A Dead-Letters Day (Washington Post, December 10)

[FlyingDonut]

A Dead-Letters Day

Comic Books End Printed Mail Columns As Fans Turn to Web

 

By Hank Stuever

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, December 10, 2002; Page C01

 

Geekdom used to be so lonely, and that's why kids -- and grown-ups -- wrote letters to comic books. It was possible to walk to school via the longer (and safer) path and eat your lunch alone and think you were the only person in the world who was drawing panels of the Justice League of America on the back of your history folder.

 

Beginning about 45 years ago, hard-core fans started to send in letters on sheets of notebook paper. They would praise superheroes, but also take umbrage with story arcs or abuses of mutant powers, or point out tiny inconsistencies in the canon, or decry supergaffes. They would mail these letters to New York, where comic books were created in office buildings with addresses on Madison Avenue, or the more skyscrapery-sounding Avenue of the Americas.

 

DC Comics recently announced the end of its letters-to-the-editor pages in all of its titles, more or less admitting that no one was really taking the time to write and mail letters to superheroes anymore. (Nowadays Batman and his crowd have plenty of e-mail to read from fans, but it won't be published.)

 

By killing off readers' letters, the comic books -- typically 32 pages in length -- have picked up another page for advertising. Ad revenue has seen a slight, industry-wide comeback in recent months, after years of declines and flat newsstand sales.

 

No amount of back-story better initiated newcomers -- particularly kids -- to a comic book's complexities than the trivial, almost anal-retentively Talmudic response of fans each month on the letters page.

 

If the panels showed you what a superhero did with his life, the letters were a permanent record -- now forever sleeved and boxed away in the acid-free cardboard of fetishistic collectors -- of how superheroes made us feel.

 

"Dear Stan and Jack," wrote someone named Murray Bishoff, of East Moline, Ill., in the March 1967 issue of Marvel Comics' "The Mighty Thor" ("ish #150," in fandom parlance), addressing the Silver Age dons Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. "What hath ye done? 'Thor' is the best comic that you sell, so don't ruin it."

 

Bishoff, who could have been 12 years old at the time or 36 (it's hard to tell), signed off his lengthy letter with the brash Marvel fans' salute, first coined by Stan Lee: " 'Nuff said!"

 

Not nearly 'nuff can ever be said when it comes to the unique obsessions that propel comic book fans. They are in a constant, simultaneous state of both thrall and letdown.

 

DC's decision to kill off letters -- and with Marvel Comics inclined to soon do the same -- is a surrender to the far superior powers of the Internet. Fans haven't complained about the loss; they are, in fact, too busy flaming each other on comic book Web sites.

 

Online, thousands of comics fans -- most of them using clever pseudonyms -- are joined in a steady, more satisfying fray of criticism, debate and adulation. No longer marginalized or lonely, they swarm by the tens of thousands to annual comic book mega-conventions in San Diego and Chicago, where creators from Marvel, DC and other publishing houses await their probing comments. Fans have forged a more immediate and direct link to writers, artists and editors, many of whom respond online to questions within a day.

 

"We did have a great deal of discussion in-house about the change from the regular letter columns to our new information pages" online, DC's creative director, Richard Bruning, recently told Wizard, a comics industry magazine. With Internet message boards, "we're seeing a new and better way to have more immediate and interactive exchanges of opinion and commentary."

 

Over at rival Marvel Comics, only one current title is featuring any letters from readers -- "X-Statix," a new addition to the copious "X-Men" family of titles, and one that drives its readers into a froth of advice and opinion.

 

Marvel Editor in Chief Joe Quesada admits that the letters format is rapidly dying. "There may be a time when someone sends in something that is incredibly touching or valid and needs to see print somewhere, somehow," he says. "Otherwise, the Web is so much better."

 

In the old comic book letters pages, some sense of eloquence reigned, and people expressed their opinions with full names and street addresses. With the aid of an editor, even a 9-year-old's missive could be set into clearheaded type, error-free, and somehow made lovely for all time. (Does anyone recall that the Incredible Hulk used to answer his mail in Hulk-speak?)

 

"You sacrifice posterity for volume. I think I wrote one letter, once, when I was very young," Quesada says. He spends about three hours a week answering readers' e-mail on his own Web site (joequesada.com), much in the way Stan Lee penned snappy comebacks in letters pages years ago.

 

Quesada's boyhood letter wasn't published; at most, only three or four letters per issue ever saw print. "Fans take it for granted now, all the ways they have to offer feedback," he says. "I can't think of any other medium in pop culture where you have the kind of access to the celebrities" -- writers and artists -- "that you have with comics.

 

"Do you know what I would have given to have a weekly chat with Stan Lee when I was a boy?"

 

'Nuff said.

 

But sadly.

[chrisco37]

Donut,

 

Surprised I missed this article, as I read the Post almost daily. It's sad that DC and Marvel are doing away with this. How many of us here used to write to Marvel in hopes of getting the vaunted "No-Prize"? I used to! In fact, one of the great treats for me as a kid was actually discovering a mistake in one of my favorite titles and then writing to the editors. Alas, I never did win a No-Prize, but at least I tried. Now, no one will be able too.

 

Chris

[Bugaboo-migration]

I also think it's sad that they are doing away with this. I actually like to read the letters at the ends of the book, even though I never did write into them as a kid (I thought about it a lot of times but never did it). I noticed in the Ultimate line of books that I collect that they did away with the letters a while back, but I didn't realize it was permenant or industry wide. That sucks.

[Joanna]

When I started reading Wonder Woman (as an adult) I wrote a letter every month. I felt it was a way to get my opinions known, and I had a lot of opinions. When Paul Kupperberg took over as editor, he took a shine to my letters and started publishing them month after month, even though I was against the direction of the book at some points. He didn't care, he just debated me in his responses. One day, he called me up, and we talked for over an hour about comics, the characters, the history, life at DC, etc.

 

He used to print my address in the letter col, something the former editor didn't do, so I wasn't aware that it was going to happen until it was too late. It turned out to be a lot of fun, because I started getting letters from other fans. I made some friends that way. (This is all before I bought my first modem). When I went online, AOL was in its infancy, and DC was advertising their message boards and chat rooms on that service. I bought a modem, signed on and found this new world. It was very early in online fandom, but I forged a lot of great friendships with fans and creators alike. I was also on compuserve, posting on their comic forum, and having a blast.

 

When John Byrne took over the book, Paul told John to contact me. It was a shock when an IM popped up from John Byrne! We chatted back and forth and just instantly got along. We both felt we'd known each other for years, not minutes. One of those weird things that sometimes happen with a stranger. We exchanged phone numbers and that led to long almost daily talks, while he told me various storylines he was going to write, and I told him about continuity issues, etc. After the business was done we drifted to other subjects, but I'll never forget how exciting it was in those first few days, getting a glimpse at the comic world from a creator's POV. He sent me xeroxes of his issues long before they saw print, and I ran the weekly WW chat for DC online.

 

All this because I wrote some letters. I'm really sorry to see letter cols come to an end. I always read the letters, and enjoyed them. They were a permanent record of how the fans felt. Now, there will only be impermanence.

 

-- Joanna

[chrisco37]

Great story, Joanna! I wondered how you met Mr. Byrne. Now I know.....(insert GI Joe comment ).

 

Chris

[clobberintime]

I actually remember writing a couple of letters about story ideas i had for Hulk, FF and Thor but never sent them. I used to love to read the letters too - and especially the responses.

[chrisco37]

I wrote Marvel years ago and suggested they make a series about a gay cowboy.

 

Chris

[FlyingDonut]

RIP letters pages!