SENSE OF WONDER

This is another one of those "woulda, coulda, shoulda" pieces that I hate to write. 

I recently finished reading SENSE OF WONDER: A LIFE IN COMIC FANDOM (TwoMorrows, 2001) by Bill Schelly. Boy, do I wish I had read this absolutely wonderful book sometime before last September. You see, Bill Schelly passed away on September 12th of 2019. If I had read this book while he was still alive, I most certainly would have reached out to him in some way to let him know how much I enjoyed his book. 

SENSE OF WONDER, subtitled "A Personal Memoir of Fandom's Golden Age", is exactly that. It's a heartfelt look back at one young man's discovery of both comic books and subsequently, comic book fanzines in the early and mid 1960s. While Schelly was slightly older than me, I could nonetheless identity with a lot of the things he writes about. Schelly's love for comics and zines ultimately led him to publish his own fanzines, of which, SENSE OF WONDER was the longest running and, in the end, most professionally produced of all of the zines he cranked out either alone or with the assistance of likeminded fans. 

It's a wonderful, "you-are-there" look back at a truly magical time in American comic book history aided immensely by Schelly's stellar prose. SENSE OF WONDER is an often funny, sometimes deeply moving accounting of one man's coming of age at the same time his most beloved of media was experiencing immense growing pains itself. 

Recently, SENSE OF WONDER was re-released with additional material by Schelly that frames his various adventures through the lens of a young gay man, which Schelly was. His homosexuality is only vaguely hinted at in the original edition of SENSE and even though I haven't read the expanded version, I have no doubt that it can only be an improvement on what Schelly had already accomplished. Schelly comes across as honest, thoughtful and insightful about comics, life, and various relationships and I'm sure the new edition sheds additional light on his unfortunately way too short life. 

The only other book by Bill Schelly that I've read is EMPIRE OF MONSTERS (Fantagraphics, 2019), his brilliant biography of horror magazine publisher James Warren. I have a few other Schelly scribed and/or edited tomes here in the old man-cave that I'll get to hopefully sooner rather than later. These include his Joe Kubert (one of my all time favorite comic book artists) biography, MAN OF ROCK (2008), the stunning hardcover collection THE ART OF JOE KUBERT (2011), COMIC FANDOM READER (2002), THE BEST OF ALTER EGO (2008)  (with the legendary Roy Thomas, my all-time favorite comic book writer) and THE GOLDEN AGE OF COMIC FANDOM (1995). 

In addition to these and other books on comics fandom, Schelly wrote two books about the great Otto Binder, a critically acclaimed bio of John (Little Lulu) Stanley and an Eisner Award winning book about the legendary Harvey (MAD) Kurtzman. 

Had Schelly lived, there's no doubt he would have continued to contribute meticulously researched, lively written volumes of comics history spotlighting both the endless trove of treasures contained in fanzines, the phenomenon of fandom itself and the creative men and women who brought those wonderful four-color fantasies to life. 

I deeply regret not having had the chance to communicate with this talented man while he was with us. If you have even the slightest interest in the history of comic books, I urge you to seek out and read any and all of the books you can find with the Bill Schelly byline. I promise, you won't be disappointed.