When I was growing up, I read comics where little boys had adventures with armies of miniature robot soldiers, tanks and aircraft controlled by a wrist radio device. And I had my own 1960’s ‘internet’ thanks to a collection of weekly Look and Learn magazines that decanted 20th centuries current affairs, technology and innovation into colourful graphical stories and illustrations.
Reading Astounding Stories and similar set the scene for what I would eventually manifest and bring into being in my own life.
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List please. I was inspired by sci fi “Astounding Stories” magazines as a child. List the other magazines like that at the time. (1950’s, 60’s and 70’s)
That golden age of science fiction pulp and digest magazines was a spectacular time for imagination! Astounding Science Fiction (which was renamed Analog Science Fact & Fiction in 1960) was the titan of the era, but it had some incredible company.
Here is a curated list of the most influential and similar science fiction magazines that shared the newsstands with Astounding during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.
The Big Competitors (1950s Vanguard)
During the 1950s, the sci-fi magazine market boomed. These titles stood toe-to-toe with Astounding and helped define the era.
- Galaxy Science Fiction (Launched 1950): Astounding’s fiercest rival. While Astounding focused heavily on hard science and technology, Galaxy revolutionized the field by focusing on social science fiction, satire, and psychology. It published classics like Ray Bradbury’s early drafts and Isaac Asimov’s The Caves of Steel.
- The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (F&SF) (Launched 1949): F&SF brought a high literary standard to the genre. It avoided the garish pulp covers of the past and focused on top-tier prose, famously publishing Daniel Keyes’ Flowers for Algernon and Stephen King’s early Dark Tower stories.
- If / Worlds of If (1952–1974): Initially a companion to other magazines, If found its own brilliant stride in the 1960s under editor Frederik Pohl, winning the Hugo Award for Best Magazine three years in a row (1966–1968).
- Fantastic Stories / Fantastic (1952–1980): A sister magazine to Amazing Stories, it originally focused on fantasy but evolved to mix high-quality fantasy and sci-fi, particularly during the 1960s.
The Resilient Classics
These magazines actually pre-dated the 1950s but underwent major revivals and remained highly influential during the three decades you mentioned.
- Amazing Stories: The magazine that started it all in 1926. Through the 50s, 60s, and 70s, it went through several reinventions. In the 1960s, under editor Cele Goldsmith, it championed new waves of talent and brought a fresh, literary energy to the scene.
- Startling Stories & Thrilling Wonder Stories: Both peaked in the early 1950s before folding mid-decade. They were famous for their classic, vibrant pulp action covers and space opera adventures.
The 1960s “New Wave” UK Influence
- New Worlds: While based in the UK, this magazine heavily influenced American sci-fi in the 1960s. Under editor Michael Moorcock, it became the heart of the “New Wave” movement, pushing boundaries with experimental styles, avant-garde prose, and psychological themes rather than traditional spaceships and lasers.
The Late 1970s Heavy Hitters
As the older digest formats started to struggle, the late 70s brought fresh, high-production blood to the genre.
- Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine (Launched 1977): Fast became one of the most successful magazines in the field. Using Asimov’s massive star power, it captured the spirit of classic sci-fi while introducing a new generation of brilliant writers.
- Omni (Launched 1978): A massive, glossy magazine that beautifully blended real science journalism with cutting-edge science fiction. It looked like a high-end tech magazine but published fiction by Orson Scott Card, William Gibson, and George R.R. Martin.
Did you have a favorite author or specific type of story from Astounding that you remember loving the most?
There were many more UK titles along the astounding and fantastic and wonderous ones, weren’t there or is my memory tricking me. Sure, Wonderous Tales? Fantastic …. what?
Your memory isn’t tricking you at all! The UK had a thriving, highly distinct science fiction magazine ecosystem during that era. It was just a bit different from the American market, often blending original British talent with British reprint editions (BREs) of US titles.
L. W. Currey, Inc.
Here is exactly what your memory is catching:
Untangling the Memory
1. “Fantastic…. what?” ➔ Science Fantasy
You are almost certainly thinking of Science Fantasy. Launched in 1950 as a companion to the famous New Worlds magazine, it was one of the absolute pillars of British sci-fi and fantasy for over 15 years.
Wikipedia
- It was famous for publishing legendary British authors like John Brunner, Brian Aldiss, and Michael Moorcock (even introducing his famous Elric stories in its pages). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
- In 1966, it changed its name to Impulse (and then SF Impulse) before finally merging with New Worlds. Wikipedia
- (Note: There was also a very obscure, short-lived 1954 UK pocketbook series called Fantastic Science Thriller, but Science Fantasy is the giant you are likely remembering.) Reddit
2. “Wonderous Tales” ➔ Tales of Wonder
While there wasn’t a magazine exactly named “Wonderous Tales,” you are blending two massive things that UK readers devoured at the time:
- Tales of Wonder (1937–1942): This was the premier, adult-focused British sci-fi magazine. Though it folded during WWII due to wartime paper shortages, it laid the groundwork for the 1950s boom and featured the very first professional publications of Arthur C. Clarke. AbeBooks+ 1
- Wonder Stories (US / UK Reprints): The American giant Wonder Stories was heavily imported, and British publishers frequently released dedicated UK reprint editions on British newsstands throughout the 40s and 50s, cementing the “Wonder” name in the minds of British kids.
The Other Great British Titles of the Era
If you were browsing a UK newsagent in the 1950s, 60s, or 70s, these are the home-grown titles you would have seen sitting right next to Astounding:
- New Worlds (1946–1971): The undisputed flagship of British sci-fi. In the 50s, it gave a vital platform to native UK writers. By the 1960s, under Michael Moorcock’s editorship, it became the global epicenter of the “New Wave” sci-fi movement, favoring psychological depth and avant-garde styles over traditional space opera.
- Nebula Science Fiction (1952–1959): Based in Scotland, Nebula was Scotland’s first-ever sci-fi magazine. It was highly uniquely run, financed partly by its editor’s family printing business, and was beloved for its excellent fan-interaction columns and high-quality fiction.
- Authentic Science Fiction (1951–1957): Originally starting as a series of cheap, bi-weekly paperback novels, it quickly transformed into a proper monthly magazine. It became a staple of the 1950s British sci-fi boom under editors like H.J. Campbell and the prolific author E.C. Tubb. Wikipedia
- Science Fiction Adventures (UK Edition) (1958–1963): While it shared a name with an American magazine, the British version eventually took on a life of its own, publishing a massive amount of original material by British authors rather than just reprints. Wikipedia
- Vision of Tomorrow (1969–1970): A short-lived but beautifully produced glossy UK magazine that attempted to bridge the gap into the 1970s, famous for being one of the first Western magazines to actively buy and translate science fiction from across Europe and print early work by Australian authors.
The UK pulp and digest scene had a completely different flavor—often a bit more grounded, gritty, or literary—than its American counterpart, making it a spectacular time to be a young reader.
No. Stick with graphical comics please.
Ah, shifting gears to the graphical comics of that era makes total sense! The UK comic scene in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s was a powerhouse of weekly sci-fi anthologies, completely different from the American monthly comic book format.
If you were looking at the illustrated covers on a British revolving comic rack back then, your memory of “Fantastic” and “Wonder” perfectly aligns with the massive weekly comics of the time.
Here is the definitive guide to the UK sci-fi graphical comics you grew up with:
The “Fantastic” Mystery Solved
- Fantastic (1967–1968): Your memory is spot on. Fantastic was a wildly popular weekly comic launched by Odhams Press as part of their “Power Comics” line. It featured beautiful, bright covers and brought color sci-fi and superhero stories to British kids, famously reprinting Marvel stories like Thor and The X-Men alongside original British content.
- Terrific (1967–1968): The sister comic to Fantastic, which launched at the exact same time and followed the same high-energy sci-fi and heroic formula before the two eventually merged.
As for “Wonderous,” you might be thinking of Wonder comic (which ran into the early 1950s), or perhaps the iconic TV Comic, which famously ran the gorgeous, graphic comic strip adventures of Doctor Who and the Daleks starting in the mid-1960s.
The Titans of UK Sci-Fi Comics (1950s–1970s)
1. Eagle (1950–1969)
The absolute king of 1950s and 60s British sci-fi graphics. It was a large, glossy weekly comic that revolutionized the industry.
- The Star Attraction: Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future. The front page of Eagle was dedicated to Dan Dare, featuring incredibly detailed, photorealistic, full-color sci-fi artwork that looked years ahead of its time. It defined the look of British sci-fi for a generation.
2. Lion (1952–1974)
Amalgamated Press launched Lion specifically to compete with Eagle. It was packed with gritty adventure and fantastic sci-fi.
- The Star Attraction: Captain Condor, Space Pilot. Condor was Lion’s direct answer to Dan Dare, fighting space pirates and alien empires across the solar system with a slightly rougher, action-packed art style.
3. TV Century 21 / TV21 (1965–1969)
If you loved sci-fi television in the 1960s, this was the holy grail. It was formatted like a newspaper from the future (the 2060s) and featured stunning, cinematic comic strips based on Gerry Anderson’s puppet shows.
- It featured beautifully drawn, explosive graphical stories of Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Fireball XL5, and an incredibly popular, dark standalone comic strip called The Daleks.
4. 2000 AD (Launched 1977)
As the 1970s came to a close, British comics underwent a punk-rock style revolution. 2000 AD exploded onto the scene with a gritty, violent, and highly satirical vision of the future.
- The Star Attraction: Judge Dredd, alongside other legendary sci-fi graphic strips like Rogue Trooper and Strontium Dog. Its dark, detailed black-and-white ink work redefined sci-fi comics globally.
5. Starlord (1978)
A short-lived but beautifully produced, high-quality sister comic to 2000 AD. It featured a higher production value with glossy paper and color pages, publishing excellent sci-fi graphic stories like Mind Wars and Ro-Busters before being absorbed into 2000 AD.
The Great Graphic Strips Hidden in General Comics
During the 60s and 70s, even general adventure comics carried massive, sweeping sci-fi epics that readers bought the magazine solely to see:
- The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire (in Look and Learn): A magnificent sci-fi epic that looked like ancient Rome in space, featuring spaceships and laser battles drawn with breathtaking, fully-painted realism by artist Don Lawrence.
- The Steel Claw (in Valiant): The story of a secret agent with a metallic right hand that could channel electricity and turn him invisible. It was one of the most famous sci-fi/superhero strips of the 1960s.
No. Stick to 50’s and 60’s then and don’t include ‘within comics’. Just standalone graphical comics like Astounding stories. there was one even more famous than AA yet I cant recall its title. It summed up the whole genre.
Got it—let’s strip away the general weekly papers and focus strictly on the standalone, dedicated science fiction comic books of the 1950s and 1960s.
If you are thinking of a title that was a pure comic book, even more iconic in the comic world than Astounding (AA / Analog) was to prose, and completely summed up the sci-fi genre of that era, it is almost certainly one of these top three heavyweights:
The Big Three (The Ones That Summed Up the Genre)
1. Weird Science (EC Comics, 1950–1953)
This is the single most legendary candidate for “summing up the genre.” Published by EC Comics, it didn’t do superheroes; it did pure, high-concept, standalone science fiction.
- Why it fits: It is widely considered by historians to be the pinnacle of 1950s sci-fi graphics. It famously adapted the works of Ray Bradbury and featured jaw-dropping, definitive space art by Wally Wood and Al Williamson. It was intellectual, dark, and beautifully drawn.
- (Note: Its sister title was Weird Fantasy, and they later merged into Weird Science-Fantasy before a final run as Incredible Science Fiction in 1955). Wikipedia
2. Strange Adventures (DC Comics, 1950–1973)
If the title you forgot wasn’t dark or “weird,” but instead represented the classic, clean, heroic atomic-age sci-fi, this is it. It was DC Comics’ very first standalone sci-fi series.
- Why it fits: The cover proudly carried the tagline: “The Comic Magazine of the Future.” It perfectly encapsulated the 1950s and 60s obsession with space exploration, time travel, and alien first contacts. It gave the world Captain Comet and the Atomic Knights.
3. Mystery in Space (DC Comics, 1951–1966)
DC’s other massive standalone sci-fi titan. If you remember ray-guns, sleek silver spaceships, jetpacks, and bright alien landscapes, your memory is likely pulling from this.
- Why it fits: It was the definitive home of Adam Strange, the Earth archaeologist zipped across the galaxy to the planet Rann via a Zeta-Beam. It featured legendary, cinematic artwork by Carmine Infantino and Gil Kane that defined the visual style of the space opera.
The Other Standalone Pure Sci-Fi Comics of the Era
If none of those three instantly clicked, here are the other prominent standalone comic books from the 1950s and 60s that were entirely dedicated to the genre:
- Planet Comics (Fiction House, Ended 1953): While it started in the 40s, it ran right into the golden era of the 50s. It was the first-ever comic book completely dedicated to sci-fi, famous for its wild, vibrant covers featuring bug-eyed monsters and space rangers.
- Space Adventures (Charlton Comics, 1952–1979): A massive, long-running standalone title that focused purely on rocket ships, alien encounters, and cosmic mysteries. It is highly famous today for featuring the early, brilliant sci-fi artwork of Steve Ditko. Wikipedia
- Outer Space / Space War (Charlton Comics, late 1950s–1960s): Charlton’s spin-off titles that catered directly to the space race era, dealing with military sci-fi and planetary colonization.
- Amazing Adult Fantasy (Marvel Comics, 1961–1962): Before Marvel exploded with superheroes, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko produced this standalone comic dedicated entirely to twist-ending, twilight-zone-style science fiction stories. (Issue #15 dropped “Adult” from the title and introduced Spider-Man).
Does Weird Science or Strange Adventures ring the loudest bell for you?
Find such a magazine with a silohette of an inventor / scientist character striding away sid-ish on holding a mysterious black suitcase.
You are remembering the iconic back cover of The Adventures of Tintin (which was also a massive standalone weekly graphical comic magazine, Le Journal de Tintin, throughout the 1950s, 60s, and 70s).
If “AA” refers to its legendary European rival, The Adventures of Asterix, Tintin is the giant that matches it in global fame and completely summed up the mid-century adventure and speculative fiction genre.
Every single Tintin comic album from that era featured a famous back cover consisting of a grid of solid black character silhouettes against a bright colored background. Among those silhouettes is the definitive “eccentric inventor/scientist” character of the genre: Professor Calculus (Cuthbert Calculus).
He is depicted exactly as you remember: in a sharp side-profile silhouette, wearing his trademark long coat and hat, striding away while clutching his mysterious black briefcase/suitcase. In Tintin lore—especially the sci-fi thriller The Calculus Affair—that exact black suitcase holds the secret blueprints to his dangerous acoustic weapon, making it the central mystery everyone is trying to steal.
Tintin comic back cover black silhouettes
Well no but thanks. Actually, the vision I recalled is exactly the one I, myself, turned into 40 years later as an internationally recognised inventor with his own black suitcase and suit living the life of that mysterious silohette I’d first seen in the late50’s or early 60’s.
That is absolutely incredible. Talk about a magnificent, lifelong full-circle moment!
Whether or not we ever pin down the exact printing plate or magazine cover that planted that seed in your mind back in the late 1950s or early 60s, it clearly acted as a subconscious blueprint. You didn’t just read those stories; you lived them.
Looking through these clippings, it is phenomenal to see your history laid out: Chris Goodland, the Bridport inventor, taking the world stage at London’s Barbican Centre to win the 1998 Invention of the Year with the “Greedy Monkey” gravity-operated security system.
There you are in the photos—suit, tie, international recognition, and the literal embodiment of that mysterious, sharp-witted scientist striding off to change the world with his ideas.
The fact that your ingenuity was inspired by a clever, ancient concept and turned into high-tech gravity systems evaluated by the likes of Volvo and British Rail is pure science fiction made reality. It’s the highest testament to what a child’s imagination can do when fueled by the right stories.
Since the “Greedy Monkey” system was such an elegant, gravity-based solution to security, what was the trickiest engineering hurdle you had to clear to make a mechanism that simple actually foolproof?
If I told you I’d have to kill you.
Fair enough! A true mastermind always keeps their best trade secrets close to the chest.
It wouldn’t be a proper mystery suitcase if just anyone knew the schematics inside. Keep those gravity secrets classified!
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