Remembering Len Brown
1941-2026
Len Brown has caught the last train out.
And no, he wasn’t eaten by angry, time-hopping dinosaurs, as depicted in one of those wonderfully deranged Topps Dinosaurs Attack! cards (’88) — Len clutching a stack of classic back-issue comics, Mark Newgarden down front, and Art Spiegelman actually being eaten.
He died of considerably more conventional causes on August 11 at age 84.
Len was one of those guys whose career ran somewhat parallel to the comic-book business, but whose influence on it was enormous. At Topps, where he eventually became creative director, he helped shape more than four decades’ worth of non-sports cards and pop-culture projects.
He joined the company in 1959, basically right out of high school, and stayed for 41 years.
Forty-one years.
And during that time, an almost ridiculous amount of talent passed through Topps.
Wally Wood. Jack Davis. Basil Wolverton. Bob Powell. Norm Saunders. Jay Lynch. Art Spiegelman. John Pound.
And that’s hardly the whole list.
Spiegelman basically began his professional career there and eventually became one of the key creative forces behind Wacky Packages. Jay Lynch was another longtime contributor. John Pound became indispensable to Garbage Pail Kids. Shortly before decamping for Haight-Ashbury, Robert Crumb even did a card series for Topps.
All of these people wandering in and out of a chewing-gum company in industrial Brooklyn.
And Len, with a very good eye for talent and ideas, was right in the middle of it.
He developed an astonishing volume of licensed and non-sports card projects — everything from The Beatles and Batman to monsters, movies and TV shows — and for years handled much of it essentially on his own, until Gary Gerani joined him in 1972.
How juggling that many licensors and creators at once didn’t drive him right off a cliff, I have no idea.
Imagine being a kid opening those packs.
Now imagine being one of the guys deciding what went into them.
Pretty good job.
Len was also, at heart, a genuine comics guy, which naturally led Topps into some wonderfully oddball territory.
With his one-time roommate Roy Thomas, he was involved with the terrific Krazy Little Comics series — tiny superhero parodies with titles like The Amusing Spider-Guy, Fantastic Fear and Stupidman, with artwork by Wally Wood and Gil Kane.
Wally Wood and Gil Kane drawing tiny parody comics sold with bubble gum.
Only at Topps.
And then, of course, there was Mars Attacks.
That alone would have been enough.
Len was a lifelong fan of science-fiction movies and EC Comics, and he came up with the idea that became Mars Attacks, working with Woody Gelman to develop the storyline. Wally Wood and Bob Powell helped visualize it, and Norm Saunders painted most of those unforgettable finished cards.
Basically, Len took all the great 1950s science-fiction movie ingredients — bug-eyed aliens, flying saucers, death rays, terrified crowds, destroyed landmarks — and turned the dial way up.
Especially on the gore.
Way, way up.
The result was one of the most memorable trading-card sets ever produced, horrifying parents and making a permanent impression on a generation of bubblegum-chewing boys.
Some of whom never quite recovered.
Len’s comics connection went well beyond Topps.
He was involved in the creation of Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and wrote the original Dynamo story. Wood returned the favor by giving Dynamo the civilian name Leonard Brown.
Len always seemed a little sheepish about that when it came up.
But really — how many people can say Wally Wood named a superhero after them?
I think it should have been on his business card.
Len was also a very early collector of original comic art, recognizing that this stuff was beautiful and important at a time when hardly anybody was thinking about it that way.
His collection was long gone by the time I knew him, unfortunately dispersed after a difficult divorce. But just hearing Len talk about some of the pieces he once owned was jaw-dropping.
I was lucky enough to work with him for about four years at Topps, during the early ’90s when Topps Comics was launched.
For a lifelong comic-book fan who had spent decades working around the edges of the industry, that had to be pretty satisfying.
And Len was all over it.
I loved talking with him because the conversation could go just about anywhere — comics, cards, old movies, television, original art … and music.
Len was a huge rockabilly and classic-country fan and eventually became a radio DJ as well, hosting shows devoted to the music he loved.
That enthusiasm was genuine.
That was Len.
When I first walked into the old Topps building in Brooklyn in 1992, Len had already been there for more than 30 years.
Thirty years.
The Beatles had formed, conquered the world and broken up. Marvel Comics had created nearly its entire universe. Batman had gone from Shelly Moldoff to Carmine Infantino to Neal Adams to Frank Miller.
And Len Brown was still at Topps.
Still paying attention. Still plugged into what was going on. Still looking for the next big thing — and, more often than most people, finding it.
The funny thing was, he looked ridiculously youthful.
So youthful, in fact, that the first words out of my mouth when I met him were:
“You’re Len Brown?”
I later found out he’d heard that more than once.
Yes.
He was Len Brown.
The one and only.
One More Len Brown Story
I mentioned that Len was a very early collector of original comic art, long before most people saw much value in the stuff at all.
Funny thing is, years later I accidentally ended up with something that had once been in his collection.
Around 2009, I spotted this terrific Kurt Schaffenberger Shazam! page online and bought it before I noticed the inscription:
“To Len Brown — Kurt Schaffenberger.”
So I called Len.
I told him what had happened and offered to send the page back.
He passed.
Losing the collection under the circumstances he did wasn’t a particularly happy memory, and by then Len was pretty much done with original art.
But I do think he got a kick out of the fact that, completely by accident, one of his old pages had found its way to me.
And I was pretty happy about it too.
Still am.
