Some nice memories of Mr. Wein in my Facebook feed, from my colleague Steve Bissette:
Awoke to a torrent of memories of working with Len Wein, especially the SWAMP THING years. Len guided John Totleben and I through those key early issues, intense memories of the initial arc working with “this new writer nobody here has ever heard of”—but John and I had, because we’d been reading WARRIOR magazine from the UK from its first issue (which we bought at Heroes World in NJ)
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Len was a hard taskmaster, but he had to be: SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING had been behind the scheduling eight-ball from the get-go, since the series was launched prematurely to try and catch whatever it could from the botched theatrical run of the Wes Craven SWAMP THING movie. That meant that Martin Pasko and Tom Yeates bore the brunt of constant deadline pressures, which we handily inherited (and I made worse at times). There’s no way to communicate the back-and-forth phone calls and “hurry up, but don’t lose what you’re doing, this work is solid” mix of pressure & encouragement Len had to maintain, and did.
The most pissed Len ever, ever got at me wasn’t over deadlines or slow delivery of pages: it was over my sneaking Gumby into each issue. “You are playing a very, very dangerous game, Mister!” that phone call began…
He was both sad & relieved to be passing the reins to Karen Berger with SOTST #25. Len and I had a couple of loooong conversations via phone prior to that, as I was penciling the Woodrue SOTST arc; he appreciated that I’d somehow tracked down hard copies of every appearance of Woodrue/The Floronic Man using local New England flea markets and comics shops (pre-internet era, the handful of black-and-white photocopies Len’s ass’t sent just didn’t provide what I needed). My choosing Peter Cushing as the model for Woodrue delighted Len, and initiated the most ‘fannish’ conversations I ever had with Len, including one about our favorite horror movies I have very fond memories of. Len turned me on to a few of his personal favorites and “discoveries,” including HELL NIGHT, which he said was “the closest we’re ever going to come to seeing Solomon Grundy on the big screen.” That was how his mind worked: it was always about the love of comics for Len.
And shit: it takes THIS for Len to make it to the pages of VARIETY, after he contributed so much, for so long…
Can’t do this properly; there’s too much, really, and I’m not the one to be doing it. Much love and deepest sorrow and condolences to Christine Valada, and to all in Len Wein’s family, friends, life circles.
What a sad day this is.
And Chris Duffy, former editor at Nickelodeon and current editor of the Spongebob comics:
RIP Len Wein. When I wanted to break into comics after college, I sent him a resume–he was the editor of Disney Comics. I called him to follow up and he said, “What are you doing in Boston? If you want to be in comics, move to New York.” He also said “People in comics did something bad in a past life and are paying for it by being doomed to work in comics.” Years later I saw him at a convention and told him the story of that phone call. He said, “I was right, right?” Yup! Thanks, Len, for the advice and for so many comics I still love! (Cover to a good one here…)