In 1963, George R. Martin (who, at that age, had yet to earn his second "R") wrote to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in feigned praise of Fantastic Four #17, an issue he refers to, dryly, as "greater than great... absolutely stupendous, the ultimate, utmost!" Proving that even as a boy, GRRM was an acerbic, 65-year-old man.
"I cannot fathom how you could fit so much action into so few pages," he continues. Bear in mind that Martin would have been 14 or 15 when he wrote this. (The issue he references in the letter was published before his 15th birthday, the issue in which his letter appears was published after.) It is at once amusing, disconcerting, and kind of unsurprising to find his penchant for sardonicism so clearly defined at so young an age (to say nothing of the letters he would write as a 16-year-old). I mean come on:
[F.F. #17] will live forever as one of the greatest F.F. comics ever printed, ergo, as one of the greatest of aLL comics. In what other comic mag could you see things like a hero falling down a manhole, a heroine mistaking a toy inventor for a criminal, and the Presdient of the U.S.A. leaving a conference that may determine the fate of the world to put his daughter to bed.
Oh, GRRM. Never change.
[Marvel]
H/t Monica!