After I got back from the ComicsPRO summit, I scheduled a few days off work to be home with my mom while she recovered from minor surgery. While I was at my mom’s apartment, I went through my old closet and stumbled across a box of childhood letters. One particular letter was from Marvel comics! In second or third grade my friend Robby and I made Spider-Man gliders i.e. paper planes with crudely inked Spidey illustrations. Apparently, we thought it was such a great idea we wrote Marvel comics with a business plan to market our Spider-Man gliders. Marvel was kind enough to write back to us nine-year-old businessmen. Here is what they said:

At the age of nine, getting a letter from Marvel comics was the coolest thing imaginable. I couldn’t actually find the glider, though I do remember that it had Magneto on it.

As I rummaged through the box of letters I also found correspondence with my childhood friend Ezra who moved to California in the sixth grade. We kept in contact via mail for about two years and some of his letters to me are pretty telling that one day I would end up managing a comic shop. Here are some choice lines, each from a separate letter:

“When you write back tell me everything about Gambit you know.”

“Thank you for the info on Gambit.”

“I’ve got a ton of awesome collectors pogs and slammers. I’ve even got X-Men pogs and slammers!”

“Have you been to the Fantasy Shop lately? Do they have any Japanese animation?”

“Guess what. THE COMIC BOOK STORES IN CALIFORNIA DON’T HAVE MAGIC CARDS!”

“Do you still play magic? Do you know the least amount of cards you can have in a deck because I can’t find it out?”

“So do you guys do anything else besides Nintendo and magic?”

Oh, how little has changed.

-Jon

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