I’ve been writing notes to comics’ letterpages on a fairly regular basis for a few years. Mostly I do this because I realized that while I could write online reviews, I would probably have more of a direct line to the people that make the comics, and thus an ever-so-slightly greater influence on what they make, if I just wrote in directly.
I write about all kinds of things–I happily fan-gush over great issues; I talk about the particular writers and artists on a book; I criticize stuff that should never have been published; I try to point out when characters from marginalized backgrounds, especially women, are used well or used poorly.
Most of my published letters are in Marvel comics, partly because I get a lot of Marvel comics, but also because they have the most active lettercols. I also make a point of writing to smaller publishers that may get less feedback.
I’ve had fifty-one letters published so far: in Black Panther vol. 9, #s 3 and 6; Daredevil: Woman Without Fear vol. 2, #s 3 and 4; Destro #2; Exceptional X-Men #s 10, 12 (two letters in this issue!), and 13; Fantastic Four vol. 6, #s 12, 25, 30, 41, 44, and 48; Fantastic Four vol. 7, #s 2, 3, 4, 7, 10, 16, and 18; Grendel: Devil’s Crucible: Defiance #1; Grendel: Devil’s Odyssey #s 3 and 7; Hellcat vol. 2, #4; Magik #4, 6, and 10; Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu vol. 2, #2, 4, and 10; Scarlett #4; Scarlet Witch vol. 4, #s 5 and 6; Spider-Woman vol. 6, # 5; That Texas Blood #20; The Power Fantasy #10 and 13; The Thing vol. 4, #5; Transformers vol. 6, #4, 16, 18, and 26; Uncanny X-Men vol. 6, #s 2, 10, and 20; X-Factor, vol. 5, #3; and X-Men vol. 8, #s 13, 16, and 21. Some issues’ lettercols are more than one page, and are shown as a whole below. Please note that because I had two letters published in Exceptional X-Men 12, that means I have 51 letters in 50 issues (for those of you counting along at home!).
Another letter was not published, but was given an extensive treatment in the lettercol. Brian K. Vaughan wrote in Saga #70 that he had received a pink postcard with writing on both sides that he really liked, but that he had lost, and talked about his frustration at losing it at length, then wrapped up the letters page for that issue 3 pages later with another reference to it. This was my card.
Another non-published letter was due to the timing…in the sense that I wrote it five years too late. In 2024, I wrote to The Wicked + The Divine after reading several issues I found in a dollar bin. The only challenge here is that the series ended in 2019. The WicDiv lettercol was an intrinsic part of the book, with writer Kieron Gillen making various running jokes, such as creating bespoke “ok to print” acknowledgement lines for each issue, and always replying to a prolific letterhack, Cam, with the same friendly “Thanks, Cam” response. I felt like there is no reason a letter column, especially one with an email, should be anchored in time to just when the comic is actually being produced. We still have opinions and responses to comics, no matter how long ago they were published, so I decided to just write in–and I got an almost instant response from Gillen saying, “This was all really touching, Chris. Thanks for doing it.” So props to Kieron Gillen for confirming that lettercols are eternal and atemporal!
One of my remarks in Fantastic Four was also commented upon by another letter-writer in issue #46, who referred to and disagreed with my earlier point (my letter in vol. 7 then commented on that reader’s letter). The editor in the Hellcat issue noted that I am “one of our most devoted letter writers.”
I was also given a special mention in Avengers Forever vol. 2, #4, for a contest to name all the characters on the cover. (I had jokingly used a variant cover that displayed numerous costumes for the Scarlet Witch, so I just sent in a diagram noting all the instances of the Scarlet Witch on the cover. Both that letters page and my diagram are included below.)
My first letter to Fantastic Four resulted in me receiving a No-Prize, the non-award greatly sought after by comic letter writers. It is given to letterhacks who explain why something that seemed to be a continuity mistake was not, in fact, a mistake, thus preserving Marvel’s infallibility. I was all the more excited to get my particular No-Prize, because it was on a Molecule Man-related topic, and Molecule Man is my favorite character.
(In the past, a No-Prize was an empty envelope you got in the mail; now it is a JPG of a photo of an empty envelope, thus being even more of a No Prize than before, which is great.)
One thing I prize about fan culture is the reciprocal connection between creators and the fans. This exists in all kinds of forms, including just talking at cons, but the letterhack tradition is a great one, in my opinion, because it is one of the few opportunities for fans to voice their opinion and have it formally ensconced in the official publication that they are a fan of–i.e., they write about a comic, then their letter gets printed in that comic. Then other fans read it, and it creates further conversation among fans, continuing the cycle. Some of the greats, such as T.M. Maple and Uncle Elvis Orten, had hundreds if not thousands of letters printed. This cycle has additional emotional potency for the fans when one considers that several artists and writers (such as Jo Duffy, Mark Gruenwald, Frank Miller, Diana Shutz, Fred Hembeck, Cat Yronwode, Kurt Busiek, Ralph Macchio, and J.M. DeMatteis) had letters published in letter columns before they started their professional career. Other continued to write in to their peers who they felt deserved support, as Bill Mantlo and others did to American Flagg, for example. A few interesting examples include a letter from Duffy in Ms. Marvel 11, in the midst of her transition from fan to staffer; a letter from Macchio that editors Archie Goodwin and John Warner praised in Deadly Hands of Kung Fu 22 which might have helped lead to him becoming assistant editor of that same mag soon after in number 26; a letter-writing-based experiment in Avengers 187 by Yronwode; a fan writing in to Avengers (vol. 3) 38 to discuss then-current Avengers writer Busiek’s long-ago fan letter to Uncanny X-Men; and two letters, in Iron Man 109 and 112, from Hembeck, the first being a transcript of a comic-formatted letter and the second being an actual comic-formatted letter. Wendy Fletcher and Richard Pini first got in contact after he was impressed with her letter to Silver Surfer (vol. 1) 5–as was itself described in American Flagg 8’s backmatter–leading to their marriage and their co-creation of Elfquest.
Finally, connecting my cosplay and overall fandom work, I submitted my Jack of Hearts costume to Marvel’s Costoberfest 2019 online cosplay contest and had it featured in week 4.
Chris Wildrick 
