They say to never meet your idols. I dunno, I’ve had pretty good luck over the years. I especially had good luck with writer, researcher, and historian Will Murray. Sadly, Will passed last week.
In retrospect, it seemed like Will Murray was an author that I always reading. He seemed to know so much about all the cool stuff I loved: pulp heroes (like Doc Savage, the Spider, and The Shadow, old TV shows, comics, famous actors, even old books. I read a zillion of his articles then started diving into his novels.
I even reviewed one, The Sinister Shadow (a Doc Savage + Shadow team-up) here.
How much fun his novels were, and all the better that they written by a fan just “like us”.
Admittedly, a fan with a lot more talent, but still. He was one of us.
I met Will a few times at conventions over the years. As I got more involved, I was over-the-moon thrilled when he accepted my invitations to be a convention panelist once or twice.
But more recently, I’ve become the Editor-in-Chief for RetroFan magazine. I inherited the job from my friend, Michael Eury, and it’s been a joy. Will Murray had long been a contributing writer to RetroFan. His regular feature, Will Murray’s 20th Century Panopticon was always one of my favorite parts. So you can imagine I was eager to work with him as EiC. Continue reading “With Further Ado #411: Will Murray, Man of Bronze”
