The Thing! was a Charlton Comics

Charlton Comics

Charlton Comics was an American comic book publishing company that existed from 1946 to 1985, having begun under a different name in 1944. It was based in Derby, Connecticut...

 horror title that ran 17 issues from 1952 to 1954. Its tagline was "Weird tales of suspense and horror!" After it was cancelled, it was retitled Blue Beetle

Blue Beetle

Blue Beetle is the name of three fictional superheroes that appear in American comic books published by a variety of companies since 1939.-Publication history:...

(vol. 2).

Artist Steve Ditko

Steve Ditko

Stephen J. "Steve" Ditko is an American comic book artist and writer best known as the artist co-creator, with Stan Lee, of the Marvel Comics heroes Spider-Man and Doctor Strange....

 provided the covers for #12-15, and 17. He also illustrated stories in issues #12-15.

In 2006, Pure Imagination

Pure Imagination (comics)

Pure Imagination is a comic book, magazine, and comics-related book publisher run by Greg Theakston since 1975.While briefly doing some original comics in the 1990s, as well a publishing a few "girlie" magazines, its main focus has been in publishing books to preserve the great works of several...

 released a large format paperback entitled Steve Ditko's The Thing! which reprinted all of Ditko's stories from this title, and used the cover from #15 for its cover. The back cover shows the covers from The Thing #12, 13 and 14 and Strange Suspense Stories

Strange Suspense Stories

Strange Suspense Stories was a comic book published in two volumes by Fawcett Comics and Charlton Comics in the 1950s and 1960s. Starting out as a horror/suspense title, the first volume gradually moved toward eerie fantasy and weird science fiction, before ending as a vehicle for the superhero...

#22. It also included Ditko stories from Charlton's Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #5 and #11, Do You Believe In Nightmares #1, Strange Suspense Stories #36, and Unusual Tales #25.