14 Facts About Bill Blackbeard

William Elsworth Blackbeard, better known as Bill Blackbeard, was a writer-editor and the founder-director of the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, a comprehensive collection of comic strips and cartoon art from American newspapers.

Bill Blackbeard's grandfather ran a service station; his father, Sydney Blackbeard, was an electrician, and his mother, Thelma, handled the bookkeeping for Sydney's business.

Bill Blackbeard worked on the staff of the Torch, the college yearbook.

When Bill Blackbeard began chronicling the comic strip there was no appreciation of comic strips by academics and institutions.

Bill Blackbeard considered the best of the comic strips to be the equal of great art, cinema and literature, and spent his highly productive life trying to convince the world that the subject was worthy of their attention.

Bill Blackbeard immediately understood the dangers this presented to anyone interested in using newspapers as a source and in particular how this would make it impossible to preserve the history of comic strips.

Bill Blackbeard asked his local library if he could have the newspapers they were throwing away.

Bill Blackbeard was told that as a private citizen he wouldn't be allowed to but they could be donated to an institution.

Bill Blackbeard's solution was to make himself into an institution, becoming the Founder-Director of the San Francisco Academy of Comics Art in 1968.

Newly incorporated, Bill Blackbeard was in a position to save and salvage as many newspapers as he could get his hands on before they were sent to the rubbish pile.

Bill Blackbeard's network included two retired bus drivers who criss-crossed the continent on Ryder Trucks packed to the gills with yellowing newsprint.

Bill Blackbeard had no interest in the women's sections, in the magazine sections, in the beautiful photographs that had nothing to do with comics.

Bill Blackbeard continued to contribute to books and indulge his interests, in addition to comic strips, in pulp magazines, old films and penny dreadfuls.

Bill Blackbeard died on March 10,2011, in Watsonville, California, at age eighty-four.