DEAR SUPERGUYS (or: I Was A Teenaged Comic Book Letterhack)

I'm not sure exactly when I wrote my first letter to a comic book editor. I know I wrote a letter to DC Comics in the summer of 1970, when I was ten years old, asking if the good folks there would be willing to send me a copy of Superboy # 129 as a reward for bypassing fifth grade on my way to sixth grade that fall. Presumptuous? Duh. My letter did not merit a prompt response. I don't think it was my very first attempt at a "Dear Editor," but it's the earliest I can remember with any precision. If there were indeed earlier missives, they were also inquiries about securing elusive back issues from DC, albeit with a promise of appropriate payment. I got yer twelve cents; I got yer twelve cents right here.

In the '60s and into the early '70s, I was a near-insatiable fan of comic books, particularly superhero comic books, particularly DC and Marvel superhero comic books. I also read books from Charlton, Archie, Harvey, Gold Key, Dell, and later from Atlas and Warren. Besides my cherished costumed crusaders, I read funny animal, war, Western, humor, monster, and eventually some horror, too. I confess to occasionally peaking at romance books, because the girls were cute (and the artwork often gorgeous). Sad Sack. Where Monsters Dwell. Star Spangled War Stories. The Mighty Marvel Western. Forbidden Tales Of Dark Mansion. Tomb Of Dracula. Uncle Scrooge. Sgt. Fury And His Howling Commandos. The Lone Ranger. The Phantom. The Phantom Stranger. Master Of Kung Fu. Vampirella. The Scorpion. Archie's Pals & Gals. Dennis The Menace. The Super Cops. Tarzan. Conan The Barbarian. Fruitman, God help me. Plop! Spoof. Doomsday + 1. I read 'em all, and loved 'em all, right alongside my Justice League Of America and Avengers.



By the time I was 15 (and probably earlier), I was identifying myself specifically as a DC Comics fan. I continued to buy, read, and enjoy Marvels and others, for sure, but my primary allegiance was to the boys at 909 Third Ave and (later) 75 Rockefeller Plaza. Why DC? Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams, for starters. The work that writer O'Neil and artist Adams did on Green Lantern/Green Arrow and Batman (the latter often ably penciled by the underrated Irv Novick instead of Adams, all of it inked to stunning effect by Dick Giordano) just knocked me out, and the afterglow of that stuff kept me in DC's thrall. I dug Jack Kirby's Fourth World stuff, Len Wein's scripting on JLA, editor Joe Orlando's stewardship of Adventure Comics, O'Neil with Mike Kaluta on The Shadow, the return of the original Captain Marvel in DC's Shazam!, and the plethora of vintage reprints in DC's 100-Page Super Spectaculars. I still loved Marvel, but I was clearly a DC guy.

Which, I guess, is why all of my letters of comment went to DC books. As adolescence and early teens brought me a sense that I might want to become a writer, I sought the recognition and ego-stroke of seeing my name in print in DC Comics letter columns. I evolved from my previous letters asking how I could track down copies of The Spectre's 1966 appearances in Showcase to attempting fannish praise and pithy commentary. My reach far exceeded my grasp, and my hand-scrawled drivel was justifiably ignored by DC's editorial staff.

(I was only, like, twelve or thirteen when I began writing these letters in earnest, but I cringe to look back on them now. No physical copies survive, thank Rao, but I remember the sheer pimply cluelessness I exhibited therein. I wrote a letter to The Brave And The Bold's editor Murray Boltinoff, demanding that he explain his editorial policies to me, 'cuz I di'n't like his and B & B writer Bob Haney's disregard for continuity. I recall a letter to JLA which casually used profanity to make this immature soul seem mature. I signed off most of my letters with "Thanx," an attempt to create a signature gimmick for what I hoped would be an abundance of published letters of comment. Not a one of them saw print, nor did they deserve to see print. I cringe at their memory, and recognize them as the work of a square-peg kid in dire need of a girlfriend.)





I did begin to receive some form letter replies, and some form letters with annotation added. I recall a reply to a heartfelt letter I'd written to Batman editor Julie Schwartz, begging that The Batman's atmospheric noir adventures never again succumb to the campy approach of the mid '60s. Some time after that, our local hero Mailman brought me a letter ostensibly from The Batman hisself: a form letter with a classic Carmine Infantino Batman drawing and a note "Thanks for your nice letter, from The Batman." A more personalized postscript was typed in following The Batman's signature: "...who will eschew camp like cyanide from now on, rest assured!" Cool! Plus, I learned a new word with "eschew." I figured this meant my letter would soon see print on an imminent Letters To The Batman page, but it was not to be. I guess a letter from The Batman was all the recognition I required. Thanks, citizen!

Middle school passed by. High school commenced. I continued to buy and read comics, to try to write comics, and to write letters to the comics' editors. I walked home each day after school, and often made a side trip to the nearby Gold Star Pharmacy to see if any new comics were in. A pretty girl from my school worked there, but I never bothered trying to flirt with her while buying my comics--what would have been the point?--and she remained friendly and professional. Yvonne. Not her real name. One day during the Spring '75 semester, I stopped at Gold Star for my weekly fix. Among the haul was Superman # 289, and that contained my first published letter of comment.



Over the friggin' moon, man!

The letter itself was perhaps not much less embarrassing than my earlier, unpublished attempts. But no matter! Though it was just a silly letter gushing about how great Superman # 277 had been with its dazzlingly clever doppelgangers of Ernest Hemingway and Mason Reese--a combination one would rarely see otherwise--it was technically my first nationally-published piece of writing. It was a piece of something all right, but I was thrilled.

And again: no, you get a life.

For dramatic purposes, the part of Yvonne will be played by Ms. Yvonne Craig

I don't think I showed it to Yvonne at the drug store, though I did show her a subsequent letter published in Adventure Comics # 444. She was very polite. Somewhere in there, a letter in The Brave And The  Bold # 120's letter column mentioned in passing that "Carl Cafrelli" wanted to see Batman team with The Shadow, a request I do not recall making, but probably did. I don't know how many more letters of comment I wrote, but I do know I was trying to concentrate more and more on my own writing (and my collection of rejection slips from DC), so my letterhacking likely petered out around this time.



Then it was off to college. Nascent independence. An illusion of maturity. GIRLS! Success with girls, even. And, y'know, punk rock. I continued to read comics well into my freshman year at Brockport, 1977-78, but finally abandoned my four-color friends when Steve Englehart stopped writing Batman in Detective Comics; everything that came after that was a disappointment to me, so it was time to quit.

I mean, after I wrote one more letter.

My final letter of comment of the 1970s appeared in Detective Comics # 479, extolling the virtues of what Englehart and artist Marshall Rogers had done with The Batman, a short run that remains my all-time favorite series of Batman stories (even above O'Neil and Adams). With that, I was done with comics for the remainder of my college career.



(My love of comics did help me snag one little bonus perk in college. No, it wasn't a girl, though--oddly enough--my ostensibly hilarious impression of former DC Comics star Jerry Lewis did somehow convince a girl I already knew that I was suddenly irresistible. Ah, if Yvonne coulda seen me then...but I digress. During my freshman year, I wrote about comics and other topics in my assignments for Dr. Burelbach's Popular Fiction class. The following September, I wanted to get into a Fiction Workshop reserved for upperclassmen, so this mere sophomore had to plead his case to that course's instructor, Dr. Fitzgerald. Dr. Burelbach happened to be there in Dr. Fitzgerald's office when I arrived, so I mentioned that I'd taken his Pop Fic class the previous semester. This made for a much shorter interview than I was expecting. Fitzgerald turned to Burelbach and said, What do you think, Fred? Burelbach nodded toward me and said, Well, he's a brilliant writer. Fitzgerald turned back to me, smiled, and said, All right, you're in. Score one for the good guys.)




I returned to comics after graduating (early) from college in 1980. My return was slow and tentative at first, but eventually resumed with a fervor to match the fannish enthusiasm of my adolescence. In the '80s, I had a few letters published in Green Lantern and/or Green Lantern Corps (when Englehart was writing it) and in Batman (when Doug Moench was writing it), and I wrote an unpublished rant complaining about gratuitous violence in Justice League Of America. I started freelancing for the fan magazine Amazing Heroes in 1984, and I didn't write many letters of comment after that. I had one published in an issue of The Power Of Shazam! in the '90s (even though I didn't intend it as a letter of comment, just a note to accompany my request for Mr. Mind's Venusian Decoder Card), and finally my first and only published letter to Marvel Comics in 2016's Invincible Iron Man # 11. Marvel still has letters columns in its books; DC does not. I read 'em both anyway.

But I've always been a DC guy at heart. I have the letters to prove it.





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