Well we’re back - take that phone hacking Nazis and human rights campaigners!
As you are no doubt aware 2011 marks the 25th anniversary of
LETTERSENTERTAINYOU and to celebrate there has been a veritable glut of media activity on the letters front. Planned events include Simon Callow reading selected letters in regional accents at the Barbican and a South Bank Show special that had to be cancelled when Melvyn Bragg had to pull out after he lost his voice when his cold cleared up. Amidst all these glittering events there is also a short series of pen portraits of the great and good of the letters page. And
Tom Proudfoot gets a word in too.
The first of the articles is now available at
http://2000ad.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/writing-to-tharg-part-1/ and profiles
LETTERSENTERTAINYOU favourite
Stephen Watson. Much of the copy comes from the great man himself and it is of course **awesome** but sadly it’s bookmarked with the type of copy you wouldn’t see this side of Beanotown. Yellow journalism we can take but this piss is so dark that you’d better lay off the iron tablets. Random notions that the man Watson has a ‘rivalry’ with Tom Shamefoot made us laugh out loud <ha-ha-ha> - yes a rival in the way that Partick Thistle are a rival of Rangers or Man United are rivalled by a small cheese triangle. The hack in question, Fishy Fingers, or something also sells our hero short with his latest achievement (Prog 1756) not making his deadline. Further instalments are promised but frankly it’s all downhill from here as far as we can see. We shall return with insights on this and the many other celebratory events we have planned (six cans of lager at the bus shelter).
Moving on to our regular business,
Prog 1754 offered a nice back page five bagger. This Input page followed one in the previous Prog and marked the first back to back Input pages since the heady days of the memorable 1687/1688 double header of 2010.
We start with Letters page stalwart
Scott Ferguson of East Kilbride in the Letter of the Week berth. Scott sometimes gets delusions of grandeur and says he comes from Glasgow but he can but dream of escaping the Whirlees Roundabout. Scott gets the key to the door this week with his 21st offering seeing print. His career dates back to Prog 794 in 1992 and this is his third letter of 2011 following offerings in 1725 and 1753.
Scott has recently moved house but remains in East Kilbride - should have gotten a better paper round! He shows his youth by bemoaning paper envelopes - we old stagers know they used to be bagged in plastic but the practice was discontinued when the thrill power leaked out. Or a baby suffocated, one of those two for sure. Scott goes for the sympathy vote by asking for an award for his late Mum and to be honest we all welled up a it here at Letters Central. Enjoy your Anderson graphic novel Scott - Mum would be proud!
Achtung! It’s
Stu ‘I could crush a grape’
Watts of Germany next with as transparent a suck up as you’ll ever likely to see. It seems the person who sends out his Prog manages to do so, except twice, and she should get a KTT for, well, doing her job. Apart from alerting the masses to Denise’s ‘Free Prog Hotline’ Stu makes us wonder ‘Watts the point’. To be fair (and we try not to be) it’s only his second letter ever to be published following a Meg 297 debut in 2010. What’s the best Watts you ask? That’ll be the well named Stephen Watts who has 4 of the 7 Watts credits having had 4 drawing published, the last being ‘Over Exposed Tharg’ in Prog 374.
The times they are a changing with Dylan up next. The nasally drone belongs to
Dylan Sherret of Fife who celebrate his first letter printed this issue. 5 Dylans have made the cut before with the exotic Dylan Craig of Namibia showing up in Prog 918 in 1994 to start the letter surge of three. Of the two Dylan drawings we like ‘Earthlet Dylan‘s‘ ‘Hewligan’s Beergut’ (Prog 715) best slightly edging Dylan McIntosh’s ‘My Mum is Milli-Com of Prog 580 fame.
As always we are gentle with our first timers but this is crappy by any measure. Dylan informs us that he bought two comics, gave up for two years and then bought it again. And Judge Dredd is his favourite character. If he has a favourite dog it died years ago from malnutrition. He also says he’ll now buy it every week it comes out - hard to buy it when it doesn’t come out - and that he’ll read it! Getting the idea we see Dylan!
We go Dutch next with
Peter Holland from e-mailland. <put in drugs, sex, cheese, clog references when you can be arsed>.
Peter is another first timer and the 5th ‘Holland’ to gain that lofty position. Who’ll be the first to see two? Will it be Graham (240) , Devlin (M39 V2.19), Suzie (1084) or Stephen (M280)? Frankly, who cares?
Peter takes his finger out of the dyke to scribble his few lines, and frankly he shouldn’t have bothered. Writing into a Sci-Fi comic about time/continuity errors? Good luck with that! We all remember the self righteous twit who said Tharg had got it wrong by showing Berlin being nuked in Zenith - the sniggers of embarrassment still ring strong today.
Last up is
Richard Labbett of Leicester who, with his 4th letter single handedly controls almost 7% of that fair town’s (our granny came from there) output. Indeed he has had 4 out of the last five with only Inderjeet Gill stopping his clean sweep with his Prog 1685 spoiler.
Richard’s letter is a decent two hander where he lauds the 3rillers series and then has a good natured dig at the Mighty One. A bit of banter always goes down well and Tharg takes the bait with his standard Rigellian Hotshot reply.
All in all a solid letters page with a fine balance between the new and the old and those with 4.
