Comic-Con

In 1964 back in Detroit, teenager Robert Brosch organised a convention for fans of the comics medium, which Dorf and Jerry Bails, the "father of comics fandom", attended.^[7] The next year Dorf and Bails took over the event, christening it the "Detroit Triple Fan Fair" (referring to fantasy literature, fantasy films, and comic art)^[9] and organizing it as an annual event. The Detroit Triple Fan Fair (DTFF) is credited as being the first regularly held convention featuring comic books as a major component.^[10] Dorf went on to produce the DTFF in 1967^[11] and 1968 as well.

In 1970, Dorf moved to San Diego, California,^[12] to take care of his aging parents. Almost immediately, he organized a one-day convention "as a kind of 'dry run' for the larger convention he hoped to stage,"^[4] with Forrest J Ackerman as the star attraction.

Dorf's first three-day San Diego comics convention, the Golden State Comic-Con,^[12] was held at the U. S. Grant Hotel^[12] from August 1–3, 1970.^[13] It would eventually grow into the San Diego Comic-Con International,^[14] now considered the standard bearer for U.S. comic conventions. The convention 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.^[15]

Later endeavors

As "'Founding Father' of San Diego Comic-Con", Dorf received an Inkpot Award at the 1975 San Diego Comic-Con.^[16]

In 1984 Dorf began compilation and editing of the Dick Tracy comic strips in comic book format for Blackthorne Publishing, "proudly"^[17] publishing ninety-nine issues and collecting the material again in twenty-four collections.^[17]

Chester Gould's daughter, Jean Gould O'Connell credits Dorf with bringing "Tracy out to another generation."^[17] 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.^[4] In 1990, Dorf was employed as a consultant on Warren Beatty's big-screen adaptation of Dick Tracy.^[3][18]

Dorf would also contribute interviews to the comics press and movie collector magazines (including for The Buyer's Guide for Comic Fandom [TBG] and Film Collector's World), 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. His interview with Wally Wood (among the few to see print) for TBG was reprinted in Comic Book Artist #14 (July 2001).