What a shock to hear that Rich Morrissey died yesterday afternoon of a heart attack at age 47. I was going to write, "My pal, Rich Morrissey," but that's insufficient. Rich was a friend of everyone who loved comic books, especially vintage comics. He was a frequent contributor to fanzines, comic book history projects and even to newsgroups and message boards. A lawyer by schooling — though he preferred not to practice law — he was one of the people DC often called upon to identify writers and artists in work for which they did not have credits. A lot of history is known today — and a lot of veteran writers and artists received credit and reprint fees — because of Richard Morrissey.
And among his many other contributions to our heritage was that, in '98, he arranged for veteran DC writer John Broome to attend his one-and-only San Diego Comic Convention. Rich not only set it all up, he paid a large chunk of the travel expense, just because he wanted to pay Broome back for all the joy his work had given to the world of comic art. (You can read a partial transcript of the wonderful panel that took place that year by clicking here.) Rich did it, not for personal gain, but because he just believed it oughta be done. He was a true super-hero.