Author-historian Eric L. Hoffman died this morning due to injuries sustained in a recent fire at his home. He was 78 years old and a lifelong devotee of science-fiction and horror movies and all things macabre. A frequent presence and lecturer at Comic-Con International since its earliest days and at other local conventions, Eric was the guy you went to if you wanted to know anything in his fields of interest.
I ran into him at conventions and film screenings for over half a century and we occasionally engaged in friendly debates about this or that…and yet I find that I knew very little about him. I'm told he left no family. I know he wrote and/or edited many books and was regarded as an authority in a fandom that was adjacent to the one in which I dwell…but I'm not the one to write a proper obit for the man. If you see one by someone who knew him well enough, please let me know so I can link to it.
I guess I knew him well enough to write this and to be saddened by his passing and shocked at how it occurred…and to know how well he was regarded by the kind of folks who could write that proper obit. I apologize that this isn't it.