedicated team of people who love to push wheelchairs and –"
He cut me off. "I will not be there in a wheelchair!" I asked him why not and he said, "Because old men are in wheelchairs." I told him, "Julie, you're 88 years old. You are an old man." He still balked so I said, "Tell you what. Come out, sit in the wheelchair and I'll arrange for a woman with large breasts to push you around in it." He pondered it for a second then said, "That might work."
He came out and we got him a wheelchair and an appropriate person to push it…but throughout the entire con, I never saw him in being pushed for any real distance in the wheelchair. I did however once see him pushing the wheelchair with the large-breasted lady seated in it.
Okay, next chapter we get to the panel itself…