It was 1985 and I was attending my first science fiction convention. Len Wein, co-creator of so many great comic book character and, at that time, writer of The New Teen Titans was on of the guests. He had an early Saturday morning panel so I dragged myself down for coffee before it started. A few people were already in the room drinking coffee, talking quietly and one was reading the newspaper. I poured some coffee and took a seat away from everyone else to have a cigarette. I got about three hits of it when the damn thing exploded, a friend who didn’t smoke playing a practical joke on me. Well, the cigarette went one way and I went the other under a table. After a few seconds of shocked quiet the laughing started and I came out from under the table red faced and ready to kill my friend.
At this point I found out the remains of my cigarette had landed right in the ashtray on the table of the person reading the newspaper. He put down the section he was reading, looked at the cigarette smoldering in the ashtray and then looked at me standing there in my dragonrider costume.
“Nice reflexes,” he said and gave me the biggest smile. At that point I wanted to crawl back under the table because I was face to face with Len Wein, completely embarrassed and I just wanted to die. He was wonderfully understanding later when I apologized while he signed my copy of The New Teen Titans and I left the panel felling a lot better than I went in.
I just found out that Len died last night. I will never forget how he took the extra time to reassure a very shy, star struck fangirl that day.
Good-bye, Len, may flights of angels sing you to your rest.