Shel Dorf died he was 76, American founder of the San Diego Comic-Con, diabetes-related complications.

Sheldon "Shel" Dorf was an American comic-strip letterer and freelance artist and the founder of the San Diego Comic-Con International.Dorf lettered the Steve Canyon comic strip for the last 12 to 14 years of the strip's run.

(July 5, 1933 – November 3, 2009)

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Dorf studied at Chicago's Art Institute before moving to New York and beginning his career as a freelancer in the field of commercial design. Dorf was also a fan of comic books and comic strips, particularly Chester Gould's work on the daily strip Dick Tracy.He was eventually employed as a consultant on Warren Beatty's big-screen adaptation of the strip in 1990. In the 1960s Dorf had made the acquaintance of a number of creators working in the two fields, among them Jack Kirby, upon whom Dorf would occasionally call.

In 1964, Robert Brusch organised a convention for fans of the medium, and the next year Jerry Bails and Dorf took over the event, christening it the "Detroit Triple Fan Fair" and organizing it as an annual event. In 1970, the year Dorf moved to San Diego, California, he organized a one-day convention "as a kind of 'dry run' for the larger convention he hoped to stage." with Forrest J Ackerman was the star attraction.

Dorf's first three-day San Diego comics convention, the Golden State Comic-Con, was held at the U. S. Grant Hotelfrom August 1-3, 1970. It would eventually grow into the San Diego Comic-Con International.^[9] The con moved in subsequent years to the El Cortez Hotel; the University of California, San Diego; and Golden Hall, before settling into the San Diego Convention center in 1991.^[10]

Dorf would also contribute interviews to the comics press, and his conversations with Milton Caniff and Mort Walker have both been collected in the University Press of Mississippi's Milton Caniff: conversations and Mort Walker: Conversations respectively. In 1984 Dorf also published the Dick Tracy comic strips in comic book format with Blackthorne Publishing, "proudly"publishing ninety-nine issues and collecting the material again in twenty-four collections. Chester Gould's daughter, Jean Gould O'Connell credits Dorf with bringing "Tracy out to another generation." Comics historian Mark Evanier said Caniff "honored Shel by making him into a character. It was a well-meaning football player named "Thud Shelley" who appeared a few times in the Canyon strip. Jack Kirby also made Shel into a character ... a father figure named Himon who appeared in Mister Miracle. Dorf received an Inkpot Award at the 1975 San Diego Comic-Con.

Dorf died aged 76 on 3 November 2009 from diabetes-related complications in Sharp Memorial Hospital, San Diego. He is survived by his brother Michael.