| Editor: | Alain Schlockoff |
| Frequency: | 12 issues a year (8 Reboot+4 Vintage) |
| Category: | Film |
| Company: | Financière de loisirs |
| Founded: | 1969 |
| Country: | France |
| Based: | Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France |
| Language: | French |
| Issn: | 0769-1920 |
L'Écran fantastique is a French magazine created in 1969 by Alain Schlockoff, dedicated to fantastic and science-fiction cinema.[1]
After falling out with the publisher of Horizons du fantastique (1967–1976),[2] a film and literature publication, Schlockoff started the film-focused L'Écran fantastique on his own with scarce ressources.[3] The magazine began its publication history with a limited trial run in 1969 and 1970, which lacked the print design and formal publishing of Horizons du fantastique.[3]
It was then relaunched as a professionally printed publication in December 1970,[4] but still struggled to find a reliable publisher. Though billed as a quarterly, it remained subject to schedule disruptions and some projected issues of L'Écran fantastique were reformatted into installments of Cinéma d'aujourd'hui, a collection of monographs published by movie literature specialists FilmÉditions.[5] [6]
L'Écran fantastique finally became a regular publication in June 1977 through a deal with the Librairie des Champs-Élysées.[7] Although another publisher change would occur in 1979, the magazine was now established and its frequency increased, first to bimonthly in 1980,[8] then to monthly in 1982.[9]
The title celebrated its 50th anniversary with a special commemorative issue in May 2019.[10]
In 2020, it was rebooted again and split into two brands: L'Écran fantastique reboot, which is dedicated to current releases, and L'Écran fantastique vintage, which offers retrospective issues on specific themes, in the style of the publication's early years.[1]
An English-language version of the magazine, simply called Fantastique, debuted in the United Kingdom in 2009,[11] with eyes on a possible US launch.[12] The market, however, proved unfavorable and publication of the English version stopped after just three issues.[11]
The magazine's publisher also promoted the Paris International Festival of Fantastic and Science-Fiction Film, which ran for eighteen editions between 1972 and 1989.