Letters from Kids Who Grew Up To Be Creators

[Rocketeer]

...just this week from the books JLA I have been reading I find,...Martin Pasko in #87,...Bob Rozakis in #95,...and Mike Friedrich in #89

[cd4ever]

...I just read a Justice League the other night,...somewhere between issue #86-89,...and it had a letter from Bob Rozakis in it,...

 

 

You'd be hard pressed to find an early 70s DC that didn't have a Bob Rozakis letter in it.He was that eras most published fan-letter author. A few years later,Mary Jo Duffy took up the mantle.

Arak #1 has a letter written by Todd McFarlane,and Wendi Pini makes several appearences as well.

 

...I disagree,..Joe Peluso from Brooklyn NY was the most published DC letter writer,....

 

T.M. Maple? Hurricane Herron?

 

The Mad Maple came later,He was the man in the 80s.He even wrote a few scripts for some B&W book if I recall correctly,before his early demise.

 

I'm sticking with Bob R as the most proficent,although there were a few other contenders.

 

I remember TM from the mid-70's, his letters were in all the books with the value stamps.

 

He died???

[the blob]

I believe you are correct about Thomas in FF 5. I had a beater copy I actually read (as opposed to that gem mint VG copy I posted here) and found it amusing (I always check out the letter sections!). No celebrities, but the letters written in response to FF 52 are an interesting time capsule, unfortunately.

[That Ron Dude]

T.M. Maple passed away while still in his thirties, if my memory serves me well, he died from a heart related matter. He was local (to Toronto). I had supper with him once. He was a decent fellow. I have never heard a bad word said about him.

 

I, myself, had a letter printed in Avengers #72. I tell kids that it was like writing an essay and instead of your teacher reading it, giving it a "B", returning it and then you throwing it away, 1/4 million people read it and it is put in a plastic bag to be preserved for generations to come. The big one on that letter's page though was Keith Pollard. I imagine that he was inspired by getting a postcard from Stan, then seeing his name and ideas in print too.

[Juswuh]

...just this week from the books JLA I have been reading I find,...Martin Pasko in #87,...Bob Rozakis in #95,...and Mike Friedrich in #89

 

As well as having a letter in JLA 89, Mike Friedrich wrote that issue - a famously awful story in which he appears as himself in the last panel and tells us that what we've just read is a product of "crash-pounding of his creative soul." Most self-indulgent comic of the silver age?

[Zonker]

...just this week from the books JLA I have been reading I find,...Martin Pasko in #87,...Bob Rozakis in #95,...and Mike Friedrich in #89

 

As well as having a letter in JLA 89, Mike Friedrich wrote that issue - a famously awful story in which he appears as himself in the last panel and tells us that what we've just read is a product of "crash-pounding of his creative soul." Most self-indulgent comic of the silver age?

 

I still can't believe Julie Schwartz let him get away with that spoon. That's part of my Bronze Age thesis (this book would have been 1971 I believe)... by the time the 1970s rolled around, the fans had become the creators, and were writing for each other moreso than the Silver Age readership. (Or in the case of this issue, written to impress Harlan Ellison a.k.a. Harlequin Ellis). Strong Silver Age editors like Stan Lee or Schwartz in his prime would have reigned that stuff in, making sure to keep it commercial.

 

Sure, some more grown-up approaches resulted, but also pretentious stuff like this story. No wonder the kids and casual readers started dropping off.

[FFB]

Not sure of the issues, but Roy Thomas had more than one letter published.

 

I think his first was in FF 5. FF 20 has a letter from Mark Gruenwald.

 

A regular letter-writer in silver age DC books was Irene Vartanoff, who went on to work in the business.