Monday 14 September 2015

1978: FANTASTIC FILMS MAGAZINE issue 1


From June 1978: the launch issue of yet another Star Age magazine launched in the wake of the success of Star Wars... FANTASTIC FILMS.

To the credit of the editorial team, this was (for its time) a pretty good package and, whilst not quite Starlog, was certainly several notches above the various quickies that Warren and co were churning out.

The attempts to translate the alien language of CE3K and others is fun but also the sort of thing that gave fandom a bad name in the mainstream media... At least in the Star Age.

FF wasn't initially big on cover numbers and frequently relaunched with new volumes which makes trying to figure out which issue is which pretty tricky. This is identified in the small print as Volume 1, issue 1 but there was an earlier "première" issue dated April '78 which I don't have in my collection.

The magazine eventually ran through to 1985.  

5 comments:

  1. what a lovely colourful cover but why do they go out of their way to hide the numbering ?

    You can see the cover of CRIME SCENE here :

    https://twitter.com/hashtag/crimescene

    and here:

    https://www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/film-guides-and-specials/crime-scene-issue-1-2015/




    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Indeed. It went on sale in branches of WHS today.

      It looks good although, if price is a factor in deciding whether you grab a mag or not, the inflated cover price is pretty high.

      The Panini Thunderbirds bookazine one-shot was meant to be on sale last week but it doesn't appear to have hit stores yet. Panini titles usually go on sale on Thursdays so maybe it will hit this week instead.

      Delete
    2. CRIME SCENE has a very nice article on Columbo. There were very few copies left at my shop so I grabbed one right away.

      The Thunderbirds mag was also on the shelves and I must admit it caught me by surprise as I don't recall it being listed in Previews. A FAB item indeed in the style of Panini's own ESSENTIAL DR WHO .

      The new issue of DIE CAST COLLECTOR also has a thunderbirds cover. I still have my thunderbirds 2 Dinky somewhere.

      BACK ISSUE 84 was also out today with another must buy issue on Supergirl.

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  2. the oink blog has a great post here on RING RAIDERS :

    http://the-oink-blog.blogspot.ie/2015/09/beyond-oink-7-ring-raiders.html

    which you previously covered here:

    http://starlogged.blogspot.ie/2013/11/1989-ring-raiders-issue-1-fleetway.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have this magazine in prime condition for sale

    ReplyDelete

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