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Sheldon " Shel" Dorf (July 5, 1933 – November 3, 2009) was an American comic book enthusiast and the founder of San Diego Comic-Con." Founder of San Diego Comic-Con dies at 76", Associated Press, 4 November 2009. Accessed 4 November 2009.
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Archived 4 November 2009.Spurgeon, Tom. " Shel Dorf, 1933-2009", The Comics Reporter (self-published), 4 November 2009. Accessed 4 November 2009. Archived 4 November 2009.Mark Evanier, "[5]", POV Online (self published), November 3, 2009. Accessed 4 November 2009. Archived 4 November 2009. Dorf was also a freelance artist and graphic designer, who lettered the Steve Canyon comic strip for the last 12 to 14 years of the strip's run.Although R.C. Harvey gives it as 12 years in the 2002 Milton Caniff: Conversations, Mark Evanier states 14 in his 2009 tribute to Dorf.Milton Caniff and Harvey, R.C., Milton Caniff: Conversations, University Press of Mississippi, 2002, p88.
Dorf studied at Chicago's Art Institute before moving to New York and beginning his career as a freelancer in the field of commercial design. In the 1960s, Dorf had made the acquaintance of a number of creators working in the two fields, among them Jack Kirby, upon whom Dorf would occasionally call.Morrow, John and Jack Kirby. Collected Jack Kirby Collector: Volume 2 of The Collected Jack Kirby Collector, Morrow, John ed. TwoMorrows Publishing, 2004, p 48.
In 1970, Dorf moved to San Diego, California, "Founder of Comic-Con Dies at 76" , City News Service via Fox5SanDiego.com, November 4, 2009 to take care of his aging parents. Almost immediately, he organized a one-day convention "as a kind of 'dry run' for the larger convention he hoped to stage," with Forrest J Ackerman as the star attraction.
Dorf's first three-day San Diego comics convention, the Golden State Comic-Con, was held at the U. S. Grant Hotel from August 1–3, 1970.Rowe, Peter. "Obituary: Sheldon Dorf; Comic-Con co-founder, The San Diego Union-Tribune / Sign On San Diego, November 4, 2009 It would eventually grow into San Diego Comic-Con,Harvey, Robert C. The Art of the Comic Book, University Press of Mississippi, 1996, p47. now considered the standard bearer for U.S. comic conventions. The convention moved in subsequent years to the El Cortez hotel; the University of California, San Diego; and Golden Hall, before settling into the San Diego Convention Center in 1991.
In 1984 Dorf began compilation and editing of the Dick Tracy comic strips in comic book format for Blackthorne Publishing, "proudly" publishing ninety-nine issues and collecting the material again in twenty-four collections.Gould O'Connell, Jean and Locher, Dick. Chester Gould: A Daughter's Biography of the Creator of Dick Tracy, McFarland, 2007, p.203.
Chester Gould's daughter, Jean Gould O'Connell credits Dorf with bringing "Tracy out to another generation." Comics historian Mark Evanier said Caniff "honored Shel by making him into a character. It was a well-meaning football player named "Thud Shelley" who appeared a few times in the Canyon strip. Jack Kirby also made Shel into a character ... a father figure named Himon who appeared in Mister Miracle. In 1990, Dorf was employed as a consultant on Warren Beatty's big-screen adaptation of Dick Tracy.
Dorf would also contribute interviews to the comics press and movie collector magazines (including for The Buyer's Guide for Comic Fandom [TBG] and Film Collector's World), and his conversations with Milton Caniff and Mort Walker have both been collected in the University Press of Mississippi's Milton Caniff: Conversations and Mort Walker: Conversations respectively. His interview with Wally Wood (among the few to see print) for TBG was reprinted in Comic Book Artist #14 (July 2001).
The Shel Dorf Awards were created in 2010 to honor "'the comic industry's best and brightest talents', and voted on by fans." In 2011, the Detroit Fanfare convention began presenting the awards, which were presented through 2013.
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