Comics editor and historian K.C. Carlson died on Saturday, February 8, 2025, from cancer and Alzheimer’s Disease. He was 68 years old.

Carlson was best known as the editor on Legion of Superheroes, during a popular run on the title. He worked at comic distributor Capital City, he worked in comic shops, he wrote comics, and was known for his encyclopedic knowledge of comics.

He was born in Wisconsin in 1956, and started reading comics when he was just 4 years old. Carlson traded comics with the kid next door and got unsold comics from the magazine distributor where he worked as a teenager.

During his days at the University of Wisconsin, he worked for a record shop that carried Underground Comix and he convinced his boss to carry mainstream books as well. After that, Carlson worked at Capital City in their warehouse and later as an office manager where he worked on their monthly catalog. He also worked at Westfield Comics in Madison, Wisconsin.

In 1989, Carlson started working at DC as Design Director Richard Bruning’s assistant, logging art, working on the letter columns, and editing comics. After that, he helped launch Comics Retailer magazine, where he was also editor. He returned to DC in ’92 and started editing Legion of Super-Heroes and other series, including Superman titles, as well as their early trade collections.

In the late ‘90s, Carlson started working as an assistant manager at a comic shop, he wrote comic stories, and regularly wrote a column for the Westfield Comics blog. One of his last publications was a history of the JLA/Avengers crossover.

“From his time at Westfield Comics, The Comics Buyer’s Guide and DC Comics. From the many conventions we hung out together, from the times I would visit him at the DC Comics offices, from his time spending the night at our house in Ceredo and his many road trip visits to us here in West Virginia. KC Carlson was a very good friend,” comics creator Beau Smith wrote on Facebook.

“His quiet kindness had no peer. His knowledge of pop music and comic books were on an elevated platform. Our long conversations touched many a subject and were always fun.” Smith went on to write, “I will miss my very kind and low key friend.”