Letters pages

[Electricmastro]

A thread for looking back on letters pages, which have been published in comic books as far back as the 1930s.

[Riv86672]

^^^Excellent idea!

For me, no discussion about old letters pages can be complete without a shout-out to...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbr...lebration/amp/

...T.M. Maple.

If letters pages were the old timey comic book message boards of their day, T.M. would have had one hell of a post count.
As a kid, I was fascinated at seeing his letters in Marvel/DC comics from all different years. He somehow made the letters pages more “real” to me.
And he didn’t just write in a lot, he wrote well thought out critiques that were also pretty damn funny and engaging.
You could tell the comics pros who replied to him thought he was pretty cool, too.
Even when he wasn’t in a letters page, others would often write in commenting on previous points he’d made, and man, everyone knew this guy was legit.

Here’s to T.M. Maple!

[Phoenixx9]

^^^Excellent idea!

For me, no discussion about old letters pages can be complete without a shout-out to...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbr...lebration/amp/

...T.M. Maple.

If letters pages were the old timey comic book message boards of their day, T.M. would have had one hell of a post count.
As a kid, I was fascinated at seeing his letters in Marvel/DC comics from all different years. He somehow made the letters pages more “real” to me.
And he didn’t just write in a lot, he wrote well thought out critiques that were also pretty damn funny and engaging.
You could tell the comics pros who replied to him thought he was pretty cool, too.
Even when he wasn’t in a letters page, others would often write in commenting on previous points he’d made, and man, everyone knew this guy was legit.

Here’s to T.M. Maple!

Oh no! I actually remember the name, "TM Maple"!

Yeah, there was a time like every ish or 2 he had a letter printed.

[babyblob]

I love the old letters pages. Those and those old ads for Xray specs and Hypnocoins were the best. Reading those old letters makes me understand the mind frame of the fans better. And I love that George R R martin had a letter published in Fantastic Four 20

[Phoenixx9]

The letters page was great for getting (some) answers that fans had about a story or powers.

[Ravin' Ray]

The letters page was great for getting (some) answers that fans had about a story or powers.

Yep! I remember how someone asked how the Invisible Girl can see when she's invisible because she warps light around her so it doesn't reach her eyes. And Marvel threw open the answer to the fans to come up with the most scientific one, and a few Fantastic Four issues later, they did!

[Electricmastro]

I love the old letters pages. Those and those old ads for Xray specs and Hypnocoins were the best. Reading those old letters makes me understand the mind frame of the fans better. And I love that George R R martin had a letter published in Fantastic Four 20

As well as a letter partially published in Real Fact Comics #6 (January 1947, DC Comics) by Harlan Ellison, who would later go on to write for Star Trek: The Original Series and I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream:

[Jim Kelly]

The difference between message board posts and letter writing is that, I only spend a few minutes on writing most of my posts--with some exceptions where I spend a lot of time on them. But I wrote my letters to the editor in long hand first then worked over my draft and tried to get it down to an economical composition (no more than three short paragraphs) and tried to come up with some hook to it, so it would catch the editor's interest. Then I would type that up. And then type that up again, because my first typed copy would always have errors. So that was a good day's work. And then the next day, putting enough postage on the envelope and mailing it off to New York. And then waiting months until finally, if by chance my letter did get published, it was usually cut down to a few sentences.