Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, dark horse, entertainment, image, letters pages, marvel, ms marvel

A Is For Acrostic In Today's Comic Book Letters Pages

Regular Bleeding Cool readers will know that I have hidden a few acrostics in articles to hide a spoiler ELEKTRA SKRULL, ANGELA and LOGAN KILLS ANT were favourites.

But that was about it. Comic reader Jeremy Reed Beebe has gone further, telling Bleeding Cool about some of his master crafting of them.

I encoded the names of fifty comics characters into fan letters that were published in the letter pages of comic books over a one-year period.

I used an acrostic; the first letter of each sentence in the body of the fan letter together spell out the name of a character. For example – "The Star Wars is a great series that I enjoy reading, and issue #4 was full of action and surprises. Han Solo's appearance in The Star Wars is very different from his traditional appearance, and it was quite shocking to see the strange alien step out of the shadows. One of the things that I love most about The Star Wars comic is artist Mike Mayhew's beautiful renderings, which reinterpret the familiar and iconic Star Wars characters, vehicles and settings in a new light. Rain Beredo's colors compliment Mayhew's art nicely, and give the comic a beautiful lush look that makes The Star Wars one of my favorite comics." = "THOR".

Below is an alphabetical list of the encoded names, a brief description of the character, along with the title of the comic that published the coded letter and the comic's publisher.

1. A – "A", a member of Marvel's mercenary Lady Killers team. Black Science #3 (Image)
2. AGENT – Marvel's Rick Mason, AKA "The Agent". Thief of Thieves #19 (Image)
3. ANIA – Ania Solo, protagonist of Star Wars: Legacy. Star Wars: Legacy Vol. 2 #3 (Dark Horse)
4. ARCHIE – humorous teenager Archie Andrews. Afterlife with Archie #2 (Archie)
5. ARDEN – Dale Arden, adventurer in the Flash Gordon comic strip. Abe Sapien #8 (Dark Horse)
6. ARKADY – strange psychic in FreakAngels. Angel & Faith #21 (Dark Horse)
7. BIGBY – Bigby Wolf, the "Big Bad Wolf" of Fables. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9 #21 (Dark Horse)
8. BILLY – Billy Lane, AKA "Billy the Vampire Slayer" from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9 #25 (Dark Horse)
9. BRAINBOY – Dell and Dark Horse Comics' psychic superhero, Brain Boy. Brain Boy #3 (Dark Horse)
10. BROO – alien student at Marvel's Jean Grey School for Higher Learning. Invincible Universe #10 (Image)
11. CATMAN – Batman foe/DC anti-hero. Captain Midnight #4 (Dark Horse)
12. DOG – Dylan Dog, occult investigator. Sex Criminals #4 (Image)
13. DOOP – Marvel's mysterious floating green hero. The Superior Foes of Spider-Man #2 (Marvel)
14. EMBER – Jack Ember, protagonist of Mirabilis. Star Wars: Dark Times – A Spark Remains #3 (Dark Horse)
15. FRAY – futuristic vampire slayer Melaka Fray in Fray. The Fuse #2 (Image)
16. GHITA – beautiful warrior Ghita of Alizarr. Avengers Arena #18 (Marvel)
17. GRACE –Dark Horse's super-strong, teleporting superheroine. Grindhouse: Doors Open at Midnight #3 (Dark Horse)
18. GRIMES – Rick Grimes, zombie apocalypse survivor from The Walking Dead. Resident Alien: The Suicide Blonde #2 (Dark Horse)
19. HAGAR – humorous Viking Hagar the Horrible. Conan the Barbarian #15 (2013) (Dark Horse)
20. HAWK – hot-tempered member of the DC superteam Hawk and Dove. Sergio Aragonẻs Funnies #11 (Bongo)
21. HOGUN – Marvel's Asgardian warrior, Hogun the Grim. Abe Sapien #11 (Dark Horse)
22. IAN – Ian Zola, the adopted son of Captain America in Dimension Z. Lazarus #4 (Image)
23. ION – cosmic willpower entity in Green Lantern. Velvet #4 (Image)
24. JADE – moody student Jade Ellsworth in Morning Glories. Juice Squeezers #3 (Dark Horse)
25. JOREL – Superman's biological father, Jor-El. Baltimore: Chapel of Bones #2 (Dark Horse)
26. KRANG – Marvel's Atlantean warlord. Bloodhound: Crowbar Medicine #3 (Dark Horse)
27. L – genius detective "L" in Death Note. Catalyst Comix #9 (Dark Horse)
28. LORELLA – alien ally of the Dragon in Savage Dragon. Savage Dragon #193 (Image)
29. M – Marvel mutant Monet St. Croix, AKA "M". Catalyst Comix #2 (Dark Horse)
30. MAGIK – the X-Men's mutant teleporting sorceress. B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth #116 (Dark Horse)
31. MANJI – immortal samurai in Blade of the Immortal. B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth #110 (Dark Horse)
32. MARIE – Mademoiselle Marie, DC's WWII French Resistance fighter. Hellboy in Hell #5 (Dark Horse)
33. NAGA – Lemurian adversary of Prince Namor. The Punisher #3 (2014) (Marvel)
34. NAMOR – Marvel's Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner. Never Ending #3 (Dark Horse)
35. NIKOPOL – Alcide Nikopol, protagonist of The Nikopol Trilogy. Baltimore: The Infernal Train #1 (Dark Horse)
36. PANYA – B.P.R.D.'s psychic mummy. Lobster Johnson: Get the Lobster #2 (Dark Horse)
37. RAVEN – mystic member of the Teen Titans. Baltimore: The Infernal Train #3 (Dark Horse)
38. SMILER – antagonistic President Gary Callahan, AKA "The Smiler", in Transmetropolitan. Skyman #3 (Dark Horse)
39. STARR – Preacher villain Herr Starr. Abe Sapien #10 (Dark Horse)
40. STATIC – electric Milestone Comics superhero. Star Wars #13 (Dark Horse)
41. T – "T", a member of Marvel's mercenary Lady Killers team. B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth #117 (Dark Horse)
42. THANOS – Marvel's cosmic bad guy. Chew #37 (Image)
43. THOR – Marvel's thunder god superhero. The Star Wars #5 (Dark Horse)
44. THRUD – humorous warrior Thrud the Barbarian. EGOs #2 (Image)
45. TRIGO – hero of The Trigan Empire. Sledgehammer 44: Lightning War #2 (Dark Horse)
46. VALDA – DC's warrior maiden in Arak, Son of Thunder. B.P.R.D.: Vampire #4 (Dark Horse)
47. VEIDT – Watchmen's mastermind Adrian Veidt, AKA "Ozymandias". B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth #108 (Dark Horse)
48. VIXEN – DC's animal-powered superheroine. X #11 (2014) (Dark Horse)
49. XOMBI – occult Milestone Comics superhero. X #8 (2013) (Dark Horse)
50. ZOD – villainous Kryptonian general and Superman adversary. A Voice in the Dark #2 (Image)

You can check them out for yourself. Though I think the single letter ones are cheating a bit…

But that's not all, as of Ms Marvel #2, he thinks he may be the first person to have a letter published in a comic book in Urdu.

Including the word "Excelsior". Sadly there was no acrostic to accompany it. This time.

Some may consider it Reed Beebe's work pointless but, in an internet age when the letters paper is fading in importance, has disappeared from DC Comics altogether, it's good to see someone using the form to… well… play.

And no I didn;t include an acrostic in this article…

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