A small taste of immortality in the letter columns

While there are still plenty of regular comics that feature letter pages full of missives from readers, they're not the ubiquitous experience they once were. There was the general idea that when the internet came along, there was no need to print letters in the actual comics, and they could be filled with 'backmatter' instead.

But I still miss them, and always got a lot more out of them than I ever did from any message board rant or social media post. That move away from regular letters did shatter a fragile community of regular hacks, and the hundreds of thousands of other readers who saw these comments and criticisms.

They were an insight into a world that is terribly diluted now, and sometimes I read reprints and old comics and feel like I'm missing something without the letter columns, like the Zap Goes the Legion trade paperback put out by DC recently. 

It's hundreds of pages of Legion of Super-Heroes comics from the 60s and 70s,  and it's a book that covers some monumental changes in the super-teens, but sometimes it only feels like you're getting half the story. It's hard to keep track of who the leader is, or what is driving the sudden moves to restyle many of the main characters. There is some kind of distinct point where Shrinking Violet and Phantom Girl suddenly look radically different, and there is obviously a lot of talk about it going on, but it's all hidden away behind the comics.

But I also do miss the letters columns as something I can experience, without actually taking part in them. The very idea of sending a letter to a comic as a kid was prohibitively expensive, sending from the arse end of the world, and I was always so far behind - it would take months for the comics to show up in my local stores, so anything I had to say would be hopelessly dated. I still read all the letters, and felt a connection with all these fellow dorks, all over the world, but didn't really participate.

I made some feeble efforts over the years. I got my name in the late, lamented Neon movie magazine and even in an issue of Love and Rockets, because I entered competitions. I didn't win anything, except the pleasure of seeing my name there.

It's obviously a lot easier to send letters now that it can be done digitally, although the only time I really tried was when I wrote to Back Issue Magazine, and got in there. And just this year, 2000ad published a letter of mine. It was, of course, a complaint that I had to give it up, which was a little extraordinary - I just wanted Tharg to know that they were losing the loyal of readers for the most capitalist of reasons, and they put it in the prog.  

It's a tiny mark of immortality, and I see that when I can read the letters in old issues of Fantastic Four, and see a lot of familiar names. TM Maple and his ilk are long gone, but his name is there in print forever, and so is mine, in the tiniest of places.