Writing To Tharg

[Funt Solo]

I feel relieved to have wiped away the opposition with a quick dispatch.

Please donate my winnings, like last time.

[I, Cosh]

Feel free to donate them to me. I told Tharg that it was a shame Dom Reardon didn't get a crack at a Cabs cover: after all he's had eighteen months to squeeze one out.

[Buttonman]

Donation made - good karma for you Funt and shame on you bad Cosh!

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Good that something worthwhile can come from something so worthy.

[Funt Solo]

Huzzah!

My star letter non-awarding may (as you keep helpfully pointing out) be something like 0/30, but my Letters Us Entertain You competition wins are 2/2.

And we all know which is more important.

[Buttonman]

2 from 3 - I managed to finagle the cottage cheese one in spectacular fashion.

[Funt Solo]

How could I forget the cottage cheese - it was cruelly censored from my letter by an edit-happy Tharg.

[Buttonman]

Before any pedant points it out can I just confirm that I'm aware it was Chief Judge Goodman who condemned Dredd in the ball dropping exercise at the start of the Day the Law Died, but Chief Judge Griffin who used the veto to save him after the Judge Child Quest.

Came to me during my mid-morning shower - how foolish did I feel?!

[Funt Solo]

It's been a while since we've seen any of the Council of Five's balls drop.

[Buttonman]

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Well, weâ??re back after an intensive two week team building cruise around the Med. Well if a buffet queue and a boat load of old duffers is intensive that is. Sadly our Bill Savage t-shirt drew not a glance but at least we won the 14 day team trivia challenge. Tough gig it was too. Well hereâ??s a sample Q & A offered by one of our rivals:

Q: In which film did Arnie utter the line â??Consider this a divorceâ???
A: Robot Cop

That was wrong on so many levels, and we felt it a bit unfair when we got ejected from the lounge for berating the old bag for 20 minutes over  her maniacal wrongness.

The other one that may have highlighted the age bracket of our rivals was:

Q: Which company uses the marketing phrase â??Iâ??m lovinâ?? itâ???
A: Batchelorâ??s Soup

Still a win is a win, and if we donâ??t all die from Turkish mosquito bites or Greek donkey shit infections we are back revitalised and ready for the year  end onslaught. This  will culminate with an letters based extravaganza  and review together with the crowning of the new letters champion. Great prizes have already been secured (Island Cruises t-shirt and book mark) and itâ??s all up for grabs with several contenders vying for the title. Itâ??s almost as exciting as the last half hour of â??Robot Copâ??.

So on with the action and although three mags and two letters pages awaited our return it was with some disappointment we noted that they consisted of only seven letters in total. Thatâ??s a mean of  2.333 per publication which is size zero at best. Bring back the BishOp with his 21 gun salutes to the letter writing art!

First up is Prog  1564 which has a slim three nuggets of excitement and a huge fuck off sized reservation coupon. Surly Tharg knows comic fans donâ??t cut up their mags by now? Maybe he only got three good letters - people have been on holiday you know!

Taking centre stage with the LETTER of the WEEK is old pal James Feist of Hampshire. James sees his 14th offering hit pay dirt here and thatâ??s a good strike rate since his first in Prog 1274 in 2002. This is his second LETTER of the WEEK and his Prog to Meg ratio is stretched to 8:6. He does have bugger all chance of being the coveted â??Lettersmith of 2007â?? as this is his first entry to see light this year.

His letter is a good one although it does tread some familiar ground. His deliberate wrong footing of self finale was seen from Malta but all in all itâ??s decent, workmanlike stuff.

Serial scribbler Richard Kavanagh of Eire is up next and celebrates his 19th listing with this offering. Like his letters cohort Grant Goggans heâ??s never seen print in the Magazine and thatâ??s given a pretty favourable rate for the Euro. Maybe heâ??ll finally catch that Leprechaun and secure a Megazine subscription. There again maybe he has and all his Megazine letters blow big chunks. Maybe heâ??ll add a post and let us know.

Again the letter is OK stuff but we certainly take exception with the epithet â??Babyâ?? being applied to Tharg - show some respect you damned Mick! His run through of the ABCâ??s storyline is most illuminating, but only if you are in the slow reading group at school or on table 6 at Team Trivia

Picking up the rear is Mark Solomon of Australia. Surprisingly this is the first Cobber to show face this year. We were all upset at Steve Irwin dying but youâ??ve got to move on, Mates. Letters God Floyd Kermode has been AWOL for ages and as soon as the budget allows weâ??re setting off on a mission to find him. Mark scores his first six with this entry, his first since Prog 1490 in 2006. He has yet to get on the LETTER of the WEEK podium a distinction he shares with Linton Porteous amongst others.

The judgement of Solomon is â??GREATâ??  and is also wrong. The quickly forgotten â??Grey Suitâ?? is labelled a â??classicâ?? and similar unlikely praise is heaped on  â??Stone (cold) Islandâ??. Still heâ??d probably had a few tinnies when he sent the pigeon.

Moving over to the Megazine (265) we meet up with regular writer James Mackay of sunny Cyprus. James opens some retsina over his 8th letter and significantly his 4th of 2007. He holds a near monopoly on the  Mackay name surrendering only one entry to Andrew who had an alien joke published way back in Prog 49 (1978).

James recently turned some Mongolians on to thrill power and  will probably take care of the Martians next if his Pro-Satanus stance is to be believed. We do like a bit of letters debate in the letters pages but to have three letters all saying the same thing is a fast plane to Dullsville. He goes on to cuddle up to previous scorer Tony Coles over the Anderson misfire and things only become clear in his final sentence. His cup runs over - with gin we think or possibly that ropey Sangria we once had in Fig Tree Bay.

Scott Ferguson shows us his lucky 13 next, well as lucky as anyone can be living in East Kilbride. Scottyâ??s long career stretches back to Prog 794 in 1992 and this is his 3rd entry this year. This letter answers a previous letter that was itself and answer to another. We are as letters mad as it gets and even we find this a bit anal. Come on, think of the new blood who gently reaches for this, their first letters page, only to be scared away for ever more by a lot of chat about some stuff from ages ago.

The only cherry popper this issue is up next and itâ??s Stephen Barfield of Essex - he must be the last one from there. Stephen, who spells his name in the correct form, is also on the Satanus debate bandwagon and frankly this mass-debate is a load of wank. Clever eh? Stephen is the second Barfield to make the grade following from Adrian of Oxford in Prog 699 in 1990.

Last up, and thank God for that as my ravioli is nearly ready , is Laurence Oâ??Rourke form Edinburgh. Laurence scores his 5th hit this month with his year total at a healthy 2. He also beats his last year total of 1. His letter is a good old fashioned moan which is let down by the use of exaggeration - weâ??ve told you two times not to do that! He also talks piffle of stuff being on the internet as if itâ??s news - come on even the Weggies have the net nowadays you know! He would have scored a few more hits if heâ??s accentuated the positive, not spoken the obvious and not used words like â??papâ?? and â??claptrapâ??. Other than that heâ??s on an all time high!

With only three qualifying Progs to go this year (Prog 2008 will have a 2007 cover date) the action is as hot as this rash we brought back from our holidays. Hopefully Tharg will see the year out in style with a 3 from 3 hit ratio - make it so Mighty One!

[Tiplodocus]

You know, and I'm being DEADLY SERIOUS here, you could write up an amusing article about the letters (the nutty debates, the nutters, Floyd) in 2000ad and the Megazine and send it in to them.

It would be miles more entertaining than the filler (17 Best Movie Deaths!) we are fed and would also make an amusing footnote to Thrill Power Overload.


I also think Tharg could do a CHOICE CUTS FROM THE MESSAGE BOARD box-out if he's running short of letters.  There's always a couple of laugh out loud comments worth repeating to the larger readership.

[vzzbux]

Yeh but to some creators our views from the message board dont count.



V

[Buttonman]

When The Letters Beast was first completed I wrote to Tharg about it, but ironically (or should that be correctly?!) it wasn't printed. I did get one printed asking about Messageboard comments being used as as an addition to letters but it merited a withering response. Something about get writing lazy arses.

A readers' imput feature over the years could be fun, but sadly only to about 6 people.

I do agree about that movie deaths feature - that was read it through the fingers bad. At least two from inside my head and others from Star Wars novels? Pile o' pish.

[Dounreay]

WOO HOO!

I got me a by-line on the letters review thread!

I'm made up at that.

Suddenly cool blokes want to hang with me and beautiful women want my children.

[Dark Jimbo]

His letter is a good one although it does tread some familiar ground. His deliberate wrong footing of self finale was seen from Malta but all in all itâ??s decent, workmanlike stuff.

Huzzah! Faint praise in the eyes of some, perhaps, but seeing as I was expecting one of Button's merciless savagings for my modest effort, I'm well chuffed with that.

I've begun avoiding the obvious route of just reviewing the thrills one by one and trying hard to come up with more interesting points to make.
Apoligies for the obvious finale, but a joke always goes down well, I thought, and I was determined to get printed (so that I could finally appear on Letters Entertain You, of course). Letter of the Week was just a bonus.

Off to read my free graphic novel I go!

[Buttonman]

Ah there you are. Come on in out of the cold and join this non-denominational year end (sorry Chinese readers!) celebration. The drinks have been poured and the funny ties tied so draw a chair up to the fireside and enjoy a reflective look at the years letters. Although there are no losers in letters land there are of course winners, with the Megazine, 2000ad and Overall champion berths waiting to be filled.

The first journal to finish itâ??s year was the Megazine, so weâ??ll begin there.

We all remember the horrors of 2006 during which only 29 letters were published - in total!. Indeed it was from this tragedy that this campaign was born and weâ??re happy to report that the first green shoots of recovery have been sighted. This yearâ??s total was 37 a mighty  21.8% increase. This is a reason for optimism but donâ??t forget itâ??s only 13 years since we saw 157 letters in 1994 an average of 6.28 per issue. This year 12 out of 14 Megazines had letters pages, giving a letters to Megazine ratio of 2.64 a decent increase on 2006â??s 2.23 which was the all time low. The scabby letters free Megazines where 254 and 258.

Of the 37 letters published 26 were from single scorers with 11 being attributed to multiple entry scribers.

The multi-men are

Mike â??The Organâ?? Morgan - US of Stateside 256, 260, 262
James Mackay - Somerset/Cyprus                  253, 265
Tom â??Dotâ?? Cotton - Telford                            256, 257
Manny Lange - Ireland                                    259, 264
Stephen Watson - Paisley                               253, 262

So well done Mike who wrestles the Megazine crown from the incumbent with a pathetic 3. Last year this crown needed a mighty 5 to be secured and hopefully a return to form from all contenders will be seen next time around.



2007 LETTERS CHAMPION!

After many hours of computating the final chart has been drafted. With the number of letters down it was inevitable that the Championâ??s crown would be somewhat tarnished, with last yearâ??s winning total of  10 being a thing of a madmanâ??s dreams. Here is the chart that contains every reader who had more than one letter published. Where there is a tie the number of star letters decides it, after that Prog 1526 & 2008 letters are marked down for commonality value and after that reverse alphabetical order is used.

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There you have it. Well done to Grant, Mike and Grant again. Hopefully the UK contingent can wrestle the title back from the colonists in 2008. This great campaign has overseen a sharp downturn in the number of letters printed but forget the quantity and feel the quality.  Next year we ask, nay demand:

Two out of three publications to have letters pages
A points system introduced to deter the influx of foreign mail that is watering down our sacred institution.
No less than 5 and no more than 10 letters an issue
Lettersentertainyou to be disbanded as unnecessary (!) within 6 months
I donâ??t know, tits or something.

Happy holidays and Grud bless us each and everyone.