Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! 1970s letter columnists

I always enjoy reading the letters columns in the back issues from the 1970s.

There were several people that were in almost every column.

T M Maple comes to mind right off.

Who do you remember and are any of them still around?

Thomas Fatsi! Why, he has his own thread devoted to him here. I think I'll bump it!

Al and Barbara Shroeder (mainly in the Superman books)

There were the Wu sisters all over the DC books... more early 80s, though.

There were a lot of regulars I used to be able to name.

Jody Wade Hamby had a letter published in practically every issue of L.E.G.I.O.N. I was fascinated by him because he was from Tennessee!

Not from the 70's, but I definitely appeared in the 80's.....

I wrote a total of 2 letters a few years ago, and my second letter was published in Legion Worlds # 6. Glad I got one in while the lettercols existed...

Thought your name was familiar.

The Mad Maple, better known as T M Maple is no longer with us.

He wrote letters to comics from 1977 to 1994, generally well thought out ones, and was respected by both fans and some editors. He died of a heart attack in February 1994.

His real name was Jim Burke.

There are a couple of archives for him online, but this is the only one I can find right off that's still up:

http://webpages.csus.edu/~sac53175/maple1.htm

If someone could find a definitive list of what comics TM Maple wrote positive letters to, I would buy all of them. :-)

That could be an interesting - or at least quirky - anthology: the greatest fan letters of the 60s-90s.

Many of the letter column titles are quite clever, too - as some threads here have discussed.

I don't know if a letters column would succeed today - the ones that do remain seem to draw heavily from their internet message boards, not from actual written letters, so the thoughts expressed have often already been read by other fans.

I've wondered exactly the same thing FC. Could a letters column even survive on only snail mail letters in this day and age? That was the problem (as I saw it) with the column during DnA is that it drew so much from the DCMB that we'd already seen and debated online.

Still though, the Legion has always been one of those progressive books and taken risks on ideas that nobody else has even considered yet. I really wonder if perhaps it's an idea who's time has come? There are still a heck of a lot of people that don't have internet access and the thrill of seeing fans names in print in a comic is a really powerful attraction.

I'd love to see a new letters page that didn't draw heavily from the message boards and I think the Legion is the sort of book that attracts readers across all age groups that might be interested in writing.

I had a letter published in something or other back in the 80s, but damned if I can remember what book it was.

Thanks to THE MESS for the info about T. M. Maple. I didnt know any of that stuff, sorry to hear of his passing.

I was always hoping to one day meet, or at least talk online, with T.M. Maple.

*sigh*

We should find see if we can find his birthday and make it a holiday in the forum.

As for letters pages in comics, I think they're missing a bet by not having them. Even if they just take a "Best of our online forum" approach, it still serves to encourage fannish behavior on the part of their readers, and having fans is always better than having readers.

I know I'd spend time on the DC forum if I had a chance of getting a post printed in the actual comic. Id evin spel chek mi wurdz! :-)

I had a few letters published in BLUE DEVIL, and one in INFINITY INC.

Some of the letter writers I remember:

Kent Phenis
Mike Sopp
Dale Roberts
Beau Smith
TM Maple

Boy ... I miss those days ...

I remember Ed Via, who must have had a letter published every other issue or so. Also, the Wu sisters showed up quite often.

On a slightly different note, I was reading an issue of the Avengers from the early '70s, and there was a letter by Stephen R. Donaldson. Guess he went on to better things...

Old letter writers never die, they live on in the quarter bin...

I was reading an old copy of The Question (Denny O'Neill version) - from the illustrious quarter bin - and there was a very thoughtful letter by none other than T.M. Maple!

I saw a letter from Scott Gibson in an old Avengers the other day. He must have had a letter in just about every comic in the late '70s.

And thus fascination becomes.... obsession!

I like the Mess's idea about making T.M. Maple's birthday a LW holiday!

I would definatley be behind that.

I had one letter published back when the main series started becoming reprints of the Baxter Version. It was about one of the issues where Brainy and Dawnstar were trapped on that weird planet.