April 6th, 2009
Author David Pepose
Len Wein, creator of X-Men staples like Wolverine, Storm, and Nightcrawler, survived a house fire that destroyed about half of his home, as well as original art from WOLVERINE and GIANT-SIZED X-MEN worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Author Harlan Ellison posted this today on his
web site:
EXTREMELY BAD NEWS
Len Wein called this morning. More than half of his house burned down earlier today. Len and Chris Valada and Chriss son, Michael, got out okay, but their beloved dog, Sheba, ran back inside and is gone. In addition to both bedrooms, the bathroom, and much of the office, what was burned first was the original art for the first Wolverine story, the cover of GIANT X-MEN #1 and other art pieces worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Susan and I will be over there as soon as I pick up my car today, and as soon as Ive met the dental appointment we have scheduled. This is a major catastrophe for one of my oldest and closest friends. Like your Host, Len is a lifetime freelancer and, even though he remains a star of the comics world, even though he created Wolverine and Stormamong other charactershe goes from day to day earning a freelancers living, as do I
and these are frightening economic times for those of us out there, to paraphrase Arthur Miller, on a few words and a shoeshine.
Harlan
At the very least, Im relieved that Len and his family are alive and well. We at Blog@ are wishing for nothing but the best for this seminal X-creator, and will keep you posted on any additional happenings on his part.
At
his website, Mark Evanier described the scene:
Harlan Ellison was over there wielding a shovel and he described the loss to me a little while ago on the phone. It sounds pretty total. To those who ask, What can we do? the answer seems to be not much right now, though Len and Chris must know they have a lot of friends they can turn to. At some point down the line though, when theyre settled into new digs or a rebuilding of the old digs, Id like to see if we can restore some of Lens book collection particularly copies of things he worked on.
