Fantastic (magazine) - Publishing History

Publishing History

In 1938, Ziff-Davis, a Chicago-based publisher looking to expand into the pulp magazine 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.

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