Sheldon Dorf, founder of sci-fi, fantasy convention Comic-Con, dies
, the founder of Comic-Con, an annual comic book, science fiction and fantasy festival held in San Diego, died of complications related to diabetes Wednesday. Dorf, who was 76, was also a freelance writer and a letterist, but was best known for founding the convention -- the largest such event in the Western Hemisphere, bested only by France's Angoulême International Comics Festival.
Spanning four days and attracting tens of thousands of attendees, Comic-Con was the second festival that Dorf created. When he was living in Michigan, he mounted the "Detroit Triple Fan Fair," a local gathering for comic book fans. The DTFF continued after Dorf left for California, but it never reached the level of pop-culture relevance attained by Comic-Con.
