Remember letters? Those things we used to write before the magic of email? I love email, it's fantastic, it saves trees, it's cheap and instant (in theory). But there's something to miss about letters. The flop of a big pile of post in the morning that was mostly interesting, not junk. Pages of handwriting, or even typing. Postmarks and international stamps. And quite often, especially when writing to dozens and dozens of comic strip-types, lovely doodles!

I loved getting doodles, and while looking through a letter file recently I noticed a little batch of them and thought I'd put them here.

I think I'd better start off with Andy, as I'm sure anyone who has received letters from him knows they rarely come without doodles, often on the envelope too, and they're all marvellous.

Here's an interesting pair, the one on the left is from Gavin Burrows, and the one on the right from Nigel Lowrey, both circa 1996-97.

These next are from a 4-page letter by a certain Warren Ellis, before he'd made it as a comic god, but was definitely on his way.

Here's a nice little batch of three; Adrian Bamforth (before doing anything for 2000AD), Steve Harrison (newspaper cartoonist and letterer) and Stephen Prestwood.

You might recognise the one on the right as it's on my Rainbow Orchid readers' art page, and comes from Colin Mathieson of Zulu: Watercart Rescue fame. The one on the left is a rare sketch from Paul H. Birch, I think asking me to make a demon I'd drawn a bit more hairy. Paul's letters are like mini scrapbooks and I'm often as fascinated at the back of each 'scrap' page as I am at what he's writing.

And lastly - on the left is a drawing by Tunnels & Trolls author Ken St. Andre's daughter (then aged about 12, I think), Jillian, and on the right a quick lesson from the excellent Tony O' Donnell, helping me to make some figure drawing a little more dynamic!

I love them all, wonderful stuff.