So today is, evidently, the 50th birthday of the Fantastic Four.
Well, really, that's just our best guess. August 8, 1961 is the most common cover-stamp date to be found on surviving copies of the first issue. Dealers would stamp the arrival date of new magazines on the cover, to better keep track of how long certain issues sat on the rack, and there are far more August 8th stamps than any other:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVHqjnwL0TTUmrVRAx9CQqUKOys1vbYVBcxLBVk3zPLsZKpoRSRg8KpNSnBJdomk4TZbP6G1OEc7rapOeEqgQK24FlaMFeuRloJukK36dh0P5MC2kVJuXvzWV4y2lxgrWMTIUX8AQYFOM/s1600/FF+August+8.jpg) |
Thanks, Bleeding Cool! |
But, hell! Any excuse to celebrate the Fantastic Four sounds good to me! FF is my favorite funnybook series of all time, bar none. I love the characters, I love the concepts, I love the villains... And I love the strip's early years best of all. So I thought I'd celebrate 50 years of the best damn funnybook ever by slapping up a few memorable covers, pin-ups, and oddities from the classic Stan Lee / Jack Kirby era that launched the book. Starting with, of course, the full cover to that first issue...
Kind of a piss-poor way to start off The World's Greatest Comic Magazine, huh? It looks a little rushed to me. The composition isn't Kirby's best, the backgrounds are kind of sketchy, the Thing's back is to the camera... I mean, the mole monster is pretty awesome, and I still wish they drew the Human Torch with that kind of flame detail now. But overall... Eh.
Of course, Lee and Kirby improved rapidly.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrwLYc3Z599A2v9MmVsm50QQic_RnqEDCP2idM-UQqJ1JEy71qQbrfWmN5pkYBVTXTfbhfHIHSAO6xDssoibaymswDZRAjV3y-Cmb7XmI-yl38djUOfTT-nWPJZwpVeoAxl4Dyqj_zeqA/s1600/Thingbeard.jpg) |
Thingbeard notwithstanding. |