Fantastic was a fantastic fiction magazine. Begun in 1952 by editor Howard Browne and publishers Ziff Davis (Z-D) as an attempt at a sophisticated and handsome digest-sized magazine, Fantastic was initially a success, and became even more so by its third issue, which featured a story attributed to the enormously popular crime fiction writer Mickey Spillane. The story was actually written by Browne, a crime-fiction writer and editor who had been editing the pulp magazines line Z-D published at that time, including Amazing Stories, Fantastic Adventures, and the recently-folded Mammoth Detective, among others; apparently Spillane had told a version of the story he'd previously sold to Fantastic to a reporter from the enormously popular Life Magazine, where it appeared ahead of the Z-D magazine's publication, leaving Browne unwilling to run the actual Spillane text. For other definitions of fantasy see fantasy (psychology). ... A collection of magazines A magazine is a periodical publication containing a variety of articles. ... 1952 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Howard Browne (April 15, 1908–October 28, 1999) was a science fiction editor and mystery writer. ... Ziff-Davis Inc. ... Sherlock Holmes, pipe-puffing hero of crime fiction, confers with his colleague Dr. Watson; together these characters popularized the genre. ... Frank Morrison Spillane (born March 9, 1918), better known as Mickey Spillane, is an American author of crime novels. ... Pulp magazines, often called simply the pulps, were inexpensive text fiction magazines widely published in the 1920s through the 1950s. ... Amazing Stories magazine, sometimes retitled Amazing Science Fiction, began in April 1926, becoming the first science fiction magazine and one of the pioneers of S.F. in the U.S. Created by Hugo Gernsback, it appears to todays eyes as a classic pulp magazine, printed on cheap paper with... A cover of Life Magazine from 1911 Life has been the name of two notable magazines published in the United States. ...

Meanwhile, subsequent issues of Fantastic sold well enough for the pulp Fantastic Adventures to be merged with it in 1954; Amazing had already been reshaped to resemble Fantastic. Browne was by his own account more comfortable with fantasy fiction than with sf, and soon was concentrating his attention on his writing career; his assistant Paul W. Fairman became editor of Fantastic and Amazing in 1956, and soon established a policy of reliable mediocrity by purchasing nearly all the contents of his issues from four writers: the young Robert Silverberg, Harlan Ellison, Randall Garrett and Milton Lesser (later much better-known as Stephen Marlowe), all commissioned to produce a certain amount of words per month, purchased unread. 1954 was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... For other definitions of fantasy see fantasy (psychology). ... Paul W. Fairman (1916-1977) was an editor and writer in a variety of genres under his own name and pseudonyms. ... At the 63rd World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow, August 2005 Robert Silverberg (born January 15, 1935 in Brooklyn, NY) is a prolific author best known for writing science fiction, a multiple winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. ... Harlan Ellison, c. ... Randall Garrett (December 16, 1927 - December 31, 1987) was a prolific writer for Astounding and other science fiction magazines in the 1950s. ...

Two innovations did distinguish Fairman's regime; he published the first fantasy by Kate Wilhelm, and the sales of wish-fulfilment-fantasy-themed issues of Fantastic led to a short-lived companion magazine devoted to such fiction, Dream World. Beginning in 1959, Cele Goldsmith's editorship considerably improved the magazine; among the writers whose careers began with their sales to Goldsmith's issues, Ursula K. Le Guin has particularly praised her work, as have subsequent editors Barry N. Malzberg and Ted White. Kate Wilhelm (born 1928) is a writer who has written material including science fiction, mysteries, and fantasy. ... Dreamworld is a large theme park on the Gold Coast of Australia where, amongst other things, the Australian edition of Big Brother is filmed. ... Cele Goldsmith/Lalli (1933 – 2002) was an editor who began working on science fiction and fantasy magazines under Paul W. Fairman. ... Ursula K. Le Guin at an informal bookstore Q&A session, July 2004 Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (born October 21, 1929), is an American author. ... Barry N. Malzberg (born 1939) is an American writer and editor, most often of science fiction and fantasy; initially in his post-graduate work he sought to establish himself as a playwright as well as prose-fiction writer. ... Ted White (born 1938) was a science fiction fan who worked as an assistant editor for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in the 1968s. ...

Z-D sold Fantastic and Amazing to Sol Cohen in 1965, who founded Ultimate Publications to publish them; after brief periods of being edited by Joseph Wrocz (or "Ross," as he signed himself), Harry Harrison, and Malzberg, White edited the magazine for a decade under trying financial circumstances, but gained much acclaim for the quality of the fiction, critical and historical nonfiction (by Fritz Leiber and others), and illustrations published by his Fantastic; it was the only other regularly-published U. S. professional magazine devoted to fantasy, aside from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, throughout most of those years. Despite attempts to reverse its poor sales, even as fantasy novels were reaching enormous audiences in the same years, Fantastic was merged with Amazing under Elinor Mavor's regime, in 1980. 1965 was a common year starting on Friday (link goes to calendar). ... At the 63rd World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow, August 2005 Harry Maxwell Harrison (born March 12, 1925 in Stamford, Connecticut) is an American speculative fiction author who has lived in many parts of the world including Mexico, England, Denmark and Italy. ... Fritz Reuter Leiber Jr. ... F&SF April 1971, special Poul Anderson issue. ... 1980 is a leap year starting on Tuesday. ...

A revival of the title, a retitling of the magazine Pirate Writings by its new publishers in 2000, was a nostalgic nod to the magazine's importance to the field. This article is about the year 2000. ...

Title changes and title confusions

A number of other magazines unrelated to the Z-D/Ultimate Fantastic have been published over the decades with the word "Fantastic" in their titles. In addition, Fantastic has had several titles on its own cover. Variant titles of Fantastic include

• Fantastic
• Fantastic Science Fiction
• Fantastic Science Fiction Stories
• Fantastic Stories Of Imagination
• Fantastic: Science Fiction – Fantasy
• Fantastic Stories

The title most likely to be confused is Fantastic Adventures, since that shared the same publishers and overlapped for some months. Other unrelated Science Fiction magazines include

• Fantastic Novels
• Famous Fantastic Mysteries
• Fantastic Science Fiction (two unrelated pulp-sized issues in 1952)
• Fantastic Story Magazine (a companion to Thrilling Wonder Stories, 1950-1955).
• Fantastic Story Quarterly
• Fantastic Universe (1953-1960)

Wonder Stories was a science fiction pulp magazine which published 66 issues between 1930 and 1936, edited by Hugo Gernsback. ...

External links

• Checklist of issues