I really don’t have anything to add to any of the reports about the house fire that decimated (literally) the home of Len Wein and his family, except to say that at least they’re still with us, so thank heavens for that.
PAD
I really don’t have anything to add to any of the reports about the house fire that decimated (literally) the home of Len Wein and his family, except to say that at least they’re still with us, so thank heavens for that.
PAD
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Is there anything we can do to help?
Nothing to do to help right now. We have been told to leave them alone for now. Somepoint later there will be a request for donations.
http://harlanellison.com/heboard/unca.htm
From Harlan Ellison’s website:
“What you can do for the creator of SWAMP THING and WOLVERINE, if you are so moved, is NOTHING at the moment. Don’t bother them with well-intentioned commiserations that will only distract them. At the moment they are staunchly trying to pull it all together.
Later…SOON…but LATER…you can help enormously when Len presents a cogent list of those items that are replaceable–many were unique and are gone forever, and that’s that, so he’ll come to terms with it in time–but lots of it is around, some more rare than other, but possible. Hang back; just chill till Len lets us all know what he needs. I’ll post it here, it’ll be on Neil Gaiman’s site, and Peter David’s, and Mark Evanier’s and on and on.”
Buy stuff Len has written. Royalty money will eventually trickle down to him and every little bit helps.
He’s got some upcoming JLA issues you could preorder, the Watchmen videogame he recently wrote, TPBs of his run on Swamp Thing, et cetera.
Im going out to pick-up a few trades of his, but it seems paltry compared to what he has lost but I completely understand leaving them alone.
Firmly seconded, PAD. Len wrote the first comic book I ever remember reading, and I fondly remember walking up to him at Comic-Con about ten years ago and saying “this is all your fault, you know.” Very sad news, but I’m relieved that they’re all physically okay.
Not to belittle Len Wein’s plight, but this is one of my linguistic twitches:
You mean it destroyed exactly one-tenth of everything? {http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(Roman_army)}
I, too, have made the argument that decimate means lessen by one-tenth, but that definition is usually considered a lesser, secondary definition now.
PAD’s well aware of the strictest definition of “decimation”. He was the one who poked fun of Marvel’s Decimation, stating that if only 10% of the mutants were gone, it was no big deal.
There is also a loser, less precise, colloquial definition of the word that means to means to be devastated. Of course, there is always the possibility that Len Wein’s property was only decimated and only 10% was lost, but I seriously and sadly doubt it.
Mike…do you seriously think I don’t know what decimated means? Yes, from my understanding, about 1/10th of the house is gone, which is why I said “literally,” and if you could possibly have picked a less appropriate time to start parsing my language, I absolutely cannot conceive of it.
PAD
Different Mike here.
I’ll admit that I did a brief mental back-and-forth with myself about your use of the word “decimated” and decided you likely meant exactly what you wrote as:
1. You are overwhelmingly precise in your use of the language.
2. You are a “Friend of Harlan” who is possibly (probably) even more precise than yourself.
3. 10% jibed with the reports I had been hearing/reading.
Ultimately, though, I would have stifled my curiosity in favor of sensitivity – or at least saved it for a much later time.
I am heartsick at the damage done to Len and family’s lives but grateful that they did not suffer even greater damage.
Michael
Sorry – i had the impression from other sources that it was a total loss – and a lot of people use “literally decimated” or similar constructions to mean utter devastation.
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And i apologise for what in retrospect appears to be undue levity; there are certain twitches that just come out almost automatically.
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And i am very glad that it *wasn’t* total devastation.
When I think of all the entertainment I’ve gotten from len Wein…Swamp Thing, introducing me to the work of berni Wrightson, Wolver-freaking-ine, reviving the X-Men…X-Men! Stop the presses right there, I can trace back my marriage to participation in X-Men fandom, and thus my current job, my friends here in North Carolina, the movies we make, etc, etc…
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The man edited Watchmen!
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Though it’s an excellent idea to maybe buy some Len Wein stuff for Christmas presents I don’t know know how much the man really gets from the sales of these items. I know times are tight, but given all the good times that have flowed from this man’s talent I look forward to hearing how we can help him directly.
Second that.
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In a year where we’ve read too many eulogies already, we finally get a chance to help someone who is still standing.
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Cheers.
I just spent a good amount of time over the weekend discussing his work. I was horrified to discover how many of my peers were oblivious to his contributions. I believe the landscape of comics would be substantially different without his efforts.
This is horrible news, particularly about their poor dog. But at least that was the only loss of life.
I’ve said it about rock/popular music, and it’s true about comics, too – the appeal to/mindset of a certain type of obsesso-fan mind is that there’s no (important) history in the field more than about two weeks earlier than when you discovered it.
Len is a good man. I just hope his insurance is up to par, and the company is honest.
Sorry to hear about Len’s house. He had a pretty good run on the Hulk. I also enjoyed his dialogue for DC’s Legends mini.