Jeremy Eaton was 13 years old in 1977 when he sent a letter to the editor of "The Incredible Hulk." The comic book published his letter, with his mailing address (unheard of today!). Later, Jeremy received a letter from the sweetly-named Wendy Wilson—or a pedophile in disguise, but we'd like to think it really was Sweet Wendy, though that name is almost too cute and the handwriting a little too relaxed for a 14-year-old-girl. Either way, Jeremy saved the letter and recently posted it, and his response, on his blog.
Wendy lived in Kingston, Jamaica. Her letter arrived in early August, just a few weeks after I’d first discovered my name and address had become a part of the Marvel Universe. Her envelope, a delicate, soft, airmail blue, cut like a cyclone through my introverted, adolescent existence, spewing a flurry of feminine considerations. She told me of her eyes. Black eyes, she said, with a poetic force beyond her years. She told me of her hair. Black hair, she teased. She told me of her body. Slim build, with lovely shape, she smiled, seeming to literally breathe from the lightly-scented, decorative note paper, stationary that featured an illustration, in the lower left-hand corner, of two Keane-styled children, a boy and a girl, dressed respectively in overalls and a petticoat, tromping barefoot through a pasture of bright daisies. This idyllic drawing was accompanied by a script-written quote: “We’re not the only ones in love… we just think we are”, to which Wendy had coyly added Remember m, remember e, put them together and remember me.
She went on to inform me she was, in no uncertain terms, a very pretty and attractive girl, very romantic and fun-loving. She told me her favorite sports were lawn tennis, table tennis, and basket ball (two words in Jamaica, apparently). She told me her ambition was to become an airline stewardess, “otherwise known as a ground hostess”. She told me that, in her spare time, she would be a singer.
Nearly twelve months my senior, Wendy was, in essence, a fourteen year-old siren, a rock I’d gladly have smashed into, ultimately perishing of starvation, thirst, and delirium. In my already-fevered imagination, one fed on the hyperbole of Smilin’ Stan Lee and the voluptuous curves of Jack Kirby (the curves of his female characters, not his), I saw Wendy calling me onward, urging me to leave my 25¢ vessel, a flimsy, pulp-hewn, four-color yacht held together by staples, to join her, to lose myself in her smooth, brown limbs.
[JWE via BoingBoing]