You know,
Marvel and/or
DC were hardly the first one to come up with witty and/or snarky letters pages.
American Comic Group's letter columns, undoubtedly edited by
Richard E. Hughes, were triumphalist in a way that even
Stan Lee could be hard pressed to match.
And if you wrote a letter disliking one of the comics?
Uh-oh...
Ah, yes, of course. If Steve Johnston dislikes the stories, it's because they're over his head. Well played, sir. Half a century later,
Grant Morrison fans would use the same "
if you don't like it, it's because you're too dumb to understand it" line of defense to pummel anyone who dared to question the obvious brilliance of
Final Crisis...
Of course, Hughes would be defensive, as he was the writer of almost
all of ACG's output, under various pseudonyms...
From Forbidden Worlds #77 (1959)
True, but it should be remembered that Hughes could also (refreshingly) criticize his own work. I remember a story which readers praised in several letters; each time Hughes replied that they were wrong--the story wasn't any good.
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