In tribute to current Dredd thrill ‘The Citadel’ Lettersentertainyou brings you
‘The Postbox’ a fast paced adventure that will bring thrills and excitement and no shortage of surprises. It has already been hailed as the best LETTERSENTERTAINYOU ever - even better than that lettuce themed one if anyone remembers that? No? Well it had letters based lettuce puns and they were just the tip of the iceberg.
We’ll get to the excitement of ‘
The Postbox’ soon, but we have of course our contractual commitment to address, namely having a look at the letters printed in
Prog 2274. This means we’ve only had two fallow weeks between letters pages and it either means that Tharg is ramping up the letters quotient or that ad for the Swansea Comic Con fell through at the last minute.
Our trip to
‘The Postbox’ begins with the excitement palpable. We don our Skechers and head out into the dark foreboding morning. But wait; we’ve forgot to bring that Mother’s day card that we need to post - I’ll just nip back and get it.
The letters page starts off with the Letter of the Week which is from first time writer
Pat Draper of Nottingham. I wonder if he bought a second class return to get there? It’s curtains for Mr Draper early on as he goes down a themed path that can bring joy to no one. “‘The Citadel’ is actually a tune by The Rolling Stones” he offers and proceeds to pepper his letter with random songs that make no sense and are shoe-horned in mercilessly.
The Stones song isn’t even called ‘The Citadel’, it’s just ‘Citadel’. ‘The Citadel’ is actually a novel by A.J. Cronin so if Pat was looking for a correct theme he could have said ‘My ‘Three Loves’ (1932) in the Prog are ‘The Keys to the KINGDOM’ (1941), JUDGE ‘CHILD of Compassion’ (1940) and ’Enchanted SNOW/TIGER’ (1941) . It wouldn’t be funny or make any sense but at least it would be accurate!
With Mum’s card in hand we’re ready to head to
The Postbox and the adventures we will no doubt find there. But buggeration, the cat’s puked on the sofa and that’s going to stain. Just give me two minutes…
Next up is familiar face
Tristan ‘Fourmile’ Louth’ of Essex who ‘scores’ his 20th letter with this offering. Tris, can I call you Tris?, was first spotted way back in Prog 1002 in 1996 and he consolidates his 15th spot on the all time Beast scoreboard with this effort. He is now only one letter behind old, and we mean old, stager Tom Proudfoot. Tris hails from Chelmsford and has a Prog to Meg ratio of 13:7.
Tris’ letter is a throwaway birthday message and he says Tharg has almost had as many years beyond 2000ad as he’s had before it. Not really true there Tris and you are stealing the thunder of someone who had that nugget planned for the 46th birthday Prog. Never mind, at least he sounds jolly despite that terrible Walter the Wobot idea.
OK, we’re ready to roll, and roll we shall - towards excitement. I just need to set the video for ‘Bargain Hunt’ though, so if you could just bear with me - the trip to
The Postbox will be worth it - guaranteed!
In middle place we have
Jon Hymus of email. Literally nothing to work with here. No other ‘Hymus’es and too many Jon, Johnny and Jonathans to be bothered with. It is Jon’s first letter though and we’re glad to have him. Or are we?
Jon starts with the tired old ‘mighty organ’ line. If he likes poor vaguely sexual puns he’s going to be called ‘Hymen’ from now on. Jon is enthusiastic and gives Tharg a chance to plug his encyclopaedia despite pointing out major omissions.
With the jacket on and the door open we are heading to
The Postbox (can you see where this is going yet?) but it’s recycling day and someone has put the plastics in the paper bin. I just need to sort this out. Be there in a jiff…
Tharg clearly likes American things now as we get two letters from the colonies to finish out the page. Both are new scribes with the first being the pairing of
Heavy and Johnny. They have not teamed up before, to the Beast’s knowledge, although we do have several pieces of reader art along the lines of ‘Tharg the Heavy Rocker’ (Prog 182), ‘Heavy Duty Riot Droid’ (Prog 202) and ‘He must have had a heavy night on the sauce’ - the rest of them.
The surprise here is that it took two people to write the letter which mentions ‘The Cursed Earth’ twice inside the first paragraph. With their ‘A’ material used up the lads discuss how they have bonded and enjoy a good fight over the Prog - it’s a lovely tale, well until they break out the guns over who likes Proteus Vex the most. They also want a return to ‘Red Road’ a desire the residents of Springburn would no doubt offer up to them, no questions asked.
OK. The door is locked and the path to
The Postbox is clear. Excitement rises as this highly anticipated encounter draws close. It’s bound to be worth the wait; but did we put off the cooker after heating our Super Noodles? Best check…
We close out with the webslinger himself
Eddie Webb of Stateside USA. Eddie is another first timer, but one who joins a website of Webbed people who now number 9. The first was Anton back in Prog 95 in 1979 and the last, before Eddie, was Jennifer of Carshalton in Prog 1100.
Eddy was timid about subscribing but is now glad that he did. He sees art imitating life as his hearing implant may soon be closed down by the corporations. Actually it’s a failing corporation that’s his problem so maybe we should be supporting our industry titans? Hope it all works out Eddy and you hear all of the cheers our big denouement is bound to attract.
With the letters sorted it’s time to face…
The Postbox. Ah shit we’re out of time. Five steps to get there and we’ve only just arrived!
Loving ‘The Citadel’ too!
