{"id":39220,"date":"2026-07-15T15:11:35","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T19:11:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/?p=39220"},"modified":"2026-07-15T15:14:01","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T19:14:01","slug":"why-not-34","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2026\/07\/15\/why-not-34\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Not Say What Happened? Episode 34: My Most Memorable <em>Captain Marvel<\/em> Hate Mail"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While shredding nearly 10,000 pages of my accumulated papers, I made several discoveries worth sharing, including memorable hate mail I received while writing <em>Captain Marvel<\/em>, multiple reasons I&#8217;m unqualified to write my own autobiography, a job application at Comico, why I refused to meet editors until after I&#8217;d already sold them stories, my unsuccessful score on a DC Comics proofreading test, four rejected <em>Tales from the Darkside<\/em> pitches which didn&#8217;t end up published in <em>Elvira&#8217;s House of Mystery<\/em>, and more. <\/p>\n<p>You can hear me borne back ceaselessly into the past via the embed below or <a href=\"https:\/\/pod.link\/1775481331\">download the episode  at the site of your choice<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Libsyn Player\" style=\"border: none\" src=\"\/\/html5-player.libsyn.com\/embed\/episode\/id\/42104760\/height\/90\/theme\/custom\/thumbnail\/yes\/render-playlist\/no\/custom-color\/88AA3C\/\" height=\"90\" width=\"100%\" scrolling=\"no\"  allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Here are a few images related to a couple of the topics I mention this episode &#8212;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>My first and favorite <em>Captain Marvel<\/em> hate mail<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/CaptainMarvel1977MailREDACTED.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/CaptainMarvel1977MailREDACTED-228x300.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"228\" height=\"300\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-39221\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/CaptainMarvel1977MailREDACTED-228x300.jpeg 228w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/CaptainMarvel1977MailREDACTED-779x1024.jpeg 779w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/CaptainMarvel1977MailREDACTED-768x1009.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/CaptainMarvel1977MailREDACTED-1169x1536.jpeg 1169w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/CaptainMarvel1977MailREDACTED-1558x2048.jpeg 1558w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 228px) 100vw, 228px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>My Media Whore business card<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>and the reason why<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/SciFiUniverseMediaWhore2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/SciFiUniverseMediaWhore2-300x170.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"170\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11236\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/SciFiUniverseMediaWhore2-300x170.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/SciFiUniverseMediaWhore2.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/SciFiUniverseMediaWhore1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/SciFiUniverseMediaWhore1-222x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"222\" height=\"300\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11233\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/SciFiUniverseMediaWhore1-222x300.jpg 222w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/SciFiUniverseMediaWhore1.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 222px) 100vw, 222px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>At the 1974 D.C. Worldcon<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>with Carl Gafford, Paul Levitz, and Steve Gilary<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/1974Worldcon.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/1974Worldcon-300x209.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"209\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-7418\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/1974Worldcon-300x209.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/1974Worldcon-1024x713.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/1974Worldcon.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>A cover story which got me an unexpected  gig at <em>Tales from the Darkside<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/TheUnexpectedCover.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/TheUnexpectedCover-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-36969\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/TheUnexpectedCover-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/TheUnexpectedCover.jpg 665w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While shredding nearly 10,000 pages of my accumulated papers, I made several discoveries worth sharing, including memorable hate mail I received while writing Captain Marvel, multiple reasons I&#8217;m unqualified to write my own autobiography, a job application at Comico, why I refused to meet editors until after I&#8217;d already sold them stories, my unsuccessful score [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1018],"class_list":["post-39220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-why-not-say-what-happened"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39220"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39233,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39220\/revisions\/39233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}