Hot take: Most comic fans skip the letters pages and that's a huge mistake

I collected comics for nearly 15 years before I ever read a single letters page. I'd flip right past them to get to the next issue. Then about 3 years ago I picked up a random issue of Fantastic Four from my local shop in Cleveland and decided to actually read one while waiting for my friend. Those pages are gold. You get inside jokes between fans and creators, corrections on continuity errors, and sometimes even early hints at future plots. I felt like I'd been missing half the conversation this whole time. Now I read every letters page first before the actual story. Has anyone else realized they were skipping something obvious for years?

2 comments

2 Comments

jason5242d ago

Wait, what's the best example you've found so far? I'm trying to remember if I've ever stumbled on a real plot hint in a letters page or if it was just inside jokes and corrections.

smith.ray2d ago

You're really making this sound like some kind of secret club or hidden treasure. I've been reading comics on and off for maybe 20 years and I've glanced at letters pages plenty of times. Most of it is just people patting the creators on the back or asking dumb questions like "when is Venom coming back." I remember one time in a 90s X-Men issue someone claimed they spotted a hint about Onslaught in a letters page and it turned out to be just some fan theory that never panned out. The real plot hints usually come from interviews or official previews, not some random fan's letter. Inside jokes are fun sometimes but it's not like you're losing half the story by skipping them.