Something not quite right in the San Diego Comic-Con International souvenir book caught Scott Edelman’s eye: “In the midst of getting verklempt reading the In Memoriam section, I spotted a major error on the page honoring the late Ron Goulart — they’ve mistakenly used a photo of the very much living Joe Haldeman.”
![](https://file770.com/wp-content/uploads/Haldeman-for-Goulart-2-584x747.jpg)
Goulart, of course, actually looked like this:
![](https://file770.com/wp-content/uploads/GoulartRon.jpg)
![](https://file770.com/wp-content/uploads/GoulartRon-Pback-Show.jpg)
Edelman understands these things can happen. Because it’s happened to him.
“My photo appeared on Robert Reed’s Wikipedia page for awhile, after I accepted his Hugo award in Yokohama.”
![](https://file770.com/wp-content/uploads/Edelman-misidentified-as-Reed-584x337.jpg)
When Scott wrote about the Goulart mistake on Facebook, people chimed in with other examples they’d seen.
Mine was remembering that Torcon 2 used the wrong photo for fan guest of honor Bill Rotsler in the 1973 Worldcon program book. At the time someone said it was really a picture of Philip K Dick. Since I didn’t yet know what PKD looked like I always assumed that was the identity. And therefore, the following year when PKD no-showed for his guest of honor stint at the 1974 Westercon, I thought it was an especially funny inside joke that they brought on Bill Rotsler to give the guest of honor speech instead.
![](https://file770.com/wp-content/uploads/Torcon-2-Program-Book-11-1-584x771.jpg)
The post I planned to write was going to end there. I knew I could find that old 1973 program book on Fanac.org and copy the photo to run with it. Which I have. There is just one problem. I know what Philip K. Dick looks like now, and that photo doesn’t look like PKD to me. I have never seen a photo of PKD with a long scraggly beard. So who is it really?
I asked Andrew Porter, who turned to others in the Fictionmags discussion group for help. Not only did they come up with the name, they found a copy of the original photo online. It’s artist John Schoenherr. The photo was taken by Jay Kay Klein at the 1971 Worldcon.
Porter sent a copy of the photo to John’s son Ian Schoenherr who confirmed the identity. He also commented, “Still have that corduroy safari jacket somewhere – and the ceramic tiki bowl.”
![](https://file770.com/wp-content/uploads/Schoenherr-at-1971-wc-ph-jkklein-1-584x385.png)
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Oops!
The mistake takes its source from Jackie Estrada’s “Comic Book People 2” book (Exhibit A Press, 2015), a collection of photographs taken at Comic Con in the 1990s. See page 110.
A 2003 reprint of The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth for the SFBC 50th Anniversary Collection used a J.K. Klein photo of Poul Anderson on the jacket. Pohl/Poul, what’s the difference?
@Roehm: When I started reading Frederik Pohl’s IF at age 11, in 1962, I was a mite mixed up about Pohl & Poul myself. After a few issues (and reading stories by both authors), the difference became clear.
Apparently Scott got to this before I did. I posted the offending image on FictionMags, and sent it to a bunch of comics people, including “The Comics Journal,” Maggie Thompson, and others.
I also reached out to Comic-Con about this. Haven’t heard back from them yet.
Andrew Porter: Surely we don’t think of a photo of Joe Haldeman as “offending”?
As long as Joe (and Gay) are still with us, it’s not all bad.