When Stan Lee spoke at Emerald City Comic-Con he dropped an interesting tidbit.
As a kid, he was a fan of Leo Edwards' now-forgotten Jerry Todd books. They were adventure stories "like the Hardy Boys, but with humor."
That's not a bad description of Stan's style of superhero comics. But a specific feature of the books had another, more particular influence: they had letters pages, with replies by the author. Hardbound books!
So that's the inspiration for the Marvel letters pages.
But Stan did something new: he printed full addresses. This allowed fans to write each other.
Most famously, Richard Pini contacted and wooed Wendy Fletcher after she had a letter printed in Silver Surfer. They married and gave birth to a bunch of elves.
But I think thousands of connections were made, fanzines concocted, adzines circulated, because of those pre-internet, printed addresses.
Here's a Leo Edwards tribute site. Everything has a page on the internet!
When I used to write letters to comics as a teenage boy, all it got me was fanmail from guys in prison. Nertz! :/
Posted by: Jamie S. Rich | March 21, 2010 at 10:33 AM
I probably owe Stan (or the assistant editor who picked the letters pages) for my entire career... I had a letter in X-Men #65 (15 cents!), which led to being contacted by other Oregon comics fans. Through them I discovered the world of apas and eventually people like you and Randy Stradley and Chris Warner and Mike Richardson and Randy Emberlin, all of whom became the beginnings of Dark Horse.
All that, and not a single letter from guys in prison...
Posted by: Mark Verheiden | March 23, 2010 at 03:01 PM
Mark I sure do appreciate your sciiernty and that you have taken the time to go through my reviews and my recommendations.Good luck with the programs and give me a holler if I can answer any questions for you. Most Sincerely, Tanya Chadwick
Posted by: Alan | May 28, 2012 at 04:50 PM
Hey, I'm 44yrs old and I can still remember when my mohetr got soooo excited that they were making fake trees back in the 70 s because she is like Nicole with the mess, the smell, the hassle, the dirt, the water, the needles, getting it in and out of the door, etc, etc, etc. So for the better part of my childhood and till this day, my mohetr has not allowed a real tree in her house! It just never felt right to me .a tree is suppose to be real, messy, needles on the floor, smell in the house, etc, etc. When I moved out on my own, landlords were not so open to real' trees so I did have a small fake 3ft one .but I was alway home for Christmas anyway, so it didn't matter. But I swore that when I got my own house, I would always have a real tree in my house. I've been married for 14yrs now and own house, and myself and my husband have had a real tree ever since. I will ALWAYS have a real tree with it's dirt, smell, needles, sap, SPIDERS (yup .they hatch when the tree hits heat! Bug spray is ready! LOL!!), etc., etc, etc . That is what it is all about!!!!!!!!! We love going to the tree farm and picking out our tree for that year it is a family tradition we started and our 7yr old daughter can't wait to go pick it out! I will say, real trees are not for everyone, and while I personally prefer a real one, I don't think that either makes or breaks a Christmas .it's the feeling that the decorated tree brings to a room .and the people around it!!!!!!! Merry Christmas and Happy Honnuka you guys .love your show!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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