Saturday, August 8, 2020

POP-A-LOOZA: Dear Superguys (or: I Was A Teenaged Comic Book Letterhack)



Every week, the pop culture website Pop-A-Looza shares some posts from my vast 'n' captivating Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) archives. The latest shared post is my look back at writing letters to comic book editors when I was an adolescent and teen in the '70s, "Dear Superguys."

I still buy and love comic books, though I've reduced my weekly pull list by a bit. I'm mostly a DC Comics guy, with Action Comics, Amethyst, AquamanBatman, Batman The Adventures ContinueDetective Comics, Harley QuinnHawkmanLegion Of Super-Heroes, Shazam!Superman, and Young Justice surviving recent purges of the list. Other than the Marvels Snapshots series of one-shots, I think the only Marvel Comics title I still get is Dr. Strange, though I just added the forthcoming Mark Waid-Neal Adams Fantastic Four: Antithesis mini-series. I buy all of the AHOY Comics books. I was interested in the new Green Hornet and Bettie Page series from Dynamite, but I'm dropping all Dynamite books until I'm satisfied the company has severed ties with an odious right-wing group opposed to diversity (the sort of group we usually refer to as Fascists, and the sort superheroes characteristically smack in the ol' schnozzola). I'm still getting BOOM Studios' various Buffy The Vampire Slayer books. I think I've forgotten a book or two, but this provides a fair picture of the comic books I buy now.



I don't write letters to comics editors anymore. My last was a letter published in Invincible Iron Man # 11 in 2016. I also don't retain as many comic books in my collection; I hang on to some of them, but donate a number of them to the Rescue Mission once I've read them. My overall interest in superheroes hasn't dimmed at all. I read the comic books, and I watch the movies and TV shows (Stargirl is great!). I'm still a fan.



And once upon a time, I was a fan who wrote letters to the people who created the comics I loved. "Dear Superguys" is the latest Boppin' Pop-A-Looza.



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1 comment:

  1. I guess I didn't realize Waid was writing Adams' latest. That might be enough to get me to try it. I won't buy anything Adams writes himself. I now know what people the generation ahead of me felt when they read Kirby's second Marvel books - Adams writing just doesn't work for me, and while his art is still good, I do not like how he uses computer coloring either. I guess I'm a grumpy old man now.

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