Fun Facts Friday: Bill Blackbeard

Bill Blackbeard (28 April, 1926 – 10 March, 2011) was a founder-director of the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, a writer, editor, and comic strip collector.

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31636874

Books in which Bill Blackbeard was involved

1. Reporter Kevin Parker said that Bill Blackbeard “saved the American comic strip—all of them.”
2. Mr. Blackbeard started being taken by comic strips at the age of 12, luckily for him recycling was practically non-existent at the time and people kept old newspapers stacked at home. They were more than happy to give them to him.
3. During World War II, Mr. Blackbeard was part of the 89^th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squad, 9^th Army and served in Belgium, France and Germany.
4. He used to G.I Bill to study history, English and American lit in Fullerton College, California.
5. Along with his wife Barbara and other volunteers, Mr. Blackbeard pent years clipping comic strips from the old newspapers, arranging them in chronological runs of each strip title, and storing them in filing cabinets.
6. It was estimated in 1990 that Mr. Blackbeard has organized 350,000 Sunday strips and 2.5 million dailies.
7. Comic books did not appeal to Mr. Blackbeard, he thought that Superman was “meretricious dreck”.
8. All his life, Mr. Blackbeard defended comic strips as worthy of study because it is “the only indigenous American art form”.
9. Mr. Blackbeard wrote, contributed or edited more than 200 books on comic strips.
10. In 1997, Mr. Blackbeard sold his collection to Ohio State.

Zohar – Man of la Book