Disney-comics digest #684.

[DAVID.A.GERSTEIN]

      DWIGHT:
      Both John Clark and the editors at Disney Comics Inc. before 
him have told me that the majority of letters they get are exactly 
the kind that Disney comics in Europe get and print:  from children, 
telling Donald and Mickey about themselves or talking about 
characters or stories as if they really happened.  David Seidman in 
particular said that he got at least sixty letters every month, and 
most of them were from very youthful fans.  "But I can't PRINT many 
of those," he said, "because the letter column wouldn't be very 
interesting."  Actually, toward the beginning of the Disney Comics 
period a good many such letters got printed (particularly in UNCLE 
SCROOGE) and Mr. Seidman started a trend (which became an ongoing 
feature under later editor David Cody Weiss) that "Goofy himself" 
would answer the letters in GOOFY ADVENTURES.  Later on, this even 
extended to the critical ones written by adults (which led to some 
very funny results!)
      I think that having Goofy answer the letters encouraged 
children's letters in particular.  But take all this with a grain of 
salt -- after all, I'm the guy who once wrote a lengthy critical 
letter to GOOFY ADVS entirely in Goofy's own dialect.  (Which they 
printed, by the way.)  Hey!  I was still a kid, okay?  ;-)
      Say, what got you started in working on Disney comics, Dwight?  
I don't think you've ever mentioned the reason.