Gone but not Forgotten: The Comic Book Letters pages

Although the comic book letters page is not quite dead,the popularisation of email and the internet has pretty much reduced their numbers to near extinction levels. The letters page was always a favourite part of any US comic book that I bought in my teens as they offered a sense of community at a time (in my town at least) when comic fandom was not a thing and where familiar names would pop up month after month (or week after week in the UK) including many letter writers that would eventually became professionals in the industry including Bob Rozakis, Martin Pasko, and Mark Gruenwald. An additional plus for myself was always the letter page header which in some cases were a work of art on their own. Below (and above )are some of my favourites.

Above: Mighty World of Marvel (UK) letters page logo

Above: Avengers weekly (UK) letters page

Above: The UK weekly Spider-Man comic had several letter page titles (the first being "The Web and the Hammer" as the original comic featured Spidey and Thor repritns) - the above is from the "Super Spider-Man" comic.

Above: The letters and editorial page from the weekly "POW" and Smash comic from the mid /late 1960's by Odhams. Odhams published comics featuring UK originated strips and Marvel reprints and these titles were probably the first place in the UK that readers/ fans could regularly talk about comics and contact each other.

Above the letters page from the UK weekly Valiant and Lion comics (1970). UK comics letters pages usually consisted of readers submiting jokes or stories that rarely had anything to do with the actual strips in the comic.