Today, March 5th, 2025, marks one hundred years since the debut of Amazing Stories.
Our best information informs us that the magazine was first distributed on Monday, March 5th, 1926. It was a cold day in Manhattan, the city where The Experimenter Publishing Company was headquartered. No doubt that Hugo Gernsback was happy to see it’s bright, neon yellow cover on the newsstands, featuring an illustration by an artist who would soon come to be known as the father of Science Fiction art, Frank R. Paul.
Gernsback established the Science Fiction genre by not only giving it a magazine where it could express itself, he defined its original parameters in his opening editorial titled “A New Kind Of Magazine”. He stated that “scientifiction” was
“a charming romance interwoven with scientific fact and prophetic vision”
which today we interpret as meaning a well-written, entertaining story, based in known scientific understanding and extrapolating into possible futures.
That first issue would establish the genre, give it a definition and made illustrating the future a thing. In short order, Amazing’s letter column would establish the bedrock upon which Science Fiction Fandom would be established. That, in turn, would soon give rise to clubs, fanzines, conventions, cosplay, and superheroes.
This world would truly not be the same had it not been for Amazing Stories.
Of course, Gernsback would famously lose his publishing empire to bankruptcy in just a few short years, but the magazine would endure, first managed in receivership, then purchased by a rival publishing house, then sold and sold again, multiple times to companies as diverse as Ziff-Davis, Ultimate, TSR, Wizards of the Coast, Hasbro and once again back to the Experimenter Publishing Company, though a new version of that entity.
It has been our privilege, honor and pride to have been able to keep Amazing Stories alive and hopefully to continue its legacy for the next 100 years!
(We’ll be hosting a formal celebration at Ravencon, in Richmond Virginia, on April 26-28th.
if you have not done so, pleaser register with the website – we only ask for an email address and a username.
And, if you’d like to help support us as we continue on this centuries long journey, please visit our Patreon page.
Steve Davidson is the publisher of Amazing Stories.
Steve has been a passionate fan of science fiction since the mid-60s, before he even knew what it was called.
