This past Sunday (December 27, 2009) the San Diego Union-Tribune paper published an article titled “The year we lost legends.” The article’s introduction cited the passing, among others, of Walter Cronkite, Patrick Swayze, Farrah Fawcett, Andrew Wyeth, John Updike, Ted Kennedy, and Eunice Kennedy Shriver. It then went on to explain, “But behind the headlines are real people who touched lives. We asked staffers to write a tribute to someone who died in 2009.”
Staff writer Pete Rowe, who has written previously on things Comic-Con, and whom we have been assured by another staffer is
among the “cream of the crop” of Union-Tribune reporters, chose to write about none other than our very own Shel Dorf and Ken Krueger!
Scott! Shaw contributed the following scan of the original 1971 edition of GORY STORIES QUARTERLY’s intro page, which has a nice sketch of Ken by John Pound. (GORY STORIES was an underground comic published by Ken through his SHROUD Publishers.)
Links to online-media coverage of Ken Krueger’s passing and his legacy in comics and science-fiction fandom. The links were good as of December 2, 2009. They may, however, not be “permanent” links and may be in effect for only a relatively-short period of time.
The original Comic-Con group watches The Phantom Empire at Ken Krueger’s bookstore back around 1970. Ken says to keep an eye out for stuntman Yakima Canutt holding his cowboy hat on his head while tumbling down a hillside so as not to reveal his bald spot.
Alan White sent in the following picture of Ken Krueger with some of the original Comic-Con gang at Comic-Con International #40, July 2009. Alan helps to put on the Xanadu science-fiction convention in Las Vegas (http://www.xanadulasvegas.com/). He has a nice mention of Ken on his web site (http://www.scifivegas.com/) along with a link to this site.
Ken Krueger caricature by Milton Caniff