COMICS CULTURE SHRAPNEL from CBEM 279
I happen to like letter columns. In fact, I like them very much. I like to read them. The good columns usually don't print the usual hand-job praise letters talking about how cool so-and-so is and why the art kicked "@$$" and the ever annoying "wow, s/he can't be dead!" Those are boring, shallow, and pointless. I like the meaty columns where people talk about what books and music might go good with the comics, or point out the literary or cultural references, and well, letters that aren't afraid to pointedly and directly attack the work, pointing out the flaws and fallacies in style and content. They're interesting.
Even if the letter col sucks, I always appreciated having one in the book because it served as validation that other fans existed. Before having a computer, I could never be sure. I had no comic-reading friends, and the local store was always empty when I went in. So I looked to the letter columns. They create the feeling of community. I read a very scholarly (and perhaps somewhat pretentious) book recently called "Comic Book Culture" that discussed how important letter columns were in creating and nurturing that culture. In no other medium does the reader have this form of feedback, wherein their opinion becomes a piece of the finished product. This helped create the core of readers which now keeps the industry limping along. Maybe it's detrimental? Perhaps. Letter columns do have a way of harshly excluding outsiders, and it's been often said that the only way this medium will survive is by attracting new readers.
According to a recent Warren Ellis "Come in Alone" column, ridding comics of the letter cols is one step to a mature medium. He gave examples from movies and novels and explained how audience feedback is never included in the work, but this comparison can't stand because of one detail. Movies and novels are permanent. You can rent or buy videos and purchase paperbacks in stores for an indefinite but long period of time. At this juncture, comics really aren't stable in that sense. They're periodicals, like magazines and newspapers, which do have letter columns. And periodicals should be and are disposable. To argue otherwise is to give in to the collector mentality. Manga is disposable, and yet it composes some 40% of Japan's publishing output. Maybe what we need is to reinforce the idea of comic books as disposable. Comic strip collections and manga collections sell rather well, partly because few people will save newspaper clippings or manga magazines. Newspapers are cheap and disposable. Manga magazines are cheap and disposable. I don't buy many comics because they cost too much for so little, but I do buy lots of collections and original work in book form because I usually get bang for my buck.
What does any of that rambling have to do with the letter columns? Well, pulp magazines also present narratives and they have letter columns. It's just the nature of periodicals. You want to eliminate reader letters from comics? Then we need to move away from the transient nature of comics. If comics are to mature, they need to settle down into a more permanent format. Permanence is a large part of growing up. And I know we all want comics to grow up.