RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books Letters Columns

I'm in the middle of a grand task to clean my house. 90% of this task involves organizing and storing my comics. I'm going through a huge chunks of books and I stumble on Grant Morrison's "Invisibles" and Ennis' "Preacher". I start flipping through a few issues here and there, and come to the realization that the letter columns in those books, and many others where the creator responds, is a huge part of why I loved those books.

Be it Ennis' rants and comical vulgarity and Morrison's insight on his influences and magic, etc., I realize how much a good letters column can enhance a book.

Then I got somewhat depressed at the severe lack of letters being printed and responded to in many mainstream comics these days.

Miss 'em.

They are on thier way back on certain Marvel titles.

DC Seems to have done away with 'em for good, though.

It's a bummer.... I actually got posts on the old DC Boards printed in lettercolumns.

Perhaps the company should print thier own magazine where our letters could be printed and answered.

PAD said it was coming back to Captain Marvel, but that was on the last issue that had a letters column and it was like 2-3 years ago. I had one of my letters printed in an early issue of Captain Marvel. It was pretty cool.

I'm all for letter columns that have actual letters from actual fans, and, are answered by the creative staff themselves.

There's nothing I hate worse than reading the insipid columns that print nothing but praise, and if there is a critisicm printed, then it is answered in a way that promotes the comapany itself. Just a page-long, edited propaganda sheet, cut-and-pasted by the marketing department.

If there is just boring shit going on in Superman....and it's a pretty agreed state of decay by the fandom as a whole....I want to see the letters that address this. I want to see the creators come out and answer fan critisicm, as well as praise.

And, I'm certainly not saying that this is the creator's fault. He/she has no control over getting to do the lettercolumn. And, I find that unfortunate.

James Robinson on STARMAN. PAD on various titles. Warren Ellis on various titles. Garth Ennis. Grant Morrison. Joe Quesada. They've all had their own letters page, at one time or another. I would love this to be a mandatory requirement of the job for all writers/artists/inkers. And, if not the written paper, then, at least make regular appearances on specified message boards to keep in contact with your audience.

And, if not, then just do what DC did: save us all 37-cents in wasted postage, and go ahead and use the space for legitimate horn-blowing.

Just my two cents...

The Ultimate line has sporadic letter columns. Everybody knows I miss the letter columns. It's sad they take away something that enhances the book for their customers and they have what I would think would be minimum effort to include them. I mean it can't be like putting together the rest of the book. I've been publish several times over the last 4 decades and even had a "LLance" letter included in JLA: YEAR ONE> <SIGH!> I did write a few letters to Ultimate Spidey and X-MEN. Maybe I'll see print again soon!