Seen and not heard

Kashgar · Post by **Kashgar** » 07 Aug 2007, 14:55

When I was a kid, and balaclava helmets and gaberdine raincoats still roamed the Earth as de rigeur outerwear for small boys, my grandma would often try to curb my juvenile witterings with the remark 'Children should be seen and not heard'. This was a phrase no doubt culled from her own Edwardian childhood when kids either died before they were five or learnt to keep their own council for fear of incurring the wrath of a parent who modelled himself on Mr Murdstone or a teacher who saw little wrong with the methods of Wackford Squeers.
The reason I witter once again is that in the whole of my childhood I now realise that I must have taken my old grandma's saying to heart because, where comics were concerned at least, I never, ever made myself known to the guys in charge. Editors may have pleaded with me to drop them a line and tell them what I liked or didn't like about their publications but I never did, and now it seems quite strange to think that I was once part of the silent majority where comics were concerned.
What about the rest of you? Did you inundate editors with sacks of mail in praise of their comic output or otherwise? Are you responsible for carving out the contents of the comics that I loved so much or did you saddle me with wading through some of the dross that I didn't?
Please write in a tell me what you think, and remember the Letter of the Week gets bugger all!

Cap Haggis · Post by **Cap Haggis** » 07 Aug 2007, 18:08

I only wrote in once to a comic, and that was the The Mighty World of Marvel and my letter was not used - I have nurtured that grudge for over 30 years now - I used to scrawl out the odd letter to Valiant, Smash , Lion etc but never sent it as I wanted ott talk about the comics, story and artists and the letters pages were full of "intersting stories" about boiled sweets and socks - I never thought to write , what is now termed a fan letter to a UK comic at that time for some reason. When I got older I wanted to write to US books but I thought its USA they won't be interested in a wee lad from Scotland - Wish I had now especially to say how great Ken Reid was, and to drop "Adairs Anglicans" from Jet (I know that story is a cult with some almost the same with me but change a few letters

hated it, that and "Paddy McGintys goat" argghh)

I last wrote a silly fan letter of sorts to Leo Baxendale when ordering a book from Reaper Press about 9 years ago that consisted of a few words along the lines of "your great I loved "Swots and the Blots" work" natuarally I expected Leo to send me, along with my book, a lovley letter of thanks and a full page of "Swots and Bloots "artwork for praising him so highly but the tight bugger didn't I can't understand why

I had a few letters published in Fanzines though if htat counts.

Post by **AndyB** » 07 Aug 2007, 18:27

I wrote into 2000AD during Wilderlands!

colcool007 · Post by **colcool007** » 07 Aug 2007, 18:42

Never wrote in as a kid, but did write in to the Megazine a few years back. Karen's brother got a letter published in the Beano with a photo of him in a Dennis The Menace jumper! But I did join the Warlord Secret Agent Club! Still have that wallet! Can I get a new fangled transistor radio for my letter?

Steve Bright · Post by **Steve Bright** » 07 Aug 2007, 19:28

Sparky used to run feature where you could send in what you thought 'Sir' looked like in the Sparky People strip (he was never seen, other than one of his limbs doing unspeakable things to his staff through his office door).

I was pretty pleased with my effort, and comparing it to most of the other entries thus far, I thought I was pretty much a cert to have my picture published and win whatever fabulous riches were on offer.

I bought the comic for the next five weeks before vowing never to buy it again because my drawing wasn't picked. Well, how was I to know as a naive young twit that it'd take at least 8 weeks to filter through the system? They were lucky I waited five weeks - I was ready to give up after two.

The weirdest readers pages must have been the 'Dear Andy' feature in either Buddy or Crunch (help me out here, guys). It was a problem page for boys...with prizes. "Dear Andy. My parents are going through a bitter divorce and the cat got run over. Please can I have a calculator?".

A little known fact was that Andy wasn't really called Andy at all. The editors scoured Thomson Towers for the face that young lads could trust with their problems to be their Andy. The honour eventually went to the chief sub editor of Plug comic - a young man by the name of Euan Kerr.

I can feel Mr Ed cringing from here.

ROY ROGERS · Post by **ROY ROGERS** » 07 Aug 2007, 19:33

in over 45 years of reading comics i never wrote in once to a comic but i entered 1 contest in a 60s comic it was a british reprint comic of a live action disney film and you collect printed gold tockets to send of for gifts, [cant remember comic title range but have a number stored someware in my comic store room] anyway never won 1st prize which was a trip to the usa a big prize them days but i got sent a photo to me of hayley mills who i had a little school boy crush on, to me that was 1st prize . also none my my school pals never wrote in ,still most of them were muppets

Kashgar · Post by **Kashgar** » 13 Aug 2007, 15:31

Steve Bright wrote:Sparky used to run feature where you could send in what you thought 'Sir' looked like in the Sparky People strip (he was never seen, other than one of his limbs doing unspeakable things to his staff through his office door).

I was pretty pleased with my effort, and comparing it to most of the other entries thus far, I thought I was pretty much a cert to have my picture published and win whatever fabulous riches were on offer.

I bought the comic for the next five weeks before vowing never to buy it again because my drawing wasn't picked. Well, how was I to know as a naive young twit that it'd take at least 8 weeks to filter through the system? They were lucky I waited five weeks - I was ready to give up after two.

The weirdest readers pages must have been the 'Dear Andy' feature in either Buddy or Crunch (help me out here, guys). It was a problem page for boys...with prizes. "Dear Andy. My parents are going through a bitter divorce and the cat got run over. Please can I have a calculator?".

A little known fact was that Andy wasn't really called Andy at all. The editors scoured Thomson Towers for the face that young lads could trust with their problems to be their Andy. The honour eventually went to the chief sub editor of Plug comic - a young man by the name of Euan Kerr.

I can feel Mr Ed cringing from here.

Euan Kerr was the face of Andy, the Marje Proops of the Crunch office, from issue No 2 of that paper in Jan 1979.
And, as you rightly remember Steve, if your letter was particularly tragic you had the chance of foregoing your bog-standard ?2 PO, given out to the emotional also-rans, for the star prize of a Sinclair Cambridge Universal calculator.

Korkythecat · Post by **Korkythecat** » 13 Aug 2007, 16:11

I wrote only once to a comic - COR!! - and it was duly published on 24th June 1972. I have and cherish that copy, but the 25p postal order I won has long been spent....

I did write a couple of times to The Beano, too, but that was before they had a letters page (1970?), and both times I got a personal response on lovely, Beano Banner notepaper, now sadly lost.

Lew Stringer · Post by **Lew Stringer** » 13 Aug 2007, 16:23

I wrote to Fantastic but the comic was canceled before it would have been considered for publication.

I entered a competition in Valiant in the early seventies and won a little balsa wood glider. Didn't get my name published in the comic though.

I didn't tend to write to comics because their letters pages were usually full of "my dog ate my copy of Wallop and Grinner" or "My older brother reads my copy of Chortle before I do" and I thought them to trite to bother with. (The letters pages in the Odhams weeklies were the best.)

Lew

Brendan McGuire · Post by **Brendan McGuire** » 13 Aug 2007, 17:26

I sent two letters to TV Century 21. They weren't published, but I got two replies ( now sadly lost

). My letters were designs for toys for Agent 21 ( future travelling toy salesman and spy! ). I was so thrilled! I actually lost the second letter on the way home from primary school. I wept buckets when I discovered my loss. In fact I'm welling up right now!

brisey · Post by **brisey** » 14 Aug 2007, 08:36

I wrote to Battle-something about the distance my annual had come as there was a shortage in London at the time- a work colleague from Oban sent me one if memory serves me well.

I got an 1/24 Scale Spitfire and a slight celebrity status at my school for a short while.Which only goes to show that people did read the letters pages.

On loosely related topic picked up two Airfix catologues in a junkshop recently(70/1 and 71/2).Took me back and my school chums who I showed them to.Everyone seemed to have the 1/72 scale pontoon bridge playset.Was this just a South London thing

brisey

Kashgar · Post by **Kashgar** » 14 Aug 2007, 10:46

As I've said as a kid I didn't 'trouble the scorer' when it came to writing to letters pages in comics but I did get a Buster baseball cap and the, still cherished, accolade of being Buster's No 1 fan when I wrote in and told them of my complete collection of Buster's during the comics 25th birthday celebrations in 1985.

Kashgar · Post by **Kashgar** » 14 Aug 2007, 11:10

BTW I've just noticed that I seem to have been granted the title 'guru' as an appendage to my Kashgar moniker. I would like to point out that the addition of this nomenclature has nothing to do with me or any delusions of grandeur that I may have but thanks for the accolade all the same. Come to think of it Guru Kashgar has quite a nice ring to it. Maybe I should set up a cult. Now see what you've started!

Kremmen · Post by **Kremmen** » 14 Aug 2007, 12:29

I remember circa 1974 writing to the Hotspur when they were asking for jokes, so I sent them some - that i'd copied out of Whizzer and Chips! (Heh heh heh):oops: A few weeks later a large parcel came to my house. They'd offered a choice of prizes if your letter should be published, and I chose a swimming kit - snorkel, flippers and mask. The next issue of Hotspur I got after that had the jokes I'd sent in.

Then my little brother decided that he wanted some of the action, and because he couldn't write very well - also, he couldn't be bothered, little git - guess who got press-ganged into writing another lot of jokes to the Hotspur, in his name? Yep, me. Amazingly, they printed "his" stuff and sent him the prize he'd wanted - a ?1 postal order. (In that respect, he had more sense than me, 'cause my feet eventually grew too big for the flippers!

)

But it didn't stop there, oh dear me no. I'd got a Hotspur pen with my goodies, he didn't. Guess who got pressured into writing off, in his name, asking where his Hotspur pen was? When he got said pen I didn't dare try writing to the Hotspur again because I thought they'd have recognised that the handwriting on his and my letters was identical, and they'd think I was trying to pull a fast one on them.

Steve Flanagan · Post by **Steve Flanagan** » 14 Aug 2007, 22:14

I was supposedly the runner-up in a "design a spaceship" contest for the Gerry Anderson column in Look-In, but I never did get my prize (an Airfix model kit of an Eagle from Space:1999), or a reply to my letter asking if they'd sent it.

Thus began my lifelong history of anti-social cynicism.

Comics UK