Dave Kaler

David A. Kaler (b. 1936)

Under Kaler's leadership, the academy produced three successful conventions in New York City during the summers of 1965 –1967, and attracting industry professionals such as Otto Binder, Bill Finger, Gardner Fox, Mort Weisinger, James Warren, Roy Thomas, Gil Kane, Stan Lee, Bill Everett, Carmine Infantino, Julius Schwartz, Frank Frazetta, Roy Krenkel, and Stephen Hickman.

In the summer of 1966, Kaler was the guest of honor at the first Southwesterncon, the first comics convention held in Texas.

During this period, Kaler also wrote the "What's News" column for the comics news fanzine The Comic Reader. For this work, he was twice selected for Alley Awards. but it never came to pass, possibly because of the successful first iteration of Phil Seuling's Comic Art Convention (a.k.a. the "International Convention of Comic Book Art"), which took place in New York City in the summer of 1968. By this point, comics fandom had become well established, with annual conventions being held in New York, Detroit, St. Louis, and the Southwest, and the academy's mission had been essentially fulfilled. Academy member Maggie Thompson declared the ACBFC "moribund" and the group had disbanded by 1970.

Comics writing In 1966, Kaler's former roommate Roy Thomas got Kaler in the door at Charlton Comics, as Kaler began a short-lived stint as a professional comics writer, often writing horror comics. He started out on Charlton's superhero title Captain Atom (shortly before the title was canceled). With Steve Ditko, he co-created Nightshade in Captain Atom #82 (September 1966). Kaler's other writing for Charlton included on such titles as Ghostly Tales (1966–1968), The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves (1967), Sarge Steel, Marine War Heroes (1967), Outlaws of the West (1967), and Tiffany Sinn (1967).

After his stint at Charlton, Kaler moved to Warren Publishing's horror title Eerie, where he wrote some stories in 1968.