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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 '' Life Magazine '', where it appeared ahead of the Z-D magazine's publication, leaving Browne unwilling to run the actual Spillane text. Subsequent issues of ''Fantastic'' sold well enough for the pulp ''Fantastic Adventures'' to be merged with it in , Harlan Ellison , Randall Garrett and Milton Lesser (later better known as Stephen Marlowe ), all commissioned to produce a certain amount of words per month, purchased unread. Two innovations distinguished 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 . 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 . 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. 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
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
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