This striking premier issue of Incredible Science Fiction, sporting a very handsome publicity shot of The Creature (From The Black Lagoon) grabbed my attention back in '78.The magazine industry was jumping on the sci-fi bandwagon in an attempt to cash in on the hysterica surrounding the success of Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
As a long-time collector of monster mags, I appreciated the slightly retro appearance of this new contender in the market and and its uncluttered design. If there was a second issue, I never saw it.
The same Chicago-based company was simultaneously publishing Science Fantasy Film Classics.
Although its mightiest competitor was New York-based Starlog, which was already three years old by the time the fantasy wave hit, another Chicago-based enterprise, Frederick Clark's Cinefantastique, the most excellent of all English-language mags, may have been in this company's sights also.
Despite the straightforward design, topical focus, and pull-out poster, Science Fantasy Film Classics offered nothing content-wise to distinguish it from its competition.Skewing towards an older demographic than Famous Monsters and a younger demo than Cinefantastique, it was a curious combination of Starlog and their sister publication, the long defunct, hard science fiction-focused Future magazine.
For my money, nothing came close to the almost scholarly perspective on the genre of Cinefantastique (an unofficial grandchild of the French midi/minuit Fantastique).
Science Fantasy Film Classics and Incredible Science Fiction were as serious as a car crash about making money, but their love for the genre seemed opportunistic and pandering.They faded quickly.
