From punk rock to Paul Lynde: Billy Ingram channels a lifelong TV obsession into a hilarious Web site and new book. (books).

Billy Ingram's conservative Christian fans sign their E-mails with Bible verses. Gay male fans of Ingram's TVParty.com Web site identify themselves more creatively. "It's not hard to tell that a guy is gay if he writes in and tells you the one person he admired most growing up was Teresa Graves on Get Christie Love," says Ingram, who has now turned his lifelong television obsession into a deliciously photo- and fact-stuffed new book titled TV Party! Television's Untold Tales (Bonus Books).

For a former punk rocker, Ingram's new status as an openly gay classic TV guru is an unlikely second act. "I had no contingency plan for turning 40," he says in a soft drawl. "I expected to be dead a decade ago."

The road to TV Party has indeed been a roundabout one. Growing up in Greensboro, N.C., the budding gay boy escaped the hardships of everyday life through "the more way-out shows like Lost in Space, Batman, and Sonny and Cher--anything colorful and unrealistic," he says. But the '80s and early '90s found Ingram in Los Angeles, a graphic artist by day and punk rocker by night, haunting the hard-core clubs and savoring the sex and drugs that were part of the scene.

The relentless AIDS epidemic eventually convinced him to shift gears. "I thought, Let me take the energy I put into going to clubs and into getting love and sex, and let me put that into [my work]," Ingram remembers. He returned to Greensboro to launch a writing career and in 1994 started TVParty.com, his shrine to classic television. The colorful site now receives 4 million hits a month.

His book, now being sold on his Web site and due in stores October 1, combines behind-the-scenes dish from industry insiders with historical accounts, and it includes a CD-ROM stuffed with toy commercials and rare outtakes. But most poignant, Ingrain says, are personal reminiscences from viewers. "TV provided an escape from the deadly dull life [these people led]," he says. "Some turned to it because they were abused as kids and lived in horrid households."

Ingram confesses that TVParty.com was originally created to pitch a book of this type. But as word of the witty, informative site spread, E-mail accolades from fans rolled in--along with business requests for Web site design, initiating the author's next career path.

One longtime fan is New York-based entertainer John Epperson, also known as Lypsinka. An ardent archivist of all things kitsch, Epperson gives high points to Ingram. "Here's a person who seems to know his stuff," he says. Both the book and Web site contain a list of Lypsinka's 10 favorite television moments, required viewing for any queen-in-training.

A year ago, buoyed by TVParty.com's success, Ingram, now 40, dropped all other clients, moved to London ("The television is better"), and focused on his Web site and book. He plans several more TV Party books, including one devoted to local children's shows. He's also shopping around a spin-off TV program, which he envisions featuring rave music and "half-naked dancing boys and girls ... a variety show for the millennium."

Despite his apparent mastery of all things camp, Ingram admits he still has a lot to learn. Although the TV Party book offers incisive pieces on old guard divas Bette Davis and Tallulah Bank-head and an eye-opener about the death of wicked queen Paul Lynde, the author says, "I have not ever been into the iconic gay cultural references. I am now just discovering them. My gay friends know more about Joan Crawford than I do."

Blotcher has written for The New York Times, Salon.com, and the Boston Phoenix.