This is a column that focuses on something or some things from the comic book sphere of influence that may not get the credit and recognition it deserves. Whether that’s a list of comic book movies, ongoing comics, or a set of stories featuring a certain character. The columns may take the form of a bullet-pointed list, or a slightly longer thinkpiece – there’s really no formula for this other…

Underrated: The Bill Schelly Reader. A book by Bill Schelly that collects some of his finest prose work on the early history of comics and fandom. #comics #comicbooks

This is a column that focuses on something or some things from the comic book sphere of influence that may not get the credit and recognition it deserves. Whether that’s a list of comic book movies, ongoing comics, or a set of stories featuring a certain character. The columns may take the form of a bullet-pointed list, or a slightly longer thinkpiece – there’s really no formula for this other…

Check out Fantagraphics this January #comics #comicbooks

Chartwell Manor by Glenn Head No one asks for the childhood they get, and no child ever deserves to go to Chartwell Manor. For Glenn Head, his two years spent at the now-defunct Mendham, NJ, boarding school — run by a serial sexual and emotional abuser of young boys in the early 1970s — left emotional scars in ways that he continues to process. This graphic memoir — a book almost 50 years in…

Bill Schelly passed away last week from multiple myeloma. Schelly discovered comics fandom in 1964 and shortly after launched his own fanzines, where he wrote and drew. The most notable was Sense of Wonder. Schelly went on to be one of the great writers about comics. He was also one of the chroniclers of fandom in a series of books including The Golden Age of Comic Fandom and in his column for Alter Ego.

I interviewed Schelly in 2018 and we spent much of the conversation discussing his book Sense of Wonder. Schelly originally published the book in 2001 discussing his youth in comics fandom, but in 2018 published Sense of Wonder, My Life in Comic Fandom–The Whole Story. The new edition of the book was significantly longer, covering decades more than the original edition had, but more than that, Schelly wrote about being gay, about living in the closet and coming out, about the queerness of fandom back in the day. He wrote about his family and the death of son at a very young age. It was, in many respects, his best book.

Check out some comic news and reviews from around the web in our morning roundup #comics #comicbooks

It was new comic book day yesterday! What’d everyone get? What’d you enjoy? What’d you dislike? Sound off in the comments below! While you think about that, here’s some comic news and reviews from around the web.

CTV News – Up, up and away: Edmonton comic book store named best in Canada – Congrats!

/Flim – Jupiter’s Legacy Showrunner Steven S. DeKnight Exits – That’s not a good sign.

Bill Schelly, author, "Man of Rock: A Biography of Joe Kubert" 2009 INTE...

Bill Schelly passes away aged 67

It is Cult Faction’s sad duty to announce that comic book historian Bill Schelly has passed away aged 67 following a battle with multiple myeloma. Schelly was a renowned fanzine publisher launching Super-Heroes Anonymous in February 1965, the first in a string of magazines he edited and published until 1972. His most famous was Sense of Wonder. By the end of its 12-issue run, Sense of Wonderhad…