Rich Morrissey loved comic books.
He loved comics books, he loved the people who create comic books, he loved the characters, he loved the history. And he was forever channeling that love into something positive, trying to give back something to the folks whose writing and drawing had given him so much joy.
Example: Whenever an old comic was about to be reprinted and its publisher didn't know who'd written, drawn or inked it, Rich was the go-to guy. He'd drop everything to check files, phone around and study the work, doing everything short of putting it under an electron microscope. A lot of comic book history is known today — and a lot of veteran writers and artists received credit and reprint fees — because of Richard Morrissey.
Better example: One of Rich's favorite writers was John Broome, who wrote the bulk of Flash and Green Lantern, among other comics, during the so-called "Silver Age." A fine writer. One of the best.
Rich was an enormous fan of the comics Broome wrote...and, as we'll get to, a proactive critic of what certain other, subsequent authors did to them. A few years ago, Rich made contact with the man, who was then living in Japan in a state of semi-retirement. A by-mail friendship ensued, and Rich began to wonder how he might arrange to get the distant Mr. Broome to some Comic-Con International in San Diego.
For a brief time, the air fare between Tokyo and San Diego seemed to be a prohibitive factor. Then, one day in early 1998, Rich received a letter from Broome mentioning that, come mid-August, he and his wife Peggy would be travelling to France.
Rich was excited: Mid-August was when the San Diego Convention was!
He checked and found out that for a comparatively modest amount — around two thousand dollars — Mr. and Mrs. Broome could add a San Diego stopover to their sojourn. He phoned a number of us and said, "We have to do it this year. This is a one-time opportunity." And it was — but unfortunately, it was too late for the convention to allocate funds.
Now, understand two things. One is that Rich was far from rich. To him, a thousand smackers was a nice piece o' change. Understand also that there was no profit motive here. Some dealers will sponsor a pro guest because they want to lure a crowd to their tables...
But Richard was not a dealer.
Some publishers will pay for a professional to attend the convention in order to promote some forthcoming product featuring the professional's work...
But Richard was not a publisher.
He was just a devout fan. He wanted to meet Broome, of course, but — and it's entirely typical of the Rich Morrissey I knew — self-gratification was a secondary motive. The primary impetus was as follows:
Rich knew that Broome had never been, not merely to a San Diego soiree but to any comic convention, anywhere. He further knew that Broome was humbly unaware that a couple of generations of funnybook scribes regarded him as a master. And Rich especially knew that those writers had never had the chance to applaud Mr. Broome in person and that he'd never had the opportunity to hear any such applause.
Like any good super-hero righting a cosmic injustice, Rich set out to make it happen.
Happen, it did. Rich went ahead and booked the tickets on his own credit card. Later, he passed the hat and collected, I believe, about half the tariff. Still, if no one else had kicked in, he was quite prepared to stand the entire cost. Because it had to be done.
And a good thing he did. In August of that year, John Broome, accompanied by his lovely spouse, attended the only comic convention of his life. Mr. Broome was honored with an Inkpot award, he was interviewed, he heard hundreds of comic fans and professional writers (many qualified as both) tell him how much they loved and respected and felt inspired by his work. He was also the centerpiece of maybe the best panel I've moderated in a lifetime of moderating convention panels.
This all took place in August of 1998. The following March, John Broome passed away. If Rich hadn't made it happen, it wouldn't have happened.
And now we've lost Rich.
He loved comics books, he loved the people who create comic books, he loved the characters, he loved the history. And he was forever channeling that love into something positive, trying to give back something to the folks whose writing and drawing had given him so much joy.
Example: Whenever an old comic was about to be reprinted and its publisher didn't know who'd written, drawn or inked it, Rich was the go-to guy. He'd drop everything to check files, phone around and study the work, doing everything short of putting it under an electron microscope. A lot of comic book history is known today — and a lot of veteran writers and artists received credit and reprint fees — because of Richard Morrissey.
Better example: One of Rich's favorite writers was John Broome, who wrote the bulk of Flash and Green Lantern, among other comics, during the so-called "Silver Age." A fine writer. One of the best.
Rich was an enormous fan of the comics Broome wrote...and, as we'll get to, a proactive critic of what certain other, subsequent authors did to them. A few years ago, Rich made contact with the man, who was then living in Japan in a state of semi-retirement. A by-mail friendship ensued, and Rich began to wonder how he might arrange to get the distant Mr. Broome to some Comic-Con International in San Diego.
For a brief time, the air fare between Tokyo and San Diego seemed to be a prohibitive factor. Then, one day in early 1998, Rich received a letter from Broome mentioning that, come mid-August, he and his wife Peggy would be travelling to France.
Rich was excited: Mid-August was when the San Diego Convention was!
He checked and found out that for a comparatively modest amount — around two thousand dollars — Mr. and Mrs. Broome could add a San Diego stopover to their sojourn. He phoned a number of us and said, "We have to do it this year. This is a one-time opportunity." And it was — but unfortunately, it was too late for the convention to allocate funds.
Now, understand two things. One is that Rich was far from rich. To him, a thousand smackers was a nice piece o' change. Understand also that there was no profit motive here. Some dealers will sponsor a pro guest because they want to lure a crowd to their tables...
But Richard was not a dealer.
Some publishers will pay for a professional to attend the convention in order to promote some forthcoming product featuring the professional's work...
But Richard was not a publisher.
He was just a devout fan. He wanted to meet Broome, of course, but — and it's entirely typical of the Rich Morrissey I knew — self-gratification was a secondary motive. The primary impetus was as follows:
Rich knew that Broome had never been, not merely to a San Diego soiree but to any comic convention, anywhere. He further knew that Broome was humbly unaware that a couple of generations of funnybook scribes regarded him as a master. And Rich especially knew that those writers had never had the chance to applaud Mr. Broome in person and that he'd never had the opportunity to hear any such applause.
Like any good super-hero righting a cosmic injustice, Rich set out to make it happen.
Happen, it did. Rich went ahead and booked the tickets on his own credit card. Later, he passed the hat and collected, I believe, about half the tariff. Still, if no one else had kicked in, he was quite prepared to stand the entire cost. Because it had to be done.
And a good thing he did. In August of that year, John Broome, accompanied by his lovely spouse, attended the only comic convention of his life. Mr. Broome was honored with an Inkpot award, he was interviewed, he heard hundreds of comic fans and professional writers (many qualified as both) tell him how much they loved and respected and felt inspired by his work. He was also the centerpiece of maybe the best panel I've moderated in a lifetime of moderating convention panels.
This all took place in August of 1998. The following March, John Broome passed away. If Rich hadn't made it happen, it wouldn't have happened.
And now we've lost Rich.
Rich Morrissey loved comic books.
He loved comics books, he loved the people who create comic books, he loved the characters, he loved the history. And he was forever channeling that love into something positive, trying to give back something to the folks whose writing and drawing had given him so much joy.
Example: Whenever an old comic was about to be reprinted and its publisher didn't know who'd written, drawn or inked it, Rich was the go-to guy. He'd drop everything to check files, phone around and study the work, doing everything short of putting it under an electron microscope. A lot of comic book history is known today — and a lot of veteran writers and artists received credit and reprint fees — because of Richard Morrissey.
Better example: One of Rich's favorite writers was John Broome, who wrote the bulk of Flash and Green Lantern, among other comics, during the so-called "Silver Age." A fine writer. One of the best.
Rich was an enormous fan of the comics Broome wrote...and, as we'll get to, a proactive critic of what certain other, subsequent authors did to them. A few years ago, Rich made contact with the man, who was then living in Japan in a state of semi-retirement. A by-mail friendship ensued, and Rich began to wonder how he might arrange to get the distant Mr. Broome to some Comic-Con International in San Diego.
For a brief time, the air fare between Tokyo and San Diego seemed to be a prohibitive factor. Then, one day in early 1998, Rich received a letter from Broome mentioning that, come mid-August, he and his wife Peggy would be travelling to France.
Rich was excited: Mid-August was when the San Diego Convention was!
He checked and found out that for a comparatively modest amount — around two thousand dollars — Mr. and Mrs. Broome could add a San Diego stopover to their sojourn. He phoned a number of us and said, "We have to do it this year. This is a one-time opportunity." And it was — but unfortunately, it was too late for the convention to allocate funds.
Now, understand two things. One is that Rich was far from rich. To him, a thousand smackers was a nice piece o' change. Understand also that there was no profit motive here. Some dealers will sponsor a pro guest because they want to lure a crowd to their tables...
But Richard was not a dealer.
Some publishers will pay for a professional to attend the convention in order to promote some forthcoming product featuring the professional's work...
But Richard was not a publisher.
He was just a devout fan. He wanted to meet Broome, of course, but — and it's entirely typical of the Rich Morrissey I knew — self-gratification was a secondary motive. The primary impetus was as follows:
Rich knew that Broome had never been, not merely to a San Diego soiree but to any comic convention, anywhere. He further knew that Broome was humbly unaware that a couple of generations of funnybook scribes regarded him as a master. And Rich especially knew that those writers had never had the chance to applaud Mr. Broome in person and that he'd never had the opportunity to hear any such applause.
Like any good super-hero righting a cosmic injustice, Rich set out to make it happen.
Happen, it did. Rich went ahead and booked the tickets on his own credit card. Later, he passed the hat and collected, I believe, about half the tariff. Still, if no one else had kicked in, he was quite prepared to stand the entire cost. Because it had to be done.
And a good thing he did. In August of that year, John Broome, accompanied by his lovely spouse, attended the only comic convention of his life. Mr. Broome was honored with an Inkpot award, he was interviewed, he heard hundreds of comic fans and professional writers (many qualified as both) tell him how much they loved and respected and felt inspired by his work. He was also the centerpiece of maybe the best panel I've moderated in a lifetime of moderating convention panels.
This all took place in August of 1998. The following March, John Broome passed away. If Rich hadn't made it happen, it wouldn't have happened.
And now we've lost Rich.
He loved comics books, he loved the people who create comic books, he loved the characters, he loved the history. And he was forever channeling that love into something positive, trying to give back something to the folks whose writing and drawing had given him so much joy.
Example: Whenever an old comic was about to be reprinted and its publisher didn't know who'd written, drawn or inked it, Rich was the go-to guy. He'd drop everything to check files, phone around and study the work, doing everything short of putting it under an electron microscope. A lot of comic book history is known today — and a lot of veteran writers and artists received credit and reprint fees — because of Richard Morrissey.
Better example: One of Rich's favorite writers was John Broome, who wrote the bulk of Flash and Green Lantern, among other comics, during the so-called "Silver Age." A fine writer. One of the best.
Rich was an enormous fan of the comics Broome wrote...and, as we'll get to, a proactive critic of what certain other, subsequent authors did to them. A few years ago, Rich made contact with the man, who was then living in Japan in a state of semi-retirement. A by-mail friendship ensued, and Rich began to wonder how he might arrange to get the distant Mr. Broome to some Comic-Con International in San Diego.
For a brief time, the air fare between Tokyo and San Diego seemed to be a prohibitive factor. Then, one day in early 1998, Rich received a letter from Broome mentioning that, come mid-August, he and his wife Peggy would be travelling to France.
Rich was excited: Mid-August was when the San Diego Convention was!
He checked and found out that for a comparatively modest amount — around two thousand dollars — Mr. and Mrs. Broome could add a San Diego stopover to their sojourn. He phoned a number of us and said, "We have to do it this year. This is a one-time opportunity." And it was — but unfortunately, it was too late for the convention to allocate funds.
Now, understand two things. One is that Rich was far from rich. To him, a thousand smackers was a nice piece o' change. Understand also that there was no profit motive here. Some dealers will sponsor a pro guest because they want to lure a crowd to their tables...
But Richard was not a dealer.
Some publishers will pay for a professional to attend the convention in order to promote some forthcoming product featuring the professional's work...
But Richard was not a publisher.
He was just a devout fan. He wanted to meet Broome, of course, but — and it's entirely typical of the Rich Morrissey I knew — self-gratification was a secondary motive. The primary impetus was as follows:
Rich knew that Broome had never been, not merely to a San Diego soiree but to any comic convention, anywhere. He further knew that Broome was humbly unaware that a couple of generations of funnybook scribes regarded him as a master. And Rich especially knew that those writers had never had the chance to applaud Mr. Broome in person and that he'd never had the opportunity to hear any such applause.
Like any good super-hero righting a cosmic injustice, Rich set out to make it happen.
Happen, it did. Rich went ahead and booked the tickets on his own credit card. Later, he passed the hat and collected, I believe, about half the tariff. Still, if no one else had kicked in, he was quite prepared to stand the entire cost. Because it had to be done.
And a good thing he did. In August of that year, John Broome, accompanied by his lovely spouse, attended the only comic convention of his life. Mr. Broome was honored with an Inkpot award, he was interviewed, he heard hundreds of comic fans and professional writers (many qualified as both) tell him how much they loved and respected and felt inspired by his work. He was also the centerpiece of maybe the best panel I've moderated in a lifetime of moderating convention panels.
This all took place in August of 1998. The following March, John Broome passed away. If Rich hadn't made it happen, it wouldn't have happened.
And now we've lost Rich.
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