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.
I was probably about seven years old when I walked into my local newsagents in Cambuslang (near Glasgow) with my pocket money firmly he...
Following on from my last post featuring some of my favourite Marvel comic book covers from 1973, I thought I would show some of DC's ...
Nearly a half-century on I still consider 1973 to be the year that cemented my destiny in becoming a lifetime comic book fan. It was a yea...
Contrary to the impression peddled by publishers, letters were sometimes created by staff, at least as far as UK comics went. I remember a deputy editor of a weekly telling me that he sometimes had to invent letters because they received so few. Odhams and Marvel UK occasionally reprinted US letters, but with UK-sounding names, so that they could impart information to the readers that they (the editors) thought they (the readers) should know - either because the letter made a pertinent point or because the response did. The Spidey's Super Mail and Sgt. Rock letters page logos fail to impress me I have to say.
ReplyDeleteOh, and some early US Marvel comics had 'invented' letters, bearing the names of staff, though they were usually just to make a funny. I'm unsure whether the staff themselves wrote them or Stan appropriated their names - could've been a bit of both.
DeleteI remember reading about those "made up" letters in a fanzine a few years ago but wasn't aware some UK titles use old US letters with British names I suppose it makes sense and may have triggered actial readers into write in . I like the Sgt Rock illo but I agree the Spidey one is awful ( I couldn't easily find an early issue of SMCW to use the "Web and Hammer logo)
DeleteI love this stuff! This is the crack of comic book collecting, the hard nitty gritty that only true-blue fanboys adore. I always checked to see how "The JLA Mail Room" changed with the addition of new members. I was lucky enough to get one letter published, albeit it was in these latter years in an issue of E-Man. Still and all, for my fanboy beating heart it was a thrill.
ReplyDeleteExcellent stuff Rip sadly I never had a letter published in a comic. I also enjoyed seeing new JLA members being added to the letters page logo as they joined, I especially recall Elongated Man being added.
ReplyDelete