Who knew that a cheerful guy in a bucket hat was responsible for creating some of Marvel’s most well known characters? When I approached Len Wein at the Phoenix Comicon, I really only knew about one character he had created. I was in for a serious comic history lesson.
Wein created Wolverine with artists John Romita Sr. and Herb Trimpe. With Dave Cockrum, he created Nightcrawler, Storm, Colossus and Thunderbird. He also worked with George Perez on the Wonder Woman reboot in the late 1980s. Here, Wein talks to Pink Raygun about creating Swamp Thing and writing scripts.
[nms:Len Wein,4,0]
Pink Raygun: I have to admit I’m kind of a baby comic book fan. I’ve only been into them for two years or so, so I only have a fledgling knowledge of your work. But, I know you created Swamp Thing, which I love. What drove you to create that character?
Len Wien: The need to pay the rent. Almost all stories start out that way. Especially for a professional. You’re always dealing with deadlines. I actually don’t know how I came up with Swamp Thing. I was on my way to the DC offices to see my editor and the story came to me on the subway. I pitched it when I got there and my editor gave me some suggestions, then I started working on the script later that day. It got named because I kept referring to the story as “that swamp thing I’m working on”. The word “thing” referred to the story, not the character.
PRG: When you are working on a script, aside from the dialogue, how much detail do you actually put into each panel? How much do you actually go into how the characters are standing and what’s going on in the background
LW: It depends on the artist I’m working with. I know exactly what some artists will give me because I’ve worked with them before. I give those artists a minimum because I know in our heads we’ll see the same pictures. Then there are times when I don’t know who’s drawing the story and I’ll go into a lot of detail, such as “he stands with his hand on so and so’s shoulder, he’s curious or he’s angry”, so the artist know the physical attitude the character should take.
PRG: What’s your development process with a script?
LW: I prefer brainstorming with someone else. When I’m alone a lot of pacing goes into it. Some folks know how to structure a story, but stories come to me as they come to me. Literally I’ll be sitting for days with nothing happening and I’ll be walking from room to room then it hit me and everything falls into place like dominoes and I’ll have the story in minutes. I do a rough story in my head. Then I go through and pace that page by page. I’m an organic writer.
PRG: What has been your favorite project?
LW: The DC/ Marvel crossover I did where Hulk fought Batman, because it was my favorite DC character and my favorite Marvel character in one story and I got to write them both. And I had an artist named Garcia Lopez, who is one of the great artists in the business, draw the story.
PRG: You’re Swamp Thing’s daddy. What are you’re feeling when another writer does a treatment for Swamp Thing? Do you feel protective of that?
LW: Always, but also, its a business. I’ve written other peoples characters, too. I feel it’s unfair of me to proprietary toward my characters. I’ve also edited my own characters for other writers who were writing them. For example, I brought Alan Moore in to write Swamp Thing when I was editing at Marvel. He changed the character radically, but he did such a wonderful job that I didn’t care.
PRG: What advice would you give someone trying to break into comic writing, whether they’re going for the superhero genre or something more independent?
LW: These days you’re better served doing something creator owned. Do your own books first. A lot of the most popular writers in the business right now got discovered while doing their own books. Bendis, folks like that, all self-published first and got noticed. That’s your best way in.
Related Stuff:
Lisa Fary's earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She's angry that it's 2011 and she still doesn't have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram. 
