Fantastic (magazine)
Fantastic was an American digest-size fantasy and science fiction magazine, published from 1952 to 1980. It was founded by the publishing company Ziff Davis as a fantasy companion to Amazing Stories. In 1978, Arthur Bernhard decided to close down Fantastic, merging it with Amazing Stories, which had always enjoyed a slightly higher circulation. The last issue of Fantastic, dated Summer 1952, appeared on March 21 of that year, with a mention of Fantastic Adventures to the masthead.
About Fantastic (magazine) in brief
Fantastic was an American digest-size fantasy and science fiction magazine, published from 1952 to 1980. It was founded by the publishing company Ziff Davis as a fantasy companion to Amazing Stories. Early sales were good, and the company 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. The magazine generally ran poor-quality fiction in the mid-1950s, under Browne and his successor, Paul W. Fairman. In 1978, Arthur Bernhard decided to close down Fantastic, merging it with Amazing Stories, which had always enjoyed a slightly higher circulation. Fantastic’s poor results were probably a consequence of the overloaded sf-magazine market in the early 1950s, when more magazines appeared than the market was able to support. In May 1956, Bernard Davis had suggested it had been the acquisition of Amazing Stories that had led to the magazine’s demise. Bernard Davis left the company in 1957 to become a screenwriter, and it was not until the 1980s that the magazine was finally closed down. The last issue of Fantastic, dated Summer 1952, appeared on March 21 of that year, with a mention of Fantastic Adventures to the masthead, though this ceased with the following issue. It put Fantastic in the second echelon of magazines, behind titles such as Astounding and Galaxy.
The final issue was the March 1953 issue, with the May–June 1953issue of Fantastic adding a mention of Fantastic adventures to its masthead. The first issue of the magazine, dated June 1953, was the last, and was the May-June 1953 issue of Amazing Adventures was also the last. It has been suggested that Fantastic was the inspiration for the film The Amazing Spider-Man, which was based on a novel written by Ursula K. Le Guin. The book was published by Simon & Schuster and was released in paperback in 1959. The film was released by Paramount Pictures in 1961. It is the first of a series of films based on science fiction novels by Roger Zelazny and Ursula Zelazny. The movie was directed by Quentin Tarantino, who also worked on The Godfather and The Matrix, among other projects, and is set in New York City in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The novel is based on the novel “The Godfather” by Robert Zemeckis, which has been adapted into several films, including “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Empire Strikes Back” The film is the only one of its kind to have been made into a feature-length film. The other two films, “The Hobbit” and the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, have been released in Europe and the United States. In the U.S. it has been released as a single issue, dated September 21, 1959.
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