Len Wein Teaches Me a Lesson (and, oh, by the way, Roger Stern, too)
Roger Stern started working at Marvel in December of 1975, two weeks before I did on the first working day of January 1976.
Rog came from Indiana. He had previously published or co-published a slick fanzine called CPL (Contemporary Pictoral Literature, I think.) that had been devoted to Charlton Comics. He had been hired as an assistant editor. Among his first duties, I think, was editing letter columns.
(NOTE: Letter columns were commonly put together by the writers of the individual books, who would sort through the fan mail, select letters to be printed and write the answers or comments. A few lettercols were written by someone other than the book’s writer. If that person couldn’t or didn’t want to do his or her own letter column, a staffer or other freelancer would do it. For instance, lettercols for the Kirby books were done by someone other than Jack. Writing a lettercol in those days paid $25, I think.)
I had been hired as associate editor. Rog and I both sat in the big editorial room outside the Editor in Chief’s office, which took up a corner of that room. We were the two new guys. We became friends, and remain friends…at least until he reads this.
