There can be longtime contributors to the world of fantasy and science fiction who somehow never get not only the notice they may well deserve, but no attention, whatsoever, in the genre press.

Ron Forman ran Comics Unlimited from 1977 to 1994, along with business partner Walter Wang. Comics Unlimited was one of the major comics and science fiction distributors in the New York area.

(And I know — and hope Ron won’t be embarrassed for me to tell here, that in the tough days for some comic shops in the late 1980s, before the merchandising explosion of 1989’s Batman movie, it was their compassion that helped keep at least  a few stores afloat.)

Ron had been a comic book fan just about forever, and was a dealer at one of the early, classic Phil Seuling International Comic Art Conventions, in 1970.

Ron and Walter later went on to work with Seuling, at his Seagate Distributors, before launching their own venture.

(Seuling helped invent, and was the foremost pioneer, of “direct distribution” of comics and other material to comics and specialty stores; a development that helped bolster, and possibly even save the comic book industry.)

Like most comic shop distributors, then and now, Comics Unlimited carried a wide range of science fiction related products….

When Comics Unlimited shut up shop, they sold their business to Steve Geppi’s Diamond Distributors.

But Ron never lost his love for the medium.

Or other things.

Ron-and-JimRead more of this wonderful article here.

 

 

About The Author

James H. (Jim) Burns was a pioneer of the second wave of fantasy and science fiction movie magazines, being one of the first writers for Starlog (and several other late 1970s publications), and a contributing editor to Fantastic Films, and Steranko's Prevue. (He wrote the earliest of these articles, when he was thirteen...!) Jim was also a key figure in many of the era's North Eastern American comic book and Star Trek conventions. Burns was one of the field's first writers to cross over to such mainstream fare as Gentleman's Quarterly, Esquire and American Film, while still contributing to such genre stalwarts as Cinefantastique, Starburst, Heavy Metal and Twilight Zone magazines. More recently, Jim has made several contributions to Off-Broadway, and Broadway productions, become active in radio, and written Oo-Eds, or features, for Newsday, The Village Voice, thesportingnews.com and The New York Times.