Sunday, May 13, 2012

Or It Could Be Something Special Just for Me


By Dan Hagen
Remember the first letters you ever got in the mail, what a thrill they were?
I was impressed to get a reply from Marvel Comics, before they were even called Marvel Comics, after I wrote them a letter about all the familial bickering in the early issues of the Fantastic Four. Too young to appreciate the drama, I found that unsettling. Even caught in a death trap, the Justice League members never seemed to so much as raise their voices.
A little later, with my age still in the single digits, I got a nice, serious and friendly reply from the famed anti-comic book psychiatrist and author Fredric Wertham after I wrote asking him why he hated my beloved Superman. He replied that he did not and gave me an age-appropriate explanation of his views. It is clear, in retrospect, that Wertham cared a great deal about children’s welfare.
That first letter addressed just to you. It’s another of those little defining pleasures that today’s children will likely never experience, along with the wonder of books and magazines spread like a rainbow across a newsstand and the mouth-watering cozy-warm-sweet smell of a small bakery the moment you walk in.
This letterhead must have thrilled any number of kids in the late 1940s.

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