Seen and not heard

[tolworthy]

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.

Those of us who did write are very grateful to those of you who didn't. It skewed the statistics so that the rest of us had a chance of getting published.

One of the first letters I wrote was to Krazy, just AFTER it ceased publiscation. To this day I can remember the exact words of the reply (or at least the start). it was from the Krazy editor, on posh Krazy notepaper, and began "I too mourn the demise of Krazy comic..."

And I remember entering the Jackpot comic competition "win your height in books." I wasn't a regular Jackpot reader (though the early issues were very good), but this competition appealed to me because, even as a young teenager, I was already over 6 foot. Alas I only won a single Jackpot annual. I suppose I should have been grateful...

I seem to recall conducting a one-boy letter writing campaign to get Marvel UK to reprint my favourite strip. They mentioned one of my letters in a bullpen page, because it was the biggest letter they'd ever seen. I'd got some black paint and some old computer printout paper (the big endless folding sheets) and written, one letter one each (very large) sheet, "BRING BACK THE FANTASTIC FOUR". It didn't work.

I also wrote a couple of letters that in hindsight were embarassingly pretentious and gushing (praise is always a good way to get published), and sent a picture which at the time I thought was the greatest art ever, but on reflection possibly wasn't.

Ah sweet memories.

[tolworthy]

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" naturally 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

Maybe he's just run out, since he was so generous in previous years? After reading A Very Funny Business (about 25 years ago) I sent him a fan letter and he sent me a Willy The Kid book. So I will not allow a word to be said against The Great Man.

About the same time I wrote a fan letter to Gordon Boshell (author of the Captain Cobbweb books) and he sent me a hardback copy of his latest tome. And I made a map of the Perishers town and sent it to Maurice Dodd and he sent me an original Perishers strip that hung on my wall for many years. He also phoned me up!

Encouraged by these freebies I wrote other fan letters. Around the same time I bought a book called "The Carpet People" from The Bargain Book Shop in Nottingham. It was illustrated by the author (who I think was a teenager) and would have made a good comic. I felt sorry for him since his book obviously didn't sell very well. There were hundreds of copies in that shop, reduced to just a few pence, and nobody was buying them. I was a going to write a fan letter to make him feel better, but I figured he can't have written any other books, so what could he send me? More important, it would sound like I was pitying him. So I never wrote that fan letter. I figured that the poor failed author didn't want to be reminded of his folly. Since then I often wonder what happened to the guy. I think his name was Terry Pratchett.

[Earl]

I wrote in to the Marvel UK comic 'Captain America' when I was a boy but nothing was published. My sister wrote into DC Thomson's Emma and had her letter and picture published.

Earl.