I once posted this to
scans_daily a while back but then it all went kaput. I was planning on posting it on the group again anyway, but I was waiting to dig out the reaction to this letter column (yes, they devoted another letter column reacting to this one!) so I could post them together.
My comics are in storage at the moment, however, so that might be a while and since
vange requested it, here's the letter column from #57.
Interesting that it was generally so positive, although the usual fundamentalist idiots dragged themselves out of the woodwork. Sadly, I imagine they'd still be there today, although complaining on blogs and message boards instead!
It might take me a while to dig up the other issue, so if anyone wants to try finding the reaction to this column, it was around the early 60's. I can't remember exactly which issue!