5 Famous Magazine Covers With Crazy Stories You Never Knew

American Nazis were so pissed about this cover that they soon started bombarding the offices of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby with hate mail, obscene phone calls, and death threats. ("I once got a letter from a Nazi who told me to pick out any lamppost I wanted on Times Square, because when Hitler arrived, they'd hang me from it.") It was only after they started stalking Simon and Kirby that the mayor stepped in to offer the pair around-the-clock police protection, saying, "You boys over there are doing a good job. The city of New York will see that no harm will come to you." It's not as if the boys were completely defenseless, however, as Kirby's response to one unwelcome visitor demonstrates:

"On occasion the Timely office would get phone calls and letters from Nazi sympathizers threatening the creators of Captain America. Once, while Jack was in the Timely office, a call came from someone in the lobby. When Kirby answered, the caller threatened Jack with bodily harm if he showed his face. Kirby told the caller he would be right down, but by the time Jack reached street level, there was no one to be found."

We can't know exactly what Kirby and Simon's reaction to today's current political situation would be, but we're pretty sure that they'd be proud that Captain America is still giving racists stress headaches.

Other than the clearly unsanitary champagne service methods, do you want to know else what is a little gross about this cover? The fact that it's modeled on a racist-as-all-hell photo shoot from the 1970s known as the "Champagne Incident," which starred a "happy savage pleased to serve" called "Carolina."

This isn't by coincidence. The photographer for both shoots was Jean-Paul Goude, a French photographer who made a career out of photographing "black women in poses that fetishized and animalized their bodies." At one point he directly compared the asses of black women to those of "race horses."

We're not being hyperbolic when we say that this was his career, either. In 1982, Goude published an anthology of these works titled *sigh* Jungle Fever, which was notable for its sheer volume of photos featuring black women in subservient, animalistic poses. "Notable" because we didn't think people outside of serial killers and self-loathing white supremacists had collections like that.

Oh, and there's also the fact that Gourd was himself influenced by 18th-century depictions of Saartjie Baartman, also known as the "Hottentot Venus." She was a South African slave who, having been born with a medical condition called steatopygia, possessed what modern historians might refer to as "a lot of junk in the trunk." She was exhibited in a freak show (for white audiences, natch) that traveled the length and breadth of Europe (at the same time being sexually abused for her posterior). This kick-started, or at least codified, society's still-running creepy obsession with black women's butts.

In 1991, Moore agreed to pose for the cover of Vanity Fair while seven months pregnant. The result oozed with such raw sexuality that sellers mandated that the magazine come packaged inside a large white envelope, lest customers burst into flames at the sight of a bare tummy.

The thing is, though, this wasn't the cover that Vanity Fair originally wanted. The original idea was for a photo of Demi wearing a dress so tight that it showed off not only her bump, but also what she ate for breakfast. The photographer, the famed Annie Leibovitz, delivered these shots to the editor and offhandedly mentioned that Demi and husband Bruce Willis had asked her to shoot something just for them: a photo of Demi naked and doing the handbra.

Tina Brown, the editor, fell in love with the shot, and after checking with Demi and Bruce, arranged for the photo to go on the cover. Despite numerous boycotts by retailers such as Walmart, the issue sold 1.2 million copies (compared to an average circulation of 800k). The gamble paid off so well that Vanity Fair celebrated the one-year anniversary of the issue by asking Demi to pose naked for them again, the result being "Demi's Birthday Suit." Although we're going to guess that this didn't do for business suits what the first cover did for pregnant women.

It was an impressive issue ... especially considering that it was the first print issue of The Onion ever distributed in NYC.

After having a joyous party in Manhattan on 9/10 to celebrate their first NYC release the next day, the Onion crew found themselves rushing to cancel everything due to the 9/11phant in the room. It wasn't until the following week that the staffers were able to reconvene and figure out how to cover the attacks, because, well, they had a magazine to publish. And it wasn't as if they could publish the issue written pre-9/11 anymore, in which the lead story was likely an extended bit about subway or pizza or, uh ... people walkin' ova' heah?

Eventually, the issue came into being, but then another problem emerged. They weren't just poking fun at one of the worst terrorist attacks in history, but were also doing so in the wreckage-strewn backyard of said attack. How would the public react? What would the media say? Where would everyone be getting another job? Was Sbarro's hiring?

When they arrived in the office the next morning, after the issue had hit newsstands, the team was surprised to learn that no one had issued a fatwa against them. Rather, the office's fax machine was overflowing with messages of support and congratulations. ("The top one just read 'That's funny, that's funny, that's funny.'") Which is a huge change in how people react to seeing The Onion appear in their news feeds today -- not least because that means one thing and one thing only.

Adam Wears is on Twitter and Facebook, and has a newsletter dedicated to depressing history facts. It's not as heartbreakingly sad as it sounds, promise!

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