Wednesday, September 28, 2022

You were always right, Len Biehl



I wish I could say the first critic who I really stated to notice by name was someone like Pauline Kael or Kim Newman or Roger Ebert or someone like that. But if I'm honest, it's probably the three-claw reviews a letter writer named Len Biehl would faithfully send in to Marvel Comics Presents every issue that first caught my attention.

For a brief period when I was all about the Marvel, I was getting MCP faithfully every two weeks. And with no internet to find any other opinions on the matter, for a few months Biehl's bullet-point review of every eight-page chapter - featuring Wolverine or Ghost Rider or whoever -  were smart, perceptive and very funny. I never saw Len's name on any other letters page, and have no idea what happened to the dude in the past 30 years, but I do enjoy his reviews of the comic as much as the comic itself.

Older Bronze Age nerds might have had their Uncle Elvis or TM Maple or whatever, but Len was my guy, for just that brief period of time.

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