Dear Sir...

Pete rushes off to Forbiden Planet to buy back issues to increase Tom's embaressment. Which issues Tom?

Answer nope. Writing to letters pages has always seemed awful dim.

Hmmmm...I've had letters published on teletext!...About 3 years ago.

One of them was in DOOM PATROL. I'm not saying where the other ones were without alcohol incentive.

It wasn't one of those comic book letters where they say "on panel 3 on page 11, the Flash had red boots on, but in panel 5 page 14, his boots had turned yellow" was it?

No no it was boring serious comments unfortunately. The best comic book letters are the ones accusing them of being godless leftist propaganda: I'd be much prouder if I'd written those.

Had a snooty teenage letter published in an early 'Love and Rockets' - it's as bad as coming across an old diary....

I wrote a letter to the NME compliaing that their feature interviewing election candidates asking the questions the Yoof want to know was crap because bugger me if I wanted to know what the last gig they went to was when they could actually be, like, running the country!

Hot Press, 3 or 4 letters. Irish Times, 2 letters. Irish Independent, 1 letter. I figure if I keep haranguing Hot Press they're going to give me a job, although I may have to be less caustic

I enjoy Richard Mackin's letters to companies

I en http://www.richmackin.org/CDCP/BOLmain/BooksOfLetters.html

The only time I've ever felt sufficiently moved to write in to a publication and the bastards (NME) made it letter of the week.

Basically it was me attacking one of the writers (Steven Wells) and defending Belle and Sebastian. He claimed their attitude of not playing the media game was snobbish and elitist. I argued that it was an act of independence, they triumphed by showing that a band can succeed on their own terms, without recourse to sucking corporate cock, and that Wells' response smacked of sour grapes.

Naturally the editor ripped my letter to shreds, (they always look after their own, dont they?), and with tactical editing made my arguments out to be incoherent. Not surprisingly that killed my letter writing bug pronto.

Nice title though, the banner for my letter was "The Boy With The Right Strop". That made me chuckle at least. :-)

I think the impulse to write letters to publications is pretty similar to the one that ends up with people posting here. Legitimately, I think I wrote one rather pompous letter to the Melody Maker when I was 17, complaining about the ideological contradictions of the writers. Later, I've wrote a dozen or so letters to help fill the letters pages of magazines I was working for...

Or even "I wrote..."

I had a letter published in Amiga Power many years ago berating them for stealing some of their feature ideas from Q mag, of all places. Unfortunately, I had signed off Happy New Year or some such since I was writing it in early Jan.

It got printed. In April. Their answer to it was 'Blimey, is that the time'.

Never mind that Mark, tell us how you wrote "Elastic Man".

i ate a jar of coffee, and then i took some of THEEEZE-UH!

Mark Morris is correct, lots of publications set the editorial staff to missive-writing to fill gaps in letters pages. At one publication I worked at for the bulk of this year, this meant the dep ed getting the work experience girls to write thinly veiled attacks of the fashion ed's aesthetic, etc (these had homophobic undertones, so much wrist- slapping ensued). At the Edgy Fash Mag I work at, lots of made-up letters criticising nepotism in the ranks - son of founder is an average photographer who has shamelessly used Dad's Filofax and his own prodigious talents at Celebrity Suckup to accrue a portfolio.

I used to forge letters for our school magazine when I was editing it. Usually ones of complaint about articles I'd not wanted to put in but had been made to by the school PTB i.e. ghastly illiterate reports on the progress of the rowing team, etc.

I wrote a letter to my uni paper defending one of my friends from an outrageous piece of slander. A good cause, but the over-the-top strident and angry tone makes me embarassed now, esp. since it's the first thing that pops up when I punch my name into Google.

(yeah, so where wuz hanle y m. when i wuz doing the nme letters page?)

I think the first letter I had published was in my local San Diego paper back in the mid-eighties regarding a mandatory seat-buckling law (I was in favor -- still am, actually), and I've had a few things since -- a random fan letter (oh yes!) to MM in 1991, at least one thing in the _LA Times_ regarding the 'Alien Autopsy' broadcast (good skeptic that I am, I was ripping into some stupid claims from the show's producer), and most recently something last year in the _OC Weekly_ in response to an article praising Pearl Jam. Figures.

Had letters [not intended for publication] in two issues of Forced Exposure & one in Conflict; they'd be embarrassing if I gave a shit. (Am friends today w/ couple other FE letter-alumni; connections made years after FE, odd how paths converged.) One letter 6-7 years ago in local current affairs mag — overly snipish first 1/2, still funny 2nd 1/2 — in response to article misquoting me. Surprised there's not more.

Well, I started a whole 'nother thread on ILM about my recent letter in Da Wire. Which I am only mildly embarassed about in retrospect. (Since I was drunk and heartbroken when I wrote it. And no, you wankers, not over Radiohead.)

I also had a letter published in the Incredible Hulk when I was 12. (I'm less embarassed about that one cuz I was a right smart 12 yr. old.)

Tom: what was your Doom Patrol letter about? I thought about sending a letter to the Invisibles after a few issues to tell Morrison to stop being so damn English (or Glasgewian or whatever the fuck he is) because I was sick of having to decode his references and slanguage (my how things have changed...and I mean that.) I think I shall go dig out my back issues and try to find yer letter now. ;)

I had a Frank Bruno's Boxing level code published in Crash magazine's cheats page once. Does that count?

I've had a few printed on teletext, including one about exactly why Ocean Colour Scene are rubbish, but I have to say that after using the internet the idea of submitting my thoughts to another forum where they can be edited out of all recognition doesn't appeal to me. [Tom - don't you dare fiddle with this post, or I'll keelhaul ya]

once in Alberta Report. They mocked me .
A couple of Letters to the Editor in the paper

Lets all write letters to the NME about the UK EMO scene!

I wrote to Melody Maker in the early 90s. I genuinely can't remember what it was about, all I can remember is that it was edited quite brutally - though, to be fair, the bit that was missing was certainly libelous - but what was left was a big non sequiter and thus I lost the coveted Letter of the Week corner to... Neil Kulkarni.

This year: two letters in the Guardian. One in the Independent. Under false names and "assumed" opinions, two in the Daily Telegraph.

As a child: letters in publications whose names I can *never* reveal. You've all heard of them, but my involvement is quite another thing.

I wrote a letter to Melody Maker when it was seriously ill (I think it was about a month or so before it finally passed away). It was after they did that "50 Ways In Which The Alternative Nation Is Fighting Back Against UK Garage And Pop Shite."

That was the last time I ever went near a copy of MM so I didn't see the copy in which it was printed. Apparantly, they didn't agree with what I was saying (essentially that MM sucked). Oh well, at least I'm still alive.

I also had one printed in my local paper about the very worrying amount of National Front stickers that had starting appearing in the area. They didn't print it when I initially sent it but then a month or so later, it emerged the NF central office had moved nearby at which point, they quoted the letter in an article about the growing problem.

Robin, why?

Robin: why?

Because it was, many years ago, "Junior Letters" in the Saturday Daily Mail. I think that's reason enough, Greg.

James: oh shit, in the suburbs thread I've just cited the part of south-west London / Surrey you live in as a kind of opposite to the far-right concentration in east and south-east London / south Essex / north Kent. Am I hopelessly naive here?

only ever once writ a letter to the ed. - it was a couple months ago, in response to a column by a fellow name of Frank Haden in our local news organ - you know those stupid old geezer columnists who do columns promoting right-wing ideas under the guise of bemoaning "abuses of the eng. lang." ? 1 of those. anyway frank h. had writ this bit to the effect of he doesnt normally find much to recommend the usage of modern teenagers but he had to applaud the "reclamation" of the word "gay" by the "baggy pants & backwards baseball hat brigade" (i paraphrase from memory) - my letter was a cold & patronising explanation of how actually this use of "gay" to mean "stupid", "feeble", whatever, was not a "reclamation" at all & blah blah blah, & i saw nothing there for a champion of "correct english usage" to applaud. They printed it a couple weeks later when everyone would've forgot about the orig. article....welll apparently they did , I dunno, I never saw it myself, I hardly ever read the fucking thing.

"You know those stupid old geezer columnists who do columns promoting right-wing ideas under the guise of bemoaning 'abuses of the eng. lang.'"

Unfortunately, yes, we have at least three national daily papers in the UK, plus their Sunday equivalents, that thrive on such things ...