By Ronnie Blair
As a boy in the 1960s, I enjoyed few things better than buying 12-cent comic books and immersing myself in the adventures of Spider-Man, Batman, the Flash and the Avengers. The crimefighting and universe-saving drew me in, but the cheap pulp-paper pages had other enticements as well: advertisements for X-ray glasses, Sea-Monkeys, and the Charles Atlas muscle-building method that would “make you a new man.”
The best feature of all, though, was the letters page, where comic book readers mailed in their praises and criticisms.
The idea that my name and my words could appear in a comic book was intoxicating. One day, filled with eight-year-old hubris, I took a piece of lined notebook paper, picked up a yellow No. 2 pencil marred by bite marks, and scribbled my thoughts about a story in one of DC Comics’ Superman titles.
I am unsure what intellectual insights I shared with the DC editor, but I placed my letter in the mail, confident that the U.S. Postal Service would grasp the magnitude of the moment and whisk my words off to New York City without delay.
Then I waited. Weeks passed. I read more comic books and more letters to the editor, always with the knowledge that my letter was out there, by now in the hands of an impressed editor eager to share my third-grade brilliance with Superman readers.
The day arrived when my letter should appear and I bought the issue, skipped past the story and the Sea-Monkeys ad, and turned to the letters page to revel in my victory.
Except there was a problem.
Several letters appeared from readers commenting on the issue that I had written about – and with nowhere near the same flair, I am certain – but my name and words were not to be found. Instead of admiring my epistolary efforts, some jaded editor had tossed my letter into a wastebasket. Perhaps New York City rats exploring a back-alley dumpster had the chance to marvel at my writing.
Who had I been kidding? Sophisticated comic book editors had no need for the prose of 8-year-old boys living in the Kentucky back hills. The failure stung and, with that single rejection, I gave up comic book letter writing.
At least I did until March 1972 when, for reasons now forgotten, I gave it another go. I was 14 and that extra six years of wisdom allowed me to approach my mission strategically. It had been a mistake to target a popular Superman title with stiff competition from other letter writers. The smart thing was to zero in on a less-beloved comic book. I turned to Weird War Tales, a newer comic that mixed the military battlefield with the supernatural.
By now I owned an electric typewriter. I positioned my fingers on the home keys, just the way my eighth-grade typing teacher instructed, and wrote:
I have just finished reading Weird War Tales #5, and I thought it was great. Once again you have printed a comic that exceeds all others in this category. Your theme about escapes has been the best since this comic started. I especially liked “The Toy Jet.”
Admittedly, the prose did not hum. Introspection was lacking. But it was at least succinct and grammatical. I folded the letter, tucked it into an envelope, and walked to a mailbox that stood at a street corner near my house.
Life continued. I finished eighth-grade and spent the early summer days swimming in a river with a pal. He and I explored our small world, walking the railroad tracks from one part of our coal-mining community to another, playing basketball at neighborhood hoops or challenging each other to footraces in the hills. And then one day I entered the Rexall drugstore where a new shipment of comic books had arrived. On the spinner rack was Weird War Tales No. 7. I turned to the letters page, haunted by memories of an 8-year-old’s dashed hopes, and scanned letters submitted by readers from Glendale, California, and from Seattle, and from Seattle again.
Then there it was. My letter. My words. My name. My hometown.
Around me, oblivious drugstore clerks and customers went about their lives as if this were just another ordinary day. As I paid for Weird War Tales No. 7, I resisted flipping open the comic book and showing the cashier that this was a historic moment the store needed to record for posterity.
Over the next few years, I wrote many more letters to comic books. Most shared the same fate as my earliest effort, but more than 20 saw print. They served as preparation for an eventual career as a journalist and my work today as a public relations writer. The comic book editors on the receiving end of my letters taught me a valuable lesson. Rejection never feels good but it is not kryptonite.
You will emerge heroically to write again.
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Ronnie Blair is lead writer in public relations for Advantage Media and Forbes Books. Previously, he worked for daily newspapers for more than three decades. He is author of the memoir Eisenhower Babies: Growing Up on Moonshots, Comic Books, and Black-and-White TV.
