Cover of “The Best of Xero” by Larry Ivie.

By James H. Burns: I just read in an email, and then had it confirmed by Roy Thomas, that writer/artist/editor/publisher Larry Ivie passed away a few months ago.

Ivie was one of the key figures in the early issues of Calvin T. Beck’s Castle of Frankenstein, was a part of — for a short while, anyway — that Wally Wood-Bhob Stewart sphere, and later published and edited his own newsstand magazine, Monsters and Heroes (a mix of articles and art which seemed to happily convey a whole spectrum of genre fandoms, and featured his own super hero creation, Altron Boy).

I don’t know much more about Larry, but I think he also worked for some of the comic companies, and I suspect he did some illustrations for a few of the science fiction digests.

For a certain generation, Ivie’s was one of those “magic names” that appeared on many happy mastheads.

I had heard that in recent years he moved to Oakland, California to be near/live with relatives, but that may not be accurate.

Hopefully, one of the File 770 faithful can fill in some details.