I had a couple of people rise to the occasion and come back to me with examples of even earlier comic book letters pages than the one that we looked at last week.
So I wanted to give these some space here as well, to make sure the record was straight.
Comic book historian Jamie Coville pointed out this letters page hiding in the midst of THRILLING COMICS #7, published by Nedor (which was at different times also known as Better and Standard). This was an outgrowth of two things the editors on the title had done previously: they’d been running a regular Chats With The Editor column for a couple of months where they promoted things that were coming up and pushed their Thrilling Club, a parallel to DC/National’s Supermen of America, though with a far smaller membership. By issue #7, though, these two things led to there being enough letters sent in that pretty much the entirety of this page could be turned over to thoughts from the readers. As Jamie indicated, this issue was released on June 20, 1940, which puts it in advance of TARGET COMICS #11’s October 30, 1940 release.
But even earlier than that, Gary Dunaier pointed out this page which ran in the second issue of NEW FUN, the comic that would eventually transition into being ADVENTURE COMICS. It wasn’t exactly a typical letters page per se, but it did print comments from the readers and it is earlier than either of the other two examples, so it counts. Its publisher was Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, who was a pioneer in the field of comic books and who released the earliest comics dedicated to completely new material rather than reprints of pre-existing newspaper strips and features.
The page was ostensibly put together by “Jolly Bill”, whose role isn’t specifically stated but who comes across as the editor of the magazine. This would be William Steinke, who also did radio voice work. There’s a short profile on him with photo a page earlier in the issue.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 