Doug: Our pal Osvaldo Oyola comes over from his blog The Middle Spaces to bring this weekend's fodder for conversation. Take it away!Dr. Oyola: I have been reading some 1977 Marvel Two-in-One issues for a project I am working on for my own blog, but came across this letter, which got me thinking about letters pages. I recently focused on some letters in Howard the Duck (for the 5th installment of my “If it WAUGHs Like a Duck” series), so I guess I had letters on my mind.
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| (Your editors apologize for some miscommunication that resulted in our leaving out the letter in question! Here it is in all its glory!) |
This particular letter in MTiO #37 is notable not only
for its critique of the series in general, but for saving its most scathing
remarks for the treatment of Alicia Masters, and the accusation the reader
makes about the use of cheap gimmicks and how such gimmicks are what hacks
resort to. He even writes, “This cancerous waste of supporting characters must
be stopped!” Tough words! But even more
amazing is the response by the editor. (I assume Marv Wolfman is answering the
letters since he is writer/editor on the series at the time). He basically admits
the issue in question was substandard and lays the blame on the hurried
conditions under which the recent issues had been put together (in case of the
issue in question, #31, literally overnight!).
He goes on to say, however, that “Hopefully a rushed original effort is
preferable to a repeat story,” which reminds me of our recent discussion here
on Bronze Age Babies about
reprints vs. filler issues vs. late publication. I find it quite shocking
that the editor would admit to deadline troubles and that a comic story was
substandard, but I am not shocked that readers complained about cheap gimmicks,
hack work and treatment of beloved characters, since I think those kinds of
things plagued superhero comics since the Silver Age, and the complaints about
“comics today” don’t feel any different, it is just that the scale of the
gimmicks has ballooned to cosmic proportions.
So, that’s today’s topic. Letters. Letters pages. Responses
to letters. The kinds of things you think letters should be written about. What
kinds of responses have you seen?
Has any of our Bronze Age Babies regulars had a letter
printed (or sent in, but not)? Have a copy of it you can share or give us the
gist of it? Any particular favorite
letters columns or just memorable letters?
For example: I remember loving the letters in Amazing
Spider-Man during the early 80s Hobgoblin saga, with folks doing their best to
predict who the hobgoblin really was, using various clues from the issues to
explain their guesses. If I remember correctly, Ned Leeds, Lance Bannon and
Flash Thompson were frequent guesses. They used the last one as a red herring
and those who deduced it was Leeds were either right or wrong depending on the
ret-con. I even remember a letter predicting the correct Hobgoblin, Roderick
Kingsley, over a decade before it’d be ret-conned to be that character (as Roger
Stern originally planned).
So let’s hear it, BABers! Tell us about your experience and
feelings about letters.
