Bill Schelly

William Carl Schelly (November 2, 1951 – September 12, 2019) was an Eisner Award-winning author who chronicled the history of comic books and comic book fandom, and wrote biographies of comic book creators, including Otto Binder, L.B. Cole, Joe Kubert, Harvey Kurtzman, John Stanley, and James Warren as well as silent film comedian Harry Langdon.

Early life Bill Schelly was born in Walla Walla, Washington, and had been a comic book enthusiast since 1960. He was living in a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when he heard about comics fandom in 1964. Upon seeing his first amateur publication about comics, a mimeographed fanzine called Batmania, Schelly decided to become a fanzine publisher himself. He launched Super-Heroes Anonymous in February 1965, the first in a string of magazines he edited and published until 1972.

It was for his fanzine Sense of Wonder that Schelly became known to the comics community. and the 2016 Eisner Award for Best Comics-Related Book for his biography, Harvey Kurtzman: The Man Who Created Mad and Revolutionized Humor in America (Fantagraphics Books, 2015)

Death Bill Schelly died September 12, 2019, due to blood clotting in the lungs during chemotherapy for his recently diagnosed multiple myeloma.