Fantastic (magazine)
Encyclopedia
Fantastic was an American digest-size
fantasy and science fiction magazine
, published from 1952 to 1980. It was founded by Ziff-Davis as a fantasy companion to Amazing Stories
. Early sales were good, and Ziff-Davis quickly decided to switch Amazing from pulp
format to digest, and to cease publication of their other science fiction pulp, Fantastic Adventures
. Within a few years sales fell, and Howard Browne
, the editor, was forced to switch the focus to science fiction rather than fantasy. Browne lost interest in the magazine as a result and the magazine generally ran poor quality fiction in the mid-1950s, under Browne and his successor, Paul W. Fairman
.
At the end of the 1950s Cele Goldsmith took over as editor of both Fantastic and Amazing, and quickly invigorated the magazines, bringing in many new writers and making them, in the words of one science fiction historian, the "best-looking and brightest" magazines in the field. She helped to nurture the early careers of writers such as Roger Zelazny
and Ursula K. Le Guin
, but was unable to increase circulation, and in 1965 the magazines were sold to Sol Cohen
, who hired Joseph Wrzos as editor and switched to a reprint
-only policy. This was financially successful, but brought Cohen into conflict with the newly formed Science Fiction Writers of America. After a turbulent period at the end of the 1960s, Ted White
became editor and the reprints were phased out.
White worked hard to make the magazine successful, introducing artwork from artists who had made their names in comics, and working with new authors such as Gordon Eklund. His budget for fiction was low, but he was occasionally able to find good stories from well-known writers which had been rejected by the other markets. Circulation continued to decline and in 1978 Cohen sold out his half of the business to his partner, Arthur Bernhard. White resigned shortly afterwards, and was replaced by Elinor Mavor
, but within two years Bernhard decided to close down Fantastic, merging it with Amazing, which had always had slightly higher circulation.
market, acquired Amazing Stories
. The number of science fiction magazines grew quickly; several new titles appeared over the next few years, including Fantastic Adventures
, which was launched by Ziff-Davis in 1939 as a companion to Amazing. Under the editorship of Raymond Palmer the magazines were reasonably successful but published poor quality work, and when Howard Browne
took over as editor of Amazing in January 1950 he decided to try to move the magazine upmarket. Ziff-Davis agreed to back the new magazine, and Browne put together a sample copy, but when the Korean War
broke out Ziff-Davis cut their budgets and the project was abandoned. Browne did not give up, and in 1952 received the go-ahead to try a new magazine instead, focused on high-quality fantasy, a genre which had recently become more popular. The first issue of Fantastic, dated Summer 1952, appeared on March 21 of that year.
Sales were very good, and Ziff-Davis was sufficiently impressed to move the magazine from a quarterly to a bimonthly schedule after only two issues, and to switch Amazing from pulp format to digest-size to match Fantastic. Shortly afterwards the decision was taken to eliminate Fantastic Adventures
: the March 1953 issue was the last, and the May–June 1953 issue of Fantastic added a mention of Fantastic Adventures to the masthead, though this disappeared with the following issue. Payment started at two cents per word for all rights, but could go up to ten cents at the editor's discretion; this put Fantastic in the second echelon of magazines, behind markets such as Astounding and Galaxy. The experiment with quality fiction did not last; circulation dropped, which led to budget cuts, and in turn the quality of the fiction fell. Browne had wanted to separate Fantastic from Amazings pulp roots, but now found he had to print more science fiction (sf) and less fantasy in order to attract Amazings readers to its sister magazine. Fantastics poor results were probably a consequence of the overloaded sf magazine market; far more magazines appeared in the early 1950s than the market was able to support. Ziff-Davis sales staff were able to help sell Fantastic and Amazing along with the technical magazines that it published, and the availability of a national sales network, even though it was not focused solely on Fantastic, undoubtedly helped the magazine to survive.
In May 1956 Browne left Ziff-Davis to become a screenwriter. Paul W. Fairman
took over as editor of both Fantastic and Amazing. In 1957 Bernard Davis
left Ziff-Davis; it had been Davis who had suggested the acquisition of Amazing in 1939, and he had stayed involved with the sf magazines throughout the time he spent there. With his departure Amazing and Fantastic stagnated; they remained monthly but drew no attention from Ziff-Davis’s management.
s for all the magazines, and was quickly given more responsibility. In 1957 she was made managing editor of both Amazing and Fantastic, doing the administrative chores and reading unsolicited manuscripts; and at the end of 1958 she became editor, replacing Fairman, who left to edit Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
. Goldsmith (who became Cele Lalli when she married in 1964) stayed as editor for six and a half years.
Circulation dropped for both Amazing and Fantastic; in 1964 Fantastic had a paid circulation of only 27,000. In 1965 Sol Cohen
, who at that time was Galaxy
s publisher, set up his own publishing company, Ultimate Publishing, and bought both Amazing and Fantastic from Ziff-Davis. Cohen had decided to make the magazines as profitable as possible by filling them only with reprints. This was possible because Ziff-Davis had acquired second serial rights for all stories they had published, and since Cohen had bought the backfile of stories he was able to reprint them using these rights. Using reprints in this way saved Cohen about $8,000 a year between the two magazines. Lalli decided that she did not want to work for Cohen, and stayed with Ziff-Davis. Her last issue was June 1965. Cohen replaced Lalli with Joseph Wrzos, who used the name "Joseph Ross" on the magazines. Cohen had met Wrzos at the Galaxy offices not long before; Wrzos was teaching English full-time, but had worked for Gnome Press
as an assistant editor in 1953–1954.
Cohen also launched a series of reprint magazines, drawing from the backfile of both Amazing and Fantastic, again using the second serial rights he had acquired from Ziff-Davis. The first reprint magazine was Great Science Fiction; the first issue, titled Great Science Fiction from Amazing, appeared in August 1965. By early 1967 this had been joined by The Most Thrilling Science Fiction Ever Told and Science Fiction Classics. These increased the workload on Wrzos, though Cohen made the selection of stories, and Wrzos found himself able to work on Fantastic and Amazing only part time. Cohen hired Herb Lehrman to help with the other magazines.
Although Cohen felt that his deal with Ziff-Davis gave him the reprint rights he needed, the newly formed Science Fiction Writers of America
(SFWA) received complaints about Cohen's refusal to pay anything for the reprints. He was also reportedly not responding to requests for reassignment of copyright. SFWA organized a boycott of Cohen's magazines; after a year Cohen agreed to pay a flat fee for the reprints, and in August 1967 he agreed to a graduated scale of payments, and the boycott was withdrawn.
Harry Harrison
had been involved in the negotiations between SFWA and Cohen, and when the agreement was reached in 1967 Cohen asked Harrison if he would take over as editor of both magazines. Harrison was available because SF Impulse
, which he had been editing, had ceased publication in early 1967. Cohen agreed to phase out the reprints by the end of the year, and Harrison took the job. Cohen added Harrison's name to the masthead of two issues of Great Science Fiction, although Harrison had had nothing to do with that magazine, but the reprints in Fantastic and Amazing continued and Harrison decided to quit in February 1968. He recommended Barry Malzberg
as his replacement. Cohen had worked with Malzberg at the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, and felt Malzberg would be more cooperative than Harrison. Malzberg, however, turned out to be just as unwilling as Harrison to work with Cohen if the reprints continued, and soon regretted taking the job. In October 1968 Cohen refused to pay for a cover that Malzberg had commissioned; Malzberg insisted, threatening to resign if Cohen did not agree. Cohen contacted Robert Silverberg
, then the president of SFWA, and told him (falsely) that Malzberg had actually resigned. Silverberg recommended Ted White as a replacement. Cohen secured White's agreement and then fired Malzberg; White took over in October 1968, but because there was a backlog of stories Malzberg had acquired, the first issue on which he was credited as editor was the June 1969 issue.
Fantastics circulation was about 37,000 when White took over; only about 4 percent of this was subscription sales. Cohen's wife filled the subscriptions from their garage, and according to White, Cohen regarded this as a burden, and never tried to increase the subscription base. Despite White's efforts, Fantastics circulation fell, from almost 37,000 when he took over as editor to less than 24,000 in the summer of 1975. Cohen was rumored to be interested in selling both Fantastic and Amazing; among other possibilities, both Roger Elwood
, at that time an active science fiction anthology editor, and Edward Ferman, the editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
, approached Cohen with a view to acquiring the titles. Nothing came of it, however, and White was not aware of the possible sales. He was working at a low salary, with unpaid help from friends to read unsolicited submissions—at one point he introduced a 25-cent reading fee for manuscripts from unpublished writers; the fee would be refunded if White bought the story. White sometimes found himself at odds with Cohen's business partner, Arthur Bernhard, due to their different political views. White's unhappiness with his working conditions culminated in his resignation after Cohen refused his proposal to publish Fantastic as a slick magazine, with larger pages and higher quality paper. White commented in an article in Science Fiction Review that he had brought to the magazines "a lot of energy and enthusiasm and a great many ideas for their improvement ...Well, I have put into effect nearly every idea which I was allowed to follow through on ... and have spent most of my energy and enthusiasm." Cohen was able to persuade him to stay for another year; in the event White stayed for another three.
White was unable to completely halt the slide in circulation, though it rose a little in 1977. That year Cohen lost $15,000 dollars on the magazines, and decided to sell. He spent some time looking for a new publisher—editor Roy Torgeson was one of those interested—but on September 15, 1978, he sold his half of the business to Arthur Bernhard, his partner. White renewed his suggestions for improving the format of the magazine: he wanted to make Fantastic the same size as Time
, and believed he could avoid the mistakes that had been made by other sf magazines that had tried that approach. White also proposed an increase in the budget and asked for a raise. Bernhard not only turned down White's ideas, but also stopped paying him: White responded by resigning. His last official day as editor was November 9; the last issue of Fantastic under his control was the January 1979 issue. He returned all submissions to their authors, saying that he had been told to do so by Bernhard; Bernhard denied this.
Bernhard brought in Elinor Mavor
to edit both Amazing and Fantastic. Mavor had previously edited Bill of Fare, a restaurant trade journal, and was a long-time science fiction reader, but she had little knowledge of the history of the magazines. She was unaware, for example, that she was not the first woman to edit them, and so adopted a male pseudonym—"Omar Gohagen"—for a while. She suggested a campaign to increase circulation, and went so far as to gather information about costs while on a trip to New York in 1979. Bernhard decided instead to merge the two magazines. Circulation was continuing to drop; the figures for the last two years are not available, but sf historian Mike Ashley
estimates that Fantastic paid circulation may have been as low as 13,000. Bernhard felt that since Fantastic had never been profitable, whereas Amazing had made money, it was best to keep Amazing. Until the March 1985 issue, Amazing included a mention of Fantastic on the spine and on the contents page. In 1999, the fiction magazine formerly known as Pirate Writings revived the Fantastic title and Cele Goldsmith-era logotype for several issues, ultimately unsuccessfully, though this was not intended as a continuation of the original magazine.
's "Professor Bingo's Snuff" would have caught readers' eyes—the story had appeared the year before in Park East magazine, but would have been new to most readers. It was a short mystery in which the fantasy element was invisibility, achieved by magical snuff. Isaac Asimov
and Ray Bradbury
also contributed stories, and the issue led with "Six and Ten Are Johnny", by Walter M. Miller. The rear cover reprinted Pierre Roy
's painting "Danger on the Stairs", which depicted a snake on a staircase; it was an odd choice, but subsequent back covers were more natural fits for a fantasy magazine. The quality of the fiction continued to be high for the first year; sf historian Mike Ashley comments that almost every story in the first seven issues was of high quality, and historian David Kyle regards it as an "outstandingly successful experiment". Science fiction bibliographer Donald Tuck
dissents, however, regarding the first few years as containing "little of note", and James Blish
wrote a contemporary review of the second issue which found it lacking: Blish dismissed three of the seven stories in the Fall 1952 issue as being essentially crime stories written for the sf market, and commented that of the remaining four, only two were "reasonably competent and craftsmanlike".
Other well-known writers appeared in the early issues, including Shirley Jackson
, B. Traven
, Truman Capote
and Evelyn Waugh
. Mickey Spillane
had written a story called "The Woman With Green Skin", but had been unable to sell it; Browne offered to buy it on condition that he had permission to rewrite it as he wished. This was agreed and Browne scrapped Spillane's text completely, writing a new story called "The Veiled Woman" and publishing it as by Spillane in the November–December 1952 issue. The issue sold so well it was reprinted, with over 300,000 copies sold.
The emphasis was on fantasy, and much of it was "slick" fantasy—the sort of genre fiction that the upmarket slick magazines, such as The Saturday Evening Post
, were willing to buy. Some science fiction appeared as well in the first couple of years, including Isaac Asimov's "Sally", which portrays a world in which cars have been given robotic brains and are intelligent. In 1955 it was decided to move the focus from fantasy to sf: in Browne's words, "Stories of straight fantasy were largely eliminated and straight science-fiction substituted, cover subject matter became of a scientific nature, the words "science fiction" appeared under the title, interior artwork was tightened up to replace the loose, 'arty' kind of drawing we had been using." Sales rose 17% within two issues. Browne was uninterested in science fiction, however, and the quality of the fiction soon dropped, with a small stable of writers producing much of Fantastics fiction under house names over the next couple of years. By the start of 1956 the fiction in Fantastic was, in the opinion of sf historian Mike Ashley, “[in] a trough of hack predictability”, but there was some inventiveness evident from newer writers such as Robert Silverberg
, Harlan Ellison
and Randall Garrett
.
Although Browne had been unable to make Fantastic successful by specializing in fantasy, he was still interested in the fantasy genre, and experimented in the December 1955 issue with the theme of wish fulfilment. He dropped the words “Science Fiction” from the cover, and published five stories, all of which dealt with male fantasies in one form or another. The cover showed a man walking through a wall to find a woman undressing; the art was by Ed Valigursky and illustrated Paul Fairman’s “All Walls Were Mist”. Reader reaction, according to Browne, was almost entirely favorable, and he continued to publish occasional stories on the wish-fulfilment theme. The experiment was repeated with the October 1956 issue, which again ran without “Science Fiction” on the cover, and contained stories on the theme of “Incredible Powers”. Once again the cover illustrated a male fantasy: this time it showed a man materializing in a bath house where women were showering. Browne had left Ziff-Davis by the time this issue appeared, but Browne’s plans for a magazine around these themes were well advanced, and Fairman, who by this time was editing both Fantastic and Amazing, was given Dream World to edit as well. It ran for three quarterly issues, starting in February 1957, but proved too narrow a market to succeed.
Fairman devoted the July 1958 issue of Fantastic to the Shaver Mystery—a lurid set of beliefs propounded by Richard Shaver
in the late 1940s that told of “detrimental robots”, or “deros”, who were behind many of the disasters that befell humanity. Most of these stories had run in Amazing, though the editor at that time, Ray Palmer, had been forced to drop Shaver by Ziff-Davis when the stories began to attract ridicule in the press. Fantastic’s readers were no kinder, complaining vigorously.
, Larry Eisenberg
, Ursula K. Le Guin
, Thomas M. Disch
, and Piers Anthony
. The November 1959 issue was dedicated to Fritz Leiber
; it included "Lean Times in Lankhmar", one of Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
stories. Goldsmith published another half-dozen stories in the series over the next six years, along with other similar (and sometimes imitative) fiction such as early work by Michael Moorcock, and John Jakes' early stories of Brak the Barbarian. This helped to invigorate the nascent sword and sorcery
subgenre. Goldsmith obtained an early story by Cordwainer Smith
, “The Fife of Bodidharma”, which ran in the June 1959 issue, but shortly thereafter Pohl at Galaxy reached an agreement to get first refusal on all Smith’s work.
During the early 1960s Goldsmith managed to make Fantastic and Amazing, in the words of Mike Ashley, “the best-looking and brightest” magazines around. This applied both to the covers, where Goldsmith used artists such as Alex Schomburg
and Leo Summers, and the content. Ashley also describes Fantastic as the "premier fantasy magazine" during Goldsmith's tenure—at that time the only other magazine focused specifically on fantasy fiction was the British Science Fantasy
.
Goldsmith's tastes were too diverse for Fantastic to be limited to genre fantasy, however, and her willingness to buy fiction she liked, regardless of genre expectations, allowed many new writers to flourish on the pages of both Amazing and Fantastic. Writers such as Ursula K. Le Guin, Roger Zelazny
and Thomas M. Disch sold regularly to her at the start of their careers Le Guin later commented that Goldsmith was "as enterprising and perceptive an editor as the science fiction magazines ever had". Not all Goldsmith's choices were universally popular with the magazine's subscribers: she regularly published fiction by David R. Bunch
, for example, to mixed reviews from the readership.
. The reprints were well received by the fans, because Wrzos was able to find good quality stories that were unavailable except in the original magazines, meaning that to many of Fantastic’s readers they were fresh material. Wrzos also reprinted “The People of the Black Circle”, a Robert E. Howard
story from Weird Tales
, in 1967, when Howard’s Conan
stories were becoming popular.
In addition to the backlog of new stories from the Ziff-Davis era, Wrzos was able to acquire some new material. He was especially glad to acquire “For a Breath I Tarry”, by Roger Zelazny; however, he had to wait for Cohen’s approval for his acquisitions. Cohen, perhaps uncertain because of the story’s originality, delayed until it appeared in the British magazine New Worlds before agreeing to publish it. Wrzos commented years later that he would “never forgive him [Cohen] his timidity at that time". Wrzos bought Doris Piserchia
’s first story, “Rocket to Gehenna”, and was the first editor to acquire a story by Dean Koontz. He had to work with Koontz to improve it, and the delay this caused, in addition to the slow publishing schedule for new material, meant that Koontz appeared in print with “Soft Come the Dragons”, in the August 1967 Fantasy & Science Fiction, before “A Darkness in My Soul” appeared in the January 1968 Fantastic.
After Wrzos’s departure, Harrison and Malzberg had little opportunity to reshape the magazine as between them they only took responsibility for a handful of issues before Ted White took over. However, Harrison did print James Tiptree’s first sale, “Fault”, in the August 1968 issue; again the slow schedule meant that this was not Tiptree’s first appearance in print. Harrison added a science column by Leon Stover
, but was unable to change Cohen’s position on the reprints, and so could not print much new fiction. When Malzberg took over from Harrison he published John Sladek
, Thomas M. Disch, and James Sallis
, all of whom were associated with New Wave science fiction, but his tenure was too short for him to have a significant impact on the magazine.
paid five cents, and Galaxy
and Fantasy & Science Fiction paid three. Most stories would only be submitted to White once the higher-paying markets had rejected them, but among the rejects White was sometimes able to find experimental material that he liked. For example, Piers Anthony
had been unable to sell an early fantasy novel, Hasan; White saw a review of the manuscript and promptly acquired it for Fantastic, where it was serialized starting in the December 1969 issue. White also took care to establish relationships with newer writers. White bought Gordon Eklund
's first story, "Dear Aunt Annie", it appeared in the April 1970 issue and was nominated for a Nebula award
. Eklund was unwilling to become a full-time writer, despite this success, because of the financial risks, so White agreed to buy anything Eklund wrote, on condition that Eklund himself believed it was a good story. The result was that much of Eklund's fiction appeared in Amazing and Fantastic over the next few years. In addition to experimental work, White was able to obtain material by some of the leading sf writers of the day, including Brian Aldiss
and John Brunner
. White also acquired some early work by writers who became better known in other fields: Roger Ebert
sold two stories in the early 1970s to Fantastic; the first, "After the Last Mass", appeared in the February 1972 issue; and in 1975 White bought Ian McEwan
's second story, "Solid Geometry". It was included in First Love, Last Rites
, McEwan's first short story collection, which won the Somerset Maugham Award
in 1976.
White had been an active science fiction fan before he became professionally involved in the field, and although he estimated that only 1 in 30 readers were active sf fans, he tried to use this fan base to help by urging the readership to give him feedback and to help with distribution by checking local newsstands for the magazines. White wanted to introduce established artists from outside the sf field, such as Jeff Jones
, Vaughn Bodé
, and Steve Hickman; however, the company was saddled with cheap artwork acquired from European magazines to be used for the cover and he was instructed to make use of them. He commissioned a comic strip from Vaughn Bodé, but was outbid by Judy-Lynn Benjamin
at Galaxy; he subsequently told his readers that he'd signed up Bodé again for interior artwork, but this never materialized. Instead a four page comic strip by Jay Kinney
appeared in December 1970; a second strip, by Art Spiegelman
, was planned, but never published. Eventually White was allowed to commission original cover art; he published early work by Mike Hinge
, and Mike Kaluta made his first professional sale to Fantastic. He tried to hire Hinge as art director, but this fell through and White filled the role himself, sometimes using the pseudonym "J. Edwards".
Because of poor distribution, Fantastic was never able to benefit from the increasing popularity of the fantasy genre, though White was able to publish several stories by well-known writers in the field, including a sword and sorcery
novella by Dean R. Koontz, which appeared in the October 1970 issue, and an Elric story by Michael Moorcock
in February 1972. A revival of Robert E. Howard's character Conan, in stories by L. Sprague de Camp
and Lin Carter
, was successful at increasing sales; the first of these stories appeared in August 1972, and White reported that sales of that issue were higher than for any other issue of Amazing or Fantastic that year. Each Conan story, according to White, increased sales of that issue by 10,000 copies. White also published several of Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories, and added "Sword and Sorcery" to the cover in 1975. In the same year a companion magazine, Sword & Sorcery Annual, was launched, but the first issue was the only one to appear.
The quality of the magazine remained high even as the financial stress was mounting in the late 1970s. White acquired cover artwork by Stephen Fabian
and Douglas Beekman, and stories by some of the new generation of sf writers, such as George R. R. Martin
and Charles Sheffield
. White departed in November 1978, but the first issue of Fantastic under Elinor Mavor's editorial control was April 1979. Because White had returned unsold stories she had very little to work with and was forced to fill the magazine with reprints. This led to renewed conflict with the sf community, which she did her best to defuse. At a convention in 1979 she met Harlan Ellison
, who complained about the reprint policy; she explained that it was temporary and was able to get him to agree to contribute stories, publishing two pieces by him in Amazing over the next three years. The January 1980 issue of Fantastic (Mavor's fourth issue) was the last to contain reprinted stories. Once the reprints had been phased out, Mavor was able to find new writers to work with, including Brad Linaweaver
and John E. Stith
, both of whom sold their first stories to Fantastic. The last year of Fantastic showed "a steady improvement in content", according to Mike Ashley, who cites in particular Daemon, a serialized graphic story, illustrated by Stephen Fabian. However, at the end of 1980 Fantastics independent existence ceased, and it was merged with Amazing.
The following table shows which issues appeared from which publisher.
A British edition published by Thorpe & Porter ran for eight bimonthly issues from December 1953 to February 1955; the issues were not dated on the cover. These correspond to the US issues from September/October 1953 to December 1954, and were numbered volume 1, numbers 1 through 8.
Fantastic was digest-sized throughout its life. The page count began at 160 but dropped to 144 with the September/October 1953 issue, and then again to 128 pages with the very next issue, November/December 1953. The July 1960 issue had 144 pages, but apart from that one issue the page count stayed at 128 until September 1965, when it increased to 160. In January 1968 it went back down to 144 pages, and it dropped to 128 pages from February 1971 through the end of its run. The first issue was priced at 35 cents; thereafter the price went up as follows: 50 cents in May 1963, 60 cents in December 1969, 75 cents in July 1974, $1.00 in October 1975, $1.25 in April 1978, and finally $1.50 from April 1979 until the last issue.
Digest size
Digest size is a magazine size, smaller than a conventional or "journal size" magazine but larger than a standard paperback book, approximately 5½ x 8¼ inches, but can also be 5⅜ x 8⅜ inches and 5½ x 7½ inches. These sizes have evolved from the printing press operation end...
fantasy and science fiction magazine
Science fiction magazine
A science fiction magazine is a publication that offers primarily science fiction, either in a hard copy periodical format or on the Internet....
, published from 1952 to 1980. It was founded by Ziff-Davis as a fantasy companion to Amazing Stories
Amazing Stories
Amazing Stories was an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction...
. Early sales were good, and Ziff-Davis quickly decided to switch Amazing from pulp
Pulp magazine
Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
format to digest, and to cease publication of their other science fiction pulp, Fantastic Adventures
Fantastic Adventures
Fantastic Adventures was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1953 by Ziff-Davis. It was initially edited by Ray Palmer, who was also the editor of Amazing Stories, Ziff-Davis's other science fiction title. The first nine issues were in bedsheet format, but in June 1940...
. Within a few years sales fell, and Howard Browne
Howard Browne
Howard Browne was a science fiction editor and mystery writer. He also wrote for several television series and films...
, the editor, was forced to switch the focus to science fiction rather than fantasy. Browne lost interest in the magazine as a result and the magazine generally ran poor quality fiction in the mid-1950s, under Browne and his successor, Paul W. Fairman
Paul W. Fairman
Paul Warren Fairman was an editor and writer in a variety of genres under his own name and under pseudonyms. His detective story "Late Rain" was published in the February, 1947 issue of Mammoth Detective. He published his story "No Teeth For the Tiger" in the February, 1950 issue of Amazing Stories...
.
At the end of the 1950s Cele Goldsmith took over as editor of both Fantastic and Amazing, and quickly invigorated the magazines, bringing in many new writers and making them, in the words of one science fiction historian, the "best-looking and brightest" magazines in the field. She helped to nurture the early careers of writers such as Roger Zelazny
Roger Zelazny
Roger Joseph Zelazny was an American writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels, best known for his The Chronicles of Amber series...
and Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...
, but was unable to increase circulation, and in 1965 the magazines were sold to Sol Cohen
Sol Cohen
Sol Cohen was an American publisher who worked mostly in the science fiction field.Cohen started his long association with Avon Publications in 1947, working as an editor for their comics division from 1947–1956. During this same period, from 1947–1949, Cohen was the circulation director and...
, who hired Joseph Wrzos as editor and switched to a reprint
Reprint
A reprint is a re-publishing of material that has already been previously published. The word reprint is used in many fields.-Academic publishing:...
-only policy. This was financially successful, but brought Cohen into conflict with the newly formed Science Fiction Writers of America. After a turbulent period at the end of the 1960s, Ted White
Ted White (author)
Ted White is a Hugo Award-winning American writer, known as a science fiction author and editor and fan, as well as a music critic...
became editor and the reprints were phased out.
White worked hard to make the magazine successful, introducing artwork from artists who had made their names in comics, and working with new authors such as Gordon Eklund. His budget for fiction was low, but he was occasionally able to find good stories from well-known writers which had been rejected by the other markets. Circulation continued to decline and in 1978 Cohen sold out his half of the business to his partner, Arthur Bernhard. White resigned shortly afterwards, and was replaced by Elinor Mavor
Elinor Mavor
Elinor Mavor was the editor of Amazing Stories and Fantastic from early 1979 until late 1982. She had done illustrations and production work for several magazines, working for Arthur Bernhard. She had also been an editor at Bill of Fare, a restaurant trade magazine...
, but within two years Bernhard decided to close down Fantastic, merging it with Amazing, which had always had slightly higher circulation.
Publishing history
In 1938, Ziff-Davis, a Chicago-based publisher looking to expand into the pulp magazinePulp magazine
Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
market, acquired Amazing Stories
Amazing Stories
Amazing Stories was an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction...
. The number of science fiction magazines grew quickly; several new titles appeared over the next few years, including Fantastic Adventures
Fantastic Adventures
Fantastic Adventures was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1953 by Ziff-Davis. It was initially edited by Ray Palmer, who was also the editor of Amazing Stories, Ziff-Davis's other science fiction title. The first nine issues were in bedsheet format, but in June 1940...
, which was launched by Ziff-Davis in 1939 as a companion to Amazing. Under the editorship of Raymond Palmer the magazines were reasonably successful but published poor quality work, and when Howard Browne
Howard Browne
Howard Browne was a science fiction editor and mystery writer. He also wrote for several television series and films...
took over as editor of Amazing in January 1950 he decided to try to move the magazine upmarket. Ziff-Davis agreed to back the new magazine, and Browne put together a sample copy, but when the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
broke out Ziff-Davis cut their budgets and the project was abandoned. Browne did not give up, and in 1952 received the go-ahead to try a new magazine instead, focused on high-quality fantasy, a genre which had recently become more popular. The first issue of Fantastic, dated Summer 1952, appeared on March 21 of that year.
Early years
| Spring | Summer | Fall | Winter | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
| 1952 | 1/1 | 1/2 | 1/3 | |||||||||
| 1953 | 2/1 | 2/2 | 2/3 | 2/4 | 2/5 | 2/6 | ||||||
| 1954 | 3/1 | 3/2 | 3/3 | 3/4 | 3/5 | 3/6 | ||||||
| 1955 | 4/1 | 4/2 | 4/3 | 4/4 | 4/5 | 4/6 | ||||||
| 1956 | 5/1 | 5/2 | 5/3 | 5/4 | 5/5 | 5/6 | ||||||
| 1957 | 6/1 | 6/2 | 6/3 | 6/4 | 6/5 | 6/6 | 6/7 | 6/8 | 6/9 | 6/10 | 6/11 | |
| 1958 | 7/1 | 7/2 | 7/3 | 7/4 | 7/5 | 7/6 | 7/7 | 7/8 | 7/9 | 7/10 | 7/11 | 7/12 |
| 1959 | 8/1 | 8/2 | 8/3 | 8/4 | 8/5 | 8/6 | 8/7 | 8/8 | 8/9 | 8/10 | 8/11 | 8/12 |
| 1960 | 9/1 | 9/2 | 9/3 | 9/4 | 9/5 | 9/6 | 9/7 | 9/8 | 9/9 | 9/10 | 9/11 | 9/12 |
| Issues of Fantastic through 1960, identifying volume and issue numbers, and indicating editors: in sequence, Howard Browne, Paul Fairman, and Cele Goldsmith. Underlining indicates that an issue was titled as a quarterly (e.g. "Fall 1952") rather than as a monthly. |
||||||||||||
Fantastic Adventures
Fantastic Adventures was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1953 by Ziff-Davis. It was initially edited by Ray Palmer, who was also the editor of Amazing Stories, Ziff-Davis's other science fiction title. The first nine issues were in bedsheet format, but in June 1940...
: the March 1953 issue was the last, and the May–June 1953 issue of Fantastic added a mention of Fantastic Adventures to the masthead, though this disappeared with the following issue. Payment started at two cents per word for all rights, but could go up to ten cents at the editor's discretion; this put Fantastic in the second echelon of magazines, behind markets such as Astounding and Galaxy. The experiment with quality fiction did not last; circulation dropped, which led to budget cuts, and in turn the quality of the fiction fell. Browne had wanted to separate Fantastic from Amazings pulp roots, but now found he had to print more science fiction (sf) and less fantasy in order to attract Amazings readers to its sister magazine. Fantastics poor results were probably a consequence of the overloaded sf magazine market; far more magazines appeared in the early 1950s than the market was able to support. Ziff-Davis sales staff were able to help sell Fantastic and Amazing along with the technical magazines that it published, and the availability of a national sales network, even though it was not focused solely on Fantastic, undoubtedly helped the magazine to survive.
In May 1956 Browne left Ziff-Davis to become a screenwriter. Paul W. Fairman
Paul W. Fairman
Paul Warren Fairman was an editor and writer in a variety of genres under his own name and under pseudonyms. His detective story "Late Rain" was published in the February, 1947 issue of Mammoth Detective. He published his story "No Teeth For the Tiger" in the February, 1950 issue of Amazing Stories...
took over as editor of both Fantastic and Amazing. In 1957 Bernard Davis
Bernard George Davis
Bernard George Davis was an American publishing executive. He and William B. Ziff, Sr. founded Ziff Davis Inc. in 1927. In 1957, he sold his ownership share of Ziff-Davis to William Ziff, Jr., and left to found Davis Publishing. -Further reading:"Ziff Davis Corporate Timeline." Ziff Davis. 7 Nov...
left Ziff-Davis; it had been Davis who had suggested the acquisition of Amazing in 1939, and he had stayed involved with the sf magazines throughout the time he spent there. With his departure Amazing and Fantastic stagnated; they remained monthly but drew no attention from Ziff-Davis’s management.
Mid-1950s to late 1960s
In November 1955, Ziff-Davis hired an assistant, Cele Goldsmith, who began by helping with two new magazines under development, Dream World and Pen Pals. She also read the slush pileSlush pile
In publishing, the slush pile is the set of unsolicited query letters or manuscripts sent either directly to the publisher or literary agent by authors, or to the publisher by an agent not known to the publisher....
s for all the magazines, and was quickly given more responsibility. In 1957 she was made managing editor of both Amazing and Fantastic, doing the administrative chores and reading unsolicited manuscripts; and at the end of 1958 she became editor, replacing Fairman, who left to edit Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine is an American monthly digest size fiction magazine specializing in crime fiction, particularly detective fiction...
. Goldsmith (who became Cele Lalli when she married in 1964) stayed as editor for six and a half years.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1961 | 10/1 | 10/2 | 10/3 | 10/4 | 10/5 | 10/6 | 10/7 | 10/8 | 10/9 | 10/10 | 10/11 | 10/12 |
| 1962 | 11/1 | 11/2 | 11/3 | 11/4 | 11/5 | 11/6 | 11/7 | 11/8 | 11/9 | 11/10 | 11/11 | 11/12 |
| 1963 | 12/1 | 12/2 | 12/3 | 12/4 | 12/5 | 12/6 | 12/7 | 12/8 | 12/9 | 12/10 | 12/11 | 12/12 |
| 1964 | 13/1 | 13/2 | 13/3 | 13/4 | 13/5 | 13/6 | 13/7 | 13/8 | 13/9 | 13/10 | 13/11 | 13/12 |
| 1965 | 14/1 | 14/2 | 14/3 | 14/4 | 14/5 | 14/6 | 15/1 | 15/2 | ||||
| 1966 | 15/3 | 15/4 | 15/5 | 15/6 | 16/1 | 16/2 | ||||||
| 1967 | 16/3 | 16/4 | 16/5 | 16/6 | 17/1 | 17/2 | ||||||
| 1968 | 17/3 | 17/4 | 17/5 | 17/6 | 18/1 | 18/2 | ||||||
| 1969 | 18/3 | 18/4 | 18/5 | 18/6 | 19/1 | 19/2 | ||||||
| 1970 | 19/3 | 19/4 | 19/5 | 19/6 | 20/1 | 20/2 | ||||||
| Issues of Fantastic from 1961 to 1970, identifying volume and issue numbers, and indicating editors: in sequence, Cele Goldsmith (Lalli), Joseph Ross, Harry Harrison, Barry Malzberg, and Ted White |
||||||||||||
Sol Cohen
Sol Cohen was an American publisher who worked mostly in the science fiction field.Cohen started his long association with Avon Publications in 1947, working as an editor for their comics division from 1947–1956. During this same period, from 1947–1949, Cohen was the circulation director and...
, who at that time was Galaxy
Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by an Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break in to the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L...
s publisher, set up his own publishing company, Ultimate Publishing, and bought both Amazing and Fantastic from Ziff-Davis. Cohen had decided to make the magazines as profitable as possible by filling them only with reprints. This was possible because Ziff-Davis had acquired second serial rights for all stories they had published, and since Cohen had bought the backfile of stories he was able to reprint them using these rights. Using reprints in this way saved Cohen about $8,000 a year between the two magazines. Lalli decided that she did not want to work for Cohen, and stayed with Ziff-Davis. Her last issue was June 1965. Cohen replaced Lalli with Joseph Wrzos, who used the name "Joseph Ross" on the magazines. Cohen had met Wrzos at the Galaxy offices not long before; Wrzos was teaching English full-time, but had worked for Gnome Press
Gnome Press
Gnome Press was an American small-press publishing company primarily known for publishing many science fiction classics.The company was founded in 1948 by Martin Greenberg and David A. Kyle. Many of Gnome's titles were reprinted in England by Boardman Books...
as an assistant editor in 1953–1954.
Cohen also launched a series of reprint magazines, drawing from the backfile of both Amazing and Fantastic, again using the second serial rights he had acquired from Ziff-Davis. The first reprint magazine was Great Science Fiction; the first issue, titled Great Science Fiction from Amazing, appeared in August 1965. By early 1967 this had been joined by The Most Thrilling Science Fiction Ever Told and Science Fiction Classics. These increased the workload on Wrzos, though Cohen made the selection of stories, and Wrzos found himself able to work on Fantastic and Amazing only part time. Cohen hired Herb Lehrman to help with the other magazines.
Although Cohen felt that his deal with Ziff-Davis gave him the reprint rights he needed, the newly formed Science Fiction Writers of America
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, or SFWA is a nonprofit association of professional science fiction and fantasy writers. It was founded in 1965 by Damon Knight under the name Science Fiction Writers of America, Inc. and it retains the acronym SFWA after a very brief use of the SFFWA...
(SFWA) received complaints about Cohen's refusal to pay anything for the reprints. He was also reportedly not responding to requests for reassignment of copyright. SFWA organized a boycott of Cohen's magazines; after a year Cohen agreed to pay a flat fee for the reprints, and in August 1967 he agreed to a graduated scale of payments, and the boycott was withdrawn.
Harry Harrison
Harry Harrison
Harry Harrison is an American science fiction author best known for his character the Stainless Steel Rat and the novel Make Room! Make Room! , the basis for the film Soylent Green...
had been involved in the negotiations between SFWA and Cohen, and when the agreement was reached in 1967 Cohen asked Harrison if he would take over as editor of both magazines. Harrison was available because SF Impulse
Science Fantasy (magazine)
Science Fantasy, which also appeared under the titles Impulse and SF Impulse, was a British fantasy and science fiction magazine, launched in 1950 by Nova Publications as a companion to Nova's New Worlds. Walter Gillings was editor for the first two issues, and was then replaced by John Carnell,...
, which he had been editing, had ceased publication in early 1967. Cohen agreed to phase out the reprints by the end of the year, and Harrison took the job. Cohen added Harrison's name to the masthead of two issues of Great Science Fiction, although Harrison had had nothing to do with that magazine, but the reprints in Fantastic and Amazing continued and Harrison decided to quit in February 1968. He recommended Barry Malzberg
Barry N. Malzberg
Barry Nathaniel Malzberg is an American writer and editor, most often of science fiction and fantasy.-Overview:Initially in his post-graduate work Malzberg sought to establish himself as a playwright as well as a prose-fiction writer. His first two published novels were issed by Olympia Press...
as his replacement. Cohen had worked with Malzberg at the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, and felt Malzberg would be more cooperative than Harrison. Malzberg, however, turned out to be just as unwilling as Harrison to work with Cohen if the reprints continued, and soon regretted taking the job. In October 1968 Cohen refused to pay for a cover that Malzberg had commissioned; Malzberg insisted, threatening to resign if Cohen did not agree. Cohen contacted Robert Silverberg
Robert Silverberg
Robert Silverberg is an American author, best known for writing science fiction. He is a multiple nominee of the Hugo Award and a winner of the Nebula Award.-Early years:...
, then the president of SFWA, and told him (falsely) that Malzberg had actually resigned. Silverberg recommended Ted White as a replacement. Cohen secured White's agreement and then fired Malzberg; White took over in October 1968, but because there was a backlog of stories Malzberg had acquired, the first issue on which he was credited as editor was the June 1969 issue.
1970s
Like his immediate predecessors, White took the job on condition that the reprints would be phased out. It was some time before this was achieved: there was at least one reprinted story in every issue until the end of 1971. The February 1972 issue contained some artwork reprinted from 1939, and after that the reprints ceased.| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1971 | 20/3 | 20/4 | 20/5 | 20/6 | 21/1 | 21/2 | ||||||
| 1972 | 21/3 | 21/4 | 21/5 | 21/6 | 22/1 | 22/2 | ||||||
| 1973 | 22/3 | 22/4 | 22/5 | 22/6 | 23/1 | |||||||
| 1974 | 23/2 | 23/3 | 23/4 | 23/56 | 23/6 | 24/1 | ||||||
| 1975 | 24/2 | 24/3 | 24/4 | 24/5 | 24/6 | 25/1 | ||||||
| 1976 | 25/2 | 25/3 | 25/4 | 25/5 | ||||||||
| 1977 | 26/1 | 26/2 | 26/3 | 6/4 | ||||||||
| 1978 | 27/1 | 27/2 | 27/3 | |||||||||
| 1979 | 27/4 | 27/5 | 27/6 | 27/7 | ||||||||
| 1980 | 27/8 | 27/9 | 27/10 | 27/11 | ||||||||
| Issues of Fantastic from 1971 to 1980, identifying volume and issue numbers, and indicating editors: Ted White through most of the decade, and then Elinor Mavor. Note that the apparent error in volume numbering at the end of 1977 is in fact correct. |
||||||||||||
Roger Elwood
Roger Elwood was an American science fiction writer and editor, perhaps best known for having edited a large number of anthologies and collections for a variety of publishers in the early 1970s.-Biography:...
, at that time an active science fiction anthology editor, and Edward Ferman, the editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction is a digest-size American fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Mystery House and then by Fantasy House. Both were subsidiaries of Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Publications, which took over as publisher in 1958. Spilogale, Inc...
, approached Cohen with a view to acquiring the titles. Nothing came of it, however, and White was not aware of the possible sales. He was working at a low salary, with unpaid help from friends to read unsolicited submissions—at one point he introduced a 25-cent reading fee for manuscripts from unpublished writers; the fee would be refunded if White bought the story. White sometimes found himself at odds with Cohen's business partner, Arthur Bernhard, due to their different political views. White's unhappiness with his working conditions culminated in his resignation after Cohen refused his proposal to publish Fantastic as a slick magazine, with larger pages and higher quality paper. White commented in an article in Science Fiction Review that he had brought to the magazines "a lot of energy and enthusiasm and a great many ideas for their improvement ...Well, I have put into effect nearly every idea which I was allowed to follow through on ... and have spent most of my energy and enthusiasm." Cohen was able to persuade him to stay for another year; in the event White stayed for another three.
White was unable to completely halt the slide in circulation, though it rose a little in 1977. That year Cohen lost $15,000 dollars on the magazines, and decided to sell. He spent some time looking for a new publisher—editor Roy Torgeson was one of those interested—but on September 15, 1978, he sold his half of the business to Arthur Bernhard, his partner. White renewed his suggestions for improving the format of the magazine: he wanted to make Fantastic the same size as Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
, and believed he could avoid the mistakes that had been made by other sf magazines that had tried that approach. White also proposed an increase in the budget and asked for a raise. Bernhard not only turned down White's ideas, but also stopped paying him: White responded by resigning. His last official day as editor was November 9; the last issue of Fantastic under his control was the January 1979 issue. He returned all submissions to their authors, saying that he had been told to do so by Bernhard; Bernhard denied this.
Bernhard brought in Elinor Mavor
Elinor Mavor
Elinor Mavor was the editor of Amazing Stories and Fantastic from early 1979 until late 1982. She had done illustrations and production work for several magazines, working for Arthur Bernhard. She had also been an editor at Bill of Fare, a restaurant trade magazine...
to edit both Amazing and Fantastic. Mavor had previously edited Bill of Fare, a restaurant trade journal, and was a long-time science fiction reader, but she had little knowledge of the history of the magazines. She was unaware, for example, that she was not the first woman to edit them, and so adopted a male pseudonym—"Omar Gohagen"—for a while. She suggested a campaign to increase circulation, and went so far as to gather information about costs while on a trip to New York in 1979. Bernhard decided instead to merge the two magazines. Circulation was continuing to drop; the figures for the last two years are not available, but sf historian Mike Ashley
Mike Ashley (writer)
Michael Ashley is a British bibliographer, author and editor of science fiction, mystery, and fantasy.He edits the long-running Mammoth Book series of short story anthologies, each arranged around a particular theme in mystery, fantasy, or science fiction...
estimates that Fantastic paid circulation may have been as low as 13,000. Bernhard felt that since Fantastic had never been profitable, whereas Amazing had made money, it was best to keep Amazing. Until the March 1985 issue, Amazing included a mention of Fantastic on the spine and on the contents page. In 1999, the fiction magazine formerly known as Pirate Writings revived the Fantastic title and Cele Goldsmith-era logotype for several issues, ultimately unsuccessfully, though this was not intended as a continuation of the original magazine.
Browne and Fairman
The first issue of Fantastic was impressive, with a cover that sf historian Mike Ashley has described as "one of the most captivating of all first issues"; the painting, by Barye Phillips and Leo Summers, illustrated Kris Neville's "The Opal Necklace". The fiction included some stories by well known names; in particular, Raymond ChandlerRaymond Chandler
Raymond Thornton Chandler was an American novelist and screenwriter.In 1932, at age forty-five, Raymond Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in...
's "Professor Bingo's Snuff" would have caught readers' eyes—the story had appeared the year before in Park East magazine, but would have been new to most readers. It was a short mystery in which the fantasy element was invisibility, achieved by magical snuff. Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
and Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
also contributed stories, and the issue led with "Six and Ten Are Johnny", by Walter M. Miller. The rear cover reprinted Pierre Roy
Pierre Roy (painter)
Pierre Roy was a French painter, illustrator and designer. His paintings, containing mysterious juxtapositions of objects, often inspired by memories of his childhood, show some affiliation to Surrealism and Magic Realism.Born in Nantes, he moved to Paris and studied at the École des Arts...
's painting "Danger on the Stairs", which depicted a snake on a staircase; it was an odd choice, but subsequent back covers were more natural fits for a fantasy magazine. The quality of the fiction continued to be high for the first year; sf historian Mike Ashley comments that almost every story in the first seven issues was of high quality, and historian David Kyle regards it as an "outstandingly successful experiment". Science fiction bibliographer Donald Tuck
Donald H. Tuck
Donald Henry Tuck was a bibliographer of science fiction, fantasy and weird fiction. His works were "among the most extensive produced since the pioneering work of Everett F...
dissents, however, regarding the first few years as containing "little of note", and James Blish
James Blish
James Benjamin Blish was an American author of fantasy and science fiction. Blish also wrote literary criticism of science fiction using the pen-name William Atheling, Jr.-Biography:...
wrote a contemporary review of the second issue which found it lacking: Blish dismissed three of the seven stories in the Fall 1952 issue as being essentially crime stories written for the sf market, and commented that of the remaining four, only two were "reasonably competent and craftsmanlike".
Other well-known writers appeared in the early issues, including Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson was an American author. A popular writer in her time, her work has received increasing attention from literary critics in recent years...
, B. Traven
B. Traven
B. Traven was the pen name of a German novelist, whose real name, nationality, date and place of birth and details of biography are all subject to dispute. A rare certainty is that B...
, Truman Capote
Truman Capote
Truman Streckfus Persons , known as Truman Capote , was an American author, many of whose short stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's and the true crime novel In Cold Blood , which he labeled a "nonfiction novel." At...
and Evelyn Waugh
Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...
. Mickey Spillane
Mickey Spillane
Frank Morrison Spillane , better known as Mickey Spillane, was an American author of crime novels, many featuring his signature detective character, Mike Hammer. More than 225 million copies of his books have sold internationally...
had written a story called "The Woman With Green Skin", but had been unable to sell it; Browne offered to buy it on condition that he had permission to rewrite it as he wished. This was agreed and Browne scrapped Spillane's text completely, writing a new story called "The Veiled Woman" and publishing it as by Spillane in the November–December 1952 issue. The issue sold so well it was reprinted, with over 300,000 copies sold.
The emphasis was on fantasy, and much of it was "slick" fantasy—the sort of genre fiction that the upmarket slick magazines, such as The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
, were willing to buy. Some science fiction appeared as well in the first couple of years, including Isaac Asimov's "Sally", which portrays a world in which cars have been given robotic brains and are intelligent. In 1955 it was decided to move the focus from fantasy to sf: in Browne's words, "Stories of straight fantasy were largely eliminated and straight science-fiction substituted, cover subject matter became of a scientific nature, the words "science fiction" appeared under the title, interior artwork was tightened up to replace the loose, 'arty' kind of drawing we had been using." Sales rose 17% within two issues. Browne was uninterested in science fiction, however, and the quality of the fiction soon dropped, with a small stable of writers producing much of Fantastics fiction under house names over the next couple of years. By the start of 1956 the fiction in Fantastic was, in the opinion of sf historian Mike Ashley, “[in] a trough of hack predictability”, but there was some inventiveness evident from newer writers such as Robert Silverberg
Robert Silverberg
Robert Silverberg is an American author, best known for writing science fiction. He is a multiple nominee of the Hugo Award and a winner of the Nebula Award.-Early years:...
, Harlan Ellison
Harlan Ellison
Harlan Jay Ellison is an American writer. His principal genre is speculative fiction.His published works include over 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, teleplays, essays, a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media...
and Randall Garrett
Randall Garrett
Randall Garrett was an American science fiction and fantasy author. He was a prolific contributor to Astounding and other science fiction magazines of the 1950s and 1960s...
.
Although Browne had been unable to make Fantastic successful by specializing in fantasy, he was still interested in the fantasy genre, and experimented in the December 1955 issue with the theme of wish fulfilment. He dropped the words “Science Fiction” from the cover, and published five stories, all of which dealt with male fantasies in one form or another. The cover showed a man walking through a wall to find a woman undressing; the art was by Ed Valigursky and illustrated Paul Fairman’s “All Walls Were Mist”. Reader reaction, according to Browne, was almost entirely favorable, and he continued to publish occasional stories on the wish-fulfilment theme. The experiment was repeated with the October 1956 issue, which again ran without “Science Fiction” on the cover, and contained stories on the theme of “Incredible Powers”. Once again the cover illustrated a male fantasy: this time it showed a man materializing in a bath house where women were showering. Browne had left Ziff-Davis by the time this issue appeared, but Browne’s plans for a magazine around these themes were well advanced, and Fairman, who by this time was editing both Fantastic and Amazing, was given Dream World to edit as well. It ran for three quarterly issues, starting in February 1957, but proved too narrow a market to succeed.
Fairman devoted the July 1958 issue of Fantastic to the Shaver Mystery—a lurid set of beliefs propounded by Richard Shaver
Richard Sharpe Shaver
Richard Sharpe Shaver was an American writer and artist.He achieved notoriety in the years following World War II as the author of controversial stories which were printed in science fiction magazines , in which he claimed that he had personal experience of a sinister, ancient...
in the late 1940s that told of “detrimental robots”, or “deros”, who were behind many of the disasters that befell humanity. Most of these stories had run in Amazing, though the editor at that time, Ray Palmer, had been forced to drop Shaver by Ziff-Davis when the stories began to attract ridicule in the press. Fantastic’s readers were no kinder, complaining vigorously.
Goldsmith
When Goldsmith took over as editor, there was some concern at Ziff-Davis that she might not be able to handle the job. A consultant, Norman Lobsenz, was brought in to help her; Lobsenz’s title was “editorial director”, but in fact Goldsmith made the story selections. Lobsenz provided blurbs and editorials, read the stories Goldsmith bought, and met with Goldsmith every week or so. Goldsmith was not a long-time sf reader, and knew little about the field; she simply looked for good quality fiction and bought what she liked. In Mike Ashley’s words, “the result, between 1961 and 1964, was the two most exciting and original magazines in the field”. New writers whose first story appeared in Fantastic during this period included Phyllis GotliebPhyllis Gotlieb
Phyllis Fay Gotlieb, née Bloom BA, MA was a Canadian science fiction novelist and poet.Born of Jewish heritage in Toronto, Gotlieb graduated from the University of Toronto with degrees in literature in 1948 and 1950 .The Sunburst Award is named for her first novel, Sunburst...
, Larry Eisenberg
Larry Eisenberg
Lawrence Eisenberg is a science fiction writer. He is best known for his short story "What Happened to Auguste Clarot?," published in Harlan Ellison's groundbreaking anthology Dangerous Visions...
, Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...
, Thomas M. Disch
Thomas M. Disch
Thomas Michael Disch was an American science fiction author and poet. He won the Hugo Award for Best Related Book – previously called "Best Non-Fiction Book" – in 1999, and he had two other Hugo nominations and nine Nebula Award nominations to his credit, plus one win of the John W...
, and Piers Anthony
Piers Anthony
Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob is an English American writer in the science fiction and fantasy genres, publishing under the name Piers Anthony. He is most famous for his long-running novel series set in the fictional realm of Xanth.Many of his books have appeared on the New York Times Best...
. The November 1959 issue was dedicated to Fritz Leiber
Fritz Leiber
Fritz Reuter Leiber, Jr. was an American writer of fantasy, horror and science fiction. He was also a poet, actor in theatre and films, playwright, expert chess player and a champion fencer. Possibly his greatest chess accomplishment was winning clear first in the 1958 Santa Monica Open.. With...
; it included "Lean Times in Lankhmar", one of Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are two seminal sword-and-sorcery heroes appearing in stories written by Fritz Leiber . They are the protagonists of what are probably Leiber's best-known stories....
stories. Goldsmith published another half-dozen stories in the series over the next six years, along with other similar (and sometimes imitative) fiction such as early work by Michael Moorcock, and John Jakes' early stories of Brak the Barbarian. This helped to invigorate the nascent sword and sorcery
Sword and sorcery
Sword and sorcery is a sub-genre of fantasy and historical fantasy, generally characterized by sword-wielding heroes engaged in exciting and violent conflicts. An element of romance is often present, as is an element of magic and the supernatural...
subgenre. Goldsmith obtained an early story by Cordwainer Smith
Cordwainer Smith
Cordwainer Smith – pronounced CORDwainer – was the pseudonym used by American author Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger for his science fiction works. Linebarger was a noted East Asia scholar and expert in psychological warfare...
, “The Fife of Bodidharma”, which ran in the June 1959 issue, but shortly thereafter Pohl at Galaxy reached an agreement to get first refusal on all Smith’s work.
During the early 1960s Goldsmith managed to make Fantastic and Amazing, in the words of Mike Ashley, “the best-looking and brightest” magazines around. This applied both to the covers, where Goldsmith used artists such as Alex Schomburg
Alex Schomburg
Alex Schomburg was a prolific American commercial and comic book artist and painter whose career lasted over 70 years.-Biography:...
and Leo Summers, and the content. Ashley also describes Fantastic as the "premier fantasy magazine" during Goldsmith's tenure—at that time the only other magazine focused specifically on fantasy fiction was the British Science Fantasy
Science Fantasy (magazine)
Science Fantasy, which also appeared under the titles Impulse and SF Impulse, was a British fantasy and science fiction magazine, launched in 1950 by Nova Publications as a companion to Nova's New Worlds. Walter Gillings was editor for the first two issues, and was then replaced by John Carnell,...
.
Goldsmith's tastes were too diverse for Fantastic to be limited to genre fantasy, however, and her willingness to buy fiction she liked, regardless of genre expectations, allowed many new writers to flourish on the pages of both Amazing and Fantastic. Writers such as Ursula K. Le Guin, Roger Zelazny
Roger Zelazny
Roger Joseph Zelazny was an American writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels, best known for his The Chronicles of Amber series...
and Thomas M. Disch sold regularly to her at the start of their careers Le Guin later commented that Goldsmith was "as enterprising and perceptive an editor as the science fiction magazines ever had". Not all Goldsmith's choices were universally popular with the magazine's subscribers: she regularly published fiction by David R. Bunch
David R. Bunch
David Roosevelt Bunch was an American writer of short stories and poetry. He worked mainly in the genres of science fiction, satire, surrealism, and literary fiction. Although prolific and critically acclaimed, Bunch remained obscure throughout his career...
, for example, to mixed reviews from the readership.
Reprint era
Wrzos persuaded Cohen that both Amazing and Fantastic should carry a new story in every issue, rather than running nothing but reprints; Goldsmith had left a backlog of unpublished stories, and Wrzos was able to stretch these out for some time. One such story was Fritz Leiber’s “Stardock”, another Fafhrd and Gray Mouser story, which appeared in the September 1965 issue; it was subsequently nominated for a Hugo AwardHugo Award for Best Short Story
The Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...
. The reprints were well received by the fans, because Wrzos was able to find good quality stories that were unavailable except in the original magazines, meaning that to many of Fantastic’s readers they were fresh material. Wrzos also reprinted “The People of the Black Circle”, a Robert E. Howard
Robert E. Howard
Robert Ervin Howard was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. Best known for his character Conan the Barbarian, he is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre....
story from Weird Tales
Weird Tales
Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine first published in March 1923. It ceased its original run in September 1954, after 279 issues, but has since been revived. The magazine was set up in Chicago by J. C. Henneberger, an ex-journalist with a taste for the macabre....
, in 1967, when Howard’s Conan
Conan the Barbarian
Conan the Barbarian is a fictional sword and sorcery hero that originated in pulp fiction magazines and has since been adapted to books, comics, several films , television programs, video games, roleplaying games and other media...
stories were becoming popular.
In addition to the backlog of new stories from the Ziff-Davis era, Wrzos was able to acquire some new material. He was especially glad to acquire “For a Breath I Tarry”, by Roger Zelazny; however, he had to wait for Cohen’s approval for his acquisitions. Cohen, perhaps uncertain because of the story’s originality, delayed until it appeared in the British magazine New Worlds before agreeing to publish it. Wrzos commented years later that he would “never forgive him [Cohen] his timidity at that time". Wrzos bought Doris Piserchia
Doris Piserchia
Doris Piserchia is a science fiction writer who was born and raised in West Virginia. She served in the United States Navy from 1950 to 1954 and after that received her Master's in educational psychology. She did not begin publishing until 1966. Her stories have an interest in aliens and have been...
’s first story, “Rocket to Gehenna”, and was the first editor to acquire a story by Dean Koontz. He had to work with Koontz to improve it, and the delay this caused, in addition to the slow publishing schedule for new material, meant that Koontz appeared in print with “Soft Come the Dragons”, in the August 1967 Fantasy & Science Fiction, before “A Darkness in My Soul” appeared in the January 1968 Fantastic.
After Wrzos’s departure, Harrison and Malzberg had little opportunity to reshape the magazine as between them they only took responsibility for a handful of issues before Ted White took over. However, Harrison did print James Tiptree’s first sale, “Fault”, in the August 1968 issue; again the slow schedule meant that this was not Tiptree’s first appearance in print. Harrison added a science column by Leon Stover
Leon Stover
Leon Eugene Stover was an anthropologist, a Sinologist, and a science fiction fan, who wrote both fiction and nonfiction. He was a scholar of the works of H. G. Wells and Robert A. Heinlein.-Scholarly career:...
, but was unable to change Cohen’s position on the reprints, and so could not print much new fiction. When Malzberg took over from Harrison he published John Sladek
John Sladek
John Thomas Sladek was an American science fiction author, known for his satirical and surreal novels.- Life and work :...
, Thomas M. Disch, and James Sallis
James Sallis
James Sallis is an American crime writer, poet and musician, best known for his series of novels featuring the character Lew Griffin and set in New Orleans, and for his 2005 novel Drive, which was adapted into a 2011 film of the same name.He is the brother of philosopher John Sallis...
, all of whom were associated with New Wave science fiction, but his tenure was too short for him to have a significant impact on the magazine.
White and Mavor
White was only able to offer his writers one cent per word, which was substantially lower than the leading magazines in the field—Analog Science Fiction and FactAnalog Science Fiction and Fact
Analog Science Fiction and Fact is an American science fiction magazine. As of 2011, it is the longest running continuously published magazine of that genre...
paid five cents, and Galaxy
Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by an Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break in to the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L...
and Fantasy & Science Fiction paid three. Most stories would only be submitted to White once the higher-paying markets had rejected them, but among the rejects White was sometimes able to find experimental material that he liked. For example, Piers Anthony
Piers Anthony
Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob is an English American writer in the science fiction and fantasy genres, publishing under the name Piers Anthony. He is most famous for his long-running novel series set in the fictional realm of Xanth.Many of his books have appeared on the New York Times Best...
had been unable to sell an early fantasy novel, Hasan; White saw a review of the manuscript and promptly acquired it for Fantastic, where it was serialized starting in the December 1969 issue. White also took care to establish relationships with newer writers. White bought Gordon Eklund
Gordon Eklund
Gordon Eklund is a Nebula Award-winning, American science fiction author whose works include the "Lord Tedric" series and two of the earliest original novels based on the 1960s Star Trek TV series. He has written under the pen name Wendell Stewart, and in one instance under the name of the late E. E...
's first story, "Dear Aunt Annie", it appeared in the April 1970 issue and was nominated for a Nebula award
Nebula Award
The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
. Eklund was unwilling to become a full-time writer, despite this success, because of the financial risks, so White agreed to buy anything Eklund wrote, on condition that Eklund himself believed it was a good story. The result was that much of Eklund's fiction appeared in Amazing and Fantastic over the next few years. In addition to experimental work, White was able to obtain material by some of the leading sf writers of the day, including Brian Aldiss
Brian Aldiss
Brian Wilson Aldiss, OBE is an English author of both general fiction and science fiction. His byline reads either Brian W. Aldiss or simply Brian Aldiss. Greatly influenced by science fiction pioneer H. G. Wells, Aldiss is a vice-president of the international H. G. Wells Society...
and John Brunner
John Brunner (novelist)
John Kilian Houston Brunner was a prolific British author of science fiction novels and stories. His 1968 novel Stand on Zanzibar, about an overpopulated world, won the 1968 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel. It also won the BSFA award the same year...
. White also acquired some early work by writers who became better known in other fields: Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
sold two stories in the early 1970s to Fantastic; the first, "After the Last Mass", appeared in the February 1972 issue; and in 1975 White bought Ian McEwan
Ian McEwan
Ian Russell McEwan CBE, FRSA, FRSL is a British novelist and screenwriter, and one of Britain's most highly regarded writers. In 2008, The Times named him among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945"....
's second story, "Solid Geometry". It was included in First Love, Last Rites
First Love, Last Rites
First Love, Last Rites is a collection of short stories by Ian McEwan. It was first published in 1975 by Jonathan Cape and re-issued in 1997 by Vintage.- Context :...
, McEwan's first short story collection, which won the Somerset Maugham Award
Somerset Maugham Award
The Somerset Maugham Award is a British literary prize given each May by the Society of Authors. It is awarded to whom they judge to be the best writer or writers under the age of thirty-five of a book published in the past year. The prize was instituted in 1947 by William Somerset Maugham and thus...
in 1976.
White had been an active science fiction fan before he became professionally involved in the field, and although he estimated that only 1 in 30 readers were active sf fans, he tried to use this fan base to help by urging the readership to give him feedback and to help with distribution by checking local newsstands for the magazines. White wanted to introduce established artists from outside the sf field, such as Jeff Jones
Jeff Jones (artist)
Jeffrey Catherine Jones was an American artist whose work is best known from the late 1960s through 2000s. Jones provided over 150 covers for many different types of books through 1976, as well as venturing into fine art during and after this time...
, Vaughn Bodé
Vaughn Bodé
Vaughn Bodē was an artist involved in underground comics, graphic design and graffiti. He is perhaps best known for his comic strip character Cheech Wizard and artwork depicting voluptuous women. His works are noted for their psychedelic look and feel...
, and Steve Hickman; however, the company was saddled with cheap artwork acquired from European magazines to be used for the cover and he was instructed to make use of them. He commissioned a comic strip from Vaughn Bodé, but was outbid by Judy-Lynn Benjamin
Judy-Lynn del Rey
Judy-Lynn del Rey née Benjamin was a science fiction editor.Born with dwarfism, she was a fan and regular attendee at science fiction conventions and worked her way up the publishing ladder, starting with work at the science fiction magazine Galaxy.Judy-Lynn was friends with Lester del Rey and...
at Galaxy; he subsequently told his readers that he'd signed up Bodé again for interior artwork, but this never materialized. Instead a four page comic strip by Jay Kinney
Jay Kinney
Jay Kinney is an American author, editor, and former underground cartoonist. A member, along with Skip Williamson, Jay Lynch and R. Crumb, of the original Bijou Funnies crew, Kinney also edited Young Lust, a satire of romance comics, in the early 1970s with Bill Griffith...
appeared in December 1970; a second strip, by Art Spiegelman
Art Spiegelman
Art Spiegelman is an American comics artist, editor, and advocate for the medium of comics, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning comic book memoir, Maus. His works are published with his name in lowercase: art spiegelman.-Biography:Spiegelman was born in Stockholm, Sweden, to Polish Jews...
, was planned, but never published. Eventually White was allowed to commission original cover art; he published early work by Mike Hinge
Mike Hinge
Mike Hinge illustrator and graphic designer. Born Auckland, New Zealand, August 9, 1931, Died Philadelphia, United States, August 2003....
, and Mike Kaluta made his first professional sale to Fantastic. He tried to hire Hinge as art director, but this fell through and White filled the role himself, sometimes using the pseudonym "J. Edwards".
Because of poor distribution, Fantastic was never able to benefit from the increasing popularity of the fantasy genre, though White was able to publish several stories by well-known writers in the field, including a sword and sorcery
Sword and sorcery
Sword and sorcery is a sub-genre of fantasy and historical fantasy, generally characterized by sword-wielding heroes engaged in exciting and violent conflicts. An element of romance is often present, as is an element of magic and the supernatural...
novella by Dean R. Koontz, which appeared in the October 1970 issue, and an Elric story by Michael Moorcock
Michael Moorcock
Michael John Moorcock is an English writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy, who has also published a number of literary novels....
in February 1972. A revival of Robert E. Howard's character Conan, in stories by L. Sprague de Camp
L. Sprague de Camp
Lyon Sprague de Camp was an American author of science fiction and fantasy books, non-fiction and biography. In a writing career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, including novels and notable works of non-fiction, including biographies of other important fantasy authors...
and Lin Carter
Lin Carter
Linwood Vrooman Carter was an American author of science fiction and fantasy, as well as an editor and critic. He usually wrote as Lin Carter; known pseudonyms include H. P. Lowcraft and Grail Undwin.-Life:Carter was born in St. Petersburg, Florida...
, was successful at increasing sales; the first of these stories appeared in August 1972, and White reported that sales of that issue were higher than for any other issue of Amazing or Fantastic that year. Each Conan story, according to White, increased sales of that issue by 10,000 copies. White also published several of Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories, and added "Sword and Sorcery" to the cover in 1975. In the same year a companion magazine, Sword & Sorcery Annual, was launched, but the first issue was the only one to appear.
The quality of the magazine remained high even as the financial stress was mounting in the late 1970s. White acquired cover artwork by Stephen Fabian
Stephen Fabian
-Career:Fabian specializes in science fiction and fantasy illustration and cover art for books and magazines. Fabian also produced artwork for TSR's Dungeons & Dragons game from 1986 to 1995, particularly on the Ravenloft line. He was self-taught, two of his primary influences being Virgil Finlay...
and Douglas Beekman, and stories by some of the new generation of sf writers, such as George R. R. Martin
George R. R. Martin
George Raymond Richard Martin , sometimes referred to as GRRM, is an American author and screenwriter of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. He is best known for A Song of Ice and Fire, his bestselling series of epic fantasy novels that HBO adapted for their dramatic pay-cable series Game of...
and Charles Sheffield
Charles Sheffield
Charles Sheffield , was an English-born mathematician, physicist and science fiction author. He had been a President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and of the American Astronautical Society....
. White departed in November 1978, but the first issue of Fantastic under Elinor Mavor's editorial control was April 1979. Because White had returned unsold stories she had very little to work with and was forced to fill the magazine with reprints. This led to renewed conflict with the sf community, which she did her best to defuse. At a convention in 1979 she met Harlan Ellison
Harlan Ellison
Harlan Jay Ellison is an American writer. His principal genre is speculative fiction.His published works include over 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, teleplays, essays, a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media...
, who complained about the reprint policy; she explained that it was temporary and was able to get him to agree to contribute stories, publishing two pieces by him in Amazing over the next three years. The January 1980 issue of Fantastic (Mavor's fourth issue) was the last to contain reprinted stories. Once the reprints had been phased out, Mavor was able to find new writers to work with, including Brad Linaweaver
Brad Linaweaver
Bradford Swain Linaweaver is a science fiction writer and screenwriting for low budget movies.The novella version of his novel 'Moon of Ice' was a Nebula Award finalist and the novel length version won a Prometheus Award....
and John E. Stith
John E. Stith
John E. Stith is an American science fiction author, known for the scientific rigor he brings to adventure and mystery stories....
, both of whom sold their first stories to Fantastic. The last year of Fantastic showed "a steady improvement in content", according to Mike Ashley, who cites in particular Daemon, a serialized graphic story, illustrated by Stephen Fabian. However, at the end of 1980 Fantastics independent existence ceased, and it was merged with Amazing.
Editors
The list below gives the person who was acting as editor. In some cases, such as at the start of Cele Goldsmith's stint, the official editor was not the same person; details are given above.- Howard Browne (Summer 1952 – August 1956).
- Paul Fairman (October 1956 – November 1958).
- Cele Goldsmith (December 1958 – June 1965). Goldsmith used her married name, Cele G. Lalli, from July 1964.
- Joseph Ross (September 1965 – November 1967).
- Harry Harrison (January 1968 – October 1968).
- Barry N. Malzberg (December 1968 – April 1969).
- Ted White (June 1969 – January 1979)
- Elinor Mavor (April 1979 – October 1980)
Other bibliographic details
The title changed multiple times, and was frequently inconsistently given between the cover, spine, indicia, and masthead.| Start month | End month | Cover | Spine | Indicia | Masthead | Number of issues |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Summer-52 | Feb-55 | Fantastic | Fantastic | Fantastic | Fantastic | 16 |
| Apr–55 | Oct–55 | Fantastic Science-Fiction | 4 | |||
| Dec–55 | Dec–55 | Fantastic | 1 | |||
| Feb–56 | Aug–56 | Fantastic Science-Fiction | 4 | |||
| Oct–56 | Oct–56 | Fantastic | 1 | |||
| Dec–56 | Sep–57 | Fantastic Science-Fiction | 9 | |||
| Oct–57 | Feb–58 | Fantastic Science Fiction | 5 | |||
| Mar–58 | Aug–59 | Fantastic | 18 | |||
| Sep–59 | Dec–59 | Fantastic Science Fiction Stories | Fantastic Science Fiction Stories | Fantastic Science Fiction Stories | 4 | |
| Jan-60 | Sep-60 | Fantastic Science Fiction Stories | 9 | |||
| Oct-60 | Jun-65 | Fantastic Stories of Imagination | Fantastic Stories of Imagination | Fantastic | Fantastic Stories of Imagination | 57 |
| Sep-65 | Dec-69 | Fantastic Science Fiction - Fantasy | Fantastic Stories | Fantastic Science Fiction - Fantasy | 26 | |
| Feb-70 | Apr-71 | Fantastic Stories Science Fiction - Fantasy | 8 | |||
| Jun-71 | Apr-72 | Fantastic Stories Science Fiction & Fantasy | Fantastic Stories Science Fiction & Fantasy | 6 | ||
| Jun-72 | Jun-72 | Fantastic Stories Science Fiction & Fantasy | 1 | |||
| Aug-72 | Aug-72 | Fantastic Stories | 1 | |||
| Oct-72 | Feb-75 | Fantastic Stories Science Fiction & Fantasy | 14 | |||
| Apr-75 | Jun-77 | Fantastic Stories Sword & Sorcery and Fantasy | Fantastic Stories Swords & Sorcery and Fantasy | 11 | ||
| Sep-77 | Oct-78 | Fantastic Stories | Fantastic Stories | Fantastic Stories Sword & Sorcery and Fantasy | 5 | |
| Jan-79 | Jan-79 | Fantastic Stories Science Fiction & Fantasy | Fantastic Stories Science Fiction & Fantasy | Fantastic Stories Science Fiction & Fantasy | 1 | |
| Apr-79 | Oct-80 | Fantastic Science Fiction | Fantastic Stories | Fantastic Science Fiction | 7 |
The following table shows which issues appeared from which publisher.
| Dates | Publisher |
|---|---|
| Summer 1952 – June 1965 | Ziff-Davis, New York |
| September 1965 – January 1979 | Ultimate Publishing, Flushing, New York |
| April 1979 – October 1980 | Ultimate Publishing, Purchase, New York |
A British edition published by Thorpe & Porter ran for eight bimonthly issues from December 1953 to February 1955; the issues were not dated on the cover. These correspond to the US issues from September/October 1953 to December 1954, and were numbered volume 1, numbers 1 through 8.
Fantastic was digest-sized throughout its life. The page count began at 160 but dropped to 144 with the September/October 1953 issue, and then again to 128 pages with the very next issue, November/December 1953. The July 1960 issue had 144 pages, but apart from that one issue the page count stayed at 128 until September 1965, when it increased to 160. In January 1968 it went back down to 144 pages, and it dropped to 128 pages from February 1971 through the end of its run. The first issue was priced at 35 cents; thereafter the price went up as follows: 50 cents in May 1963, 60 cents in December 1969, 75 cents in July 1974, $1.00 in October 1975, $1.25 in April 1978, and finally $1.50 from April 1979 until the last issue.
Derivative anthologies
Three anthologies of stories from Fantastic have been published. Note that Time Untamed contains stories that were published in Fantastic during its reprint years, but which did not necessarily first appear there.| Year | Editor | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1967 | Ivan Howard | Time Untamed | Belmont: New York |
| 1973 | Ted White | The Best From Fantastic | Manor Books: New York |
| 1987 | Martin H. Greenberg & Patrick Lucien Price | Fantastic Stories: Tales of the Weird and Wondrous | TSR: Lake Geneva, Wisconsin |