Kevin Nowlan Offers Big Ups To All His ‘New Mutants’ #51 Haters

As a wise television theme song writer once said, "what might be right for you might not be right for some," and that's especially true when it comes to art. It's very much a matter of personal taste, and while I think, say, Kevin Nowlan is great (especially in his recent collaborations with Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez), he's not everyone's cup of tea.

And for some people, he was so not-their-cup-of-tea that they were compelled to write letters to Marvel in 1989 saying that he had provided "the WORST artwork I have ever had the misfortune of running across."

Over at his website, Nowlan has put up a sampling of the hilariously negative hate mail he got when he took over penciling on Marvel's "New Mutants" #51, and they're well worth reading, if only for the wistful look back at a time before the Internet when an angry comics reader couldn't just instantly leave a comment, but had to let that anger stew for the time it took to write up a list of complaints with an electric typewriter and then actually pay for postage to mail their angry missive in.

A few of my favorite complaints:

Well, I can kind of see that?

Yes. Because that's how I would describe Mirage in these panels: "Pudgy."

I seriously think that "things with dots for eyes and noses and faces" is my new favorite term for "comic book."

I don't really have a refutation for this one, I just think "ugly with a capital 'ugh'" is pretty clever.

Unfortunately for these readers, Nowlan was never sent back to sweeping the halls, and instead had a pretty distinguished career, so to you, letter-writers of 1987: Big Ups.

Filed Under: hate mail, HateMail, kevin nowlan, KevinNowlan, new mutants, NewMutants

Categories: Marvel