Rebuilding a Lost Collection

As so many of you know, Len Wein’s house burned down recently and he’s starting to put the pieces of his professional life back together. His pal, and mine, Mark Evanier has begun organizing a drive to collect copies of Len’s written work to replace the ones lost.He writes:Hey, let’s rebuild Len Wein’s comic book collection!  But we don’t want just any old comics here.  We want the ones Len wrote and/or edited.You know Len Wein.  Award-winning comic book person.  Co-creator of Swamp Thing and Wolverine and various other X-Men.  Editor of Watchmen.  Writer, at one time or other, of all the major characters: Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Hulk, you name it.  That Len Wein.  A great guy.On April 6, 2009, a fire destroyed most of the home he was sharing with his wife Chris and their son Michael.  As Len tells us, Chris was out when it happened.  The men were home and asleep.  He awoke to find the world in flames around him and he managed to get himself out and to save Michael, as well.  Sadly, their beloved dog Sheba perished that day.So did Len’s collection of books and toys and games and artwork and those things we accumulate that help define and enrich our lives.  You have stuff.  He had stuff.  Insurance will fix the house but many things, including his comics, were not covered.  Some of us thought it would be grand if his friends and fans pitched in to help him recreate those shelves of the comic books he’s worked on.Here’s the plan: We’ve compiled a list of the comics Len needs to reacquire.  We’re updating it from time to time as comics are pledged or received.   (It’s a PDF file, which means you need to have Adobe Reader.)  The list will be updated often.Check your collection for duplicates.  If Len’s given you some moments of reading pleasure, you might even want to buy him some of these issues.  A few may be pricey but he’s written so many, you may find a stack in the bargain bins.We’ve set up a special e-mail address for communications relating to this.  It’s…comix4len@povonline.comIf you have something you can donate, write us and tell us it’s on the way.  And then send it to this address:We’re asking you to let us know what you’re sending in order to minimize duplication.  If we do somehow wind up with more than one copy of something, we may try to trade it for something we need.  Please don’t send anything on the basis of “Return it if you can’t use it.”  It’s going to take enough effort just to log all this stuff in and store it ’til Len’s home is rebuilt.  Whatever you send becomes property of Len Wein.  And we are making no representation that any donations are in any way tax-deductible.We also need volunteers to collect donations of comics (not money) at conventions.  At each major comic con, we’d like to have someone — preferably, someone who’s already getting a table — who’ll agree to accept whatever comics Wein fans want to give and to ship them all to us.  Info on who’ll be making these collections and where will be posted over at www.newsfromme.com, along with other updates on the project.And thanks in advance for everything.My webmaster, Glenn, is already culling through boxes of my comic books to help out – see what you can do.