X-Amount of Reader Mail!!

Letters, oh, we get letters … this one from no less a personage than former major domo at Cartoon Books and Monroeville manager of Half-Price Books (and splitting image of X-Ray Boy) Andries Mulder!

Hey ho, Don,

Thanks so much for sending me those X-Amount of Comics files. I followed your advice and read the Afterword first. I have only this to say—heretic! To say that Sam Rosen and Artie Simek are interchangeable is the height of ignorance (or the lowest, depending on how one looks at it). Sam Rosen’s confounding precision and deft hand puts all others to shame; his skill is unmatched; no one else is even close. As an accomplished calligrapher yourself, I was astounded to find that you held this view. Nonetheless, I forged on reading and here are my brief thoughts on the sequential part of the book.

You are amazing at puns. The whole composition has this great dreamy, free-association style of storytelling to it. X-Amount is an endless barrage of humor, satire, criticism, history, opinion, fact, and art. From our talk prior to you sending me the files, I got the impression that you thought you were being pretty mean (albeit intentionally) to the metaphorical players in your story. Honestly, I thought you could have been a lot meaner to Affable Al and others. Maybe should have been. Mainly, just WOW, man! You sure can draw and ink! (and letter). I ordered my copy from Mile High Comics and can’t wait to get my printed version so I can re-read it tactilely.

There were a few things missing, however, that I would have liked peppered throughout:

I would have liked to have seen some fake advertisements included for fun: “Send $4.50 to some PO Box in Michigan owned by Land Ho! Inc. and receive the deed to a property that includes 40 acres and a mule.” Some kind of GRIT Magazine-like spoof, but instead of GRIT, the kids are selling Oxycontin or black-market babies. They used to have those ads about getting your high school diploma and achieving success because of it; now there could be one about getting your useless college degree but being out of work and in debt. That kind of stuff.

A Stan Lee’s Soapbox-like feature from Dandy Don would have been welcome; also, a letters page could have been really funny.

All in all, thanks again, it was thrilling to be one of the first to read it. It was a blast.

All the best,

Andries Mulder

Thanks, Andries! And we know we fell down on the job in terms of fake ads and faux letters pages. How about an ad for certain king-size annual that never came out about thirty years ago by Jimmy Lee and Al Moore? Or maybe Big Numbers #3 through #12?! Or the rest of Image United?! (Laughing yet?! We thought so!)

Letters pages for Megaton Man #4 (Kitchen Sink Press,

You can order your own copy of X-Amount of Comics: 1963 (WhenElse?!) Annual from a variety of places, including Fantagraphics, Amazon, BN, Thrift Books, and through your local LCS (thats lingo for Local Comics Shop!). Excommunicado!