no-prize

[anthony wareing]

anyone know any examples of no-prizes? heard about em over the years but never actually read one.

[Horn'd One]

I thought the "no-prize" was getting one's letter printed in the comics' letters page. I have at least one myself, way back in ROM #41.

[Ron M.]

Pretty sure it was Stan that said you needed to give an explanation to get one. He was still writing his soapbox quite awhile after he stopped writing comics. I believe the no-prize had been discontined for several years before it was brought back in Marvel Age. Been 30 years since I've seen it but I think Stan brought back his soapbox in Marvel Age and possibly was the one giving the no-prizes away there, at least at first.

[Ron M.]

I had a letter printed once. My memory is so bad though I don't remember which title it was.

[Richard Willis]

Unless they changed it later, the no-prize was awarded in the letter pages to specific writers who had a letter printed, not all who had a letter printed.

Horn'd One said:

I thought the "no-prize" was getting one's letter printed in the comics' letters page. I have at least one myself, way back in ROM #41.

[Ron M.]

I think they briefly gave no-prizes to letters chosen for some reason or other.

[anthony wareing]

what i want is an example of an explanation for a mistake, i have read them before just cant remember any, usually the artist has forgotten to draw something in one panel & a reader has given a feasible reason why

[Luke Blanchard]

I remember a Hulk letter discussing why his pants were always purple. On a previous occasion a reader had asked why the Hulk's pants weren't destroyed when he fell to Earth from orbit, and Marvel had answered that his gamma ray emissions made them indestructible. The letter-writer said "If gamma rays can give the Hulk super-pants, they can sure as heck turn his pants purple!" I think that was a winning explanation.

[Ron M.]

I remember a couple from the 80s. The Thing is walking along the desert of the Secret Wars world with a pair of booties on. One panel shows him walking without them. Then he gets to where he's going and they're back. A letter writer said what must have happened was, he suddenly noticed they came off while he was walking, so he went back and put them on again.

Then there was the infamous goof, I think just before Simonson came in, where Thor is drawn with three arms. Someone said he's a god, and gods have that kind of power. I believe he mentioned gods like Vishnu have multiple arms to prove his point.

[Luke Blanchard]

Thor ##334-#335 featured the "Search for Jane Foster" storyline. In this Thor powered a spacecraft with his hammer. The hammer was placed in a bubble while powering the craft, and the journey was described as taking "countless hours" or somesuch. A lot of readers wrote in pointing out that he should have turned to Don Blake. A reader was declared no-prized for his solution that while travelling the craft was off the Midgard Plane.

[Ron M.]

That would have been just before Simonson got rid of Blake. Maybe he was told to do it so they'd stop getting that kind of complaint.