Talk:Fantastic Story Quarterly

Magazines to include

I suggest that coverage of Wonder Story Annual be included in this article, as it was another reprint magazine of the same era from the same publisher, and doesn't really need an article of its own. The context and background are almost identical. Mike Christie (talk) 23:54, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good. Pepso2 (talk) 22:52, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Copyrights

For future reference, all the magazine copyrights were renewed, so any usage of the covers would have to be under fair use. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:50, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Fantastic Story Quarterly/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: J Milburn (talk · contribs) 17:18, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Happy to offer a review. I thought of you the other day when I saw a mention of the redlinked Amazing Science Fiction Stories. Anyway, back to this article. Review coming shortly. Josh Milburn (talk) 17:18, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for taking it on. That was an alternative title for Amazing Stories, so I created a redirect page. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:54, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

• "science fiction pulp magazine" Links?

  Yes; done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:54, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

• "Best Books, a subsidiary imprint of Standard Magazines" Are either of these notable? Worth redlinks?

  I suspect Best Books is not worth a redlink. Standard Magazines probably will get an article eventually; I see you created it as a redirect to Thrilling Wonder, which isn't a terrible idea. That'll probably do for now. My sources really only cover the sf and fantasy magazines, and Standard was a much bigger enterprise than that. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:54, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

• Should "Trespass" be "Trespass"?

  Um, I don't follow. Is there a typo I can't see? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:54, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

• Could you specify the publisher of Slan? The significance of it in the sentence is that it was not material from Wonder Stories. Where was it from? Why was it included if not from the "right" publisher?

  I added the original source, and the publisher. The source doesn't specify, so I can't really add more, but it's quite certain that the reason is that Slan was enormously popular and there was no cheap edition available -- a couple of hardcovers had appeared but the first paperback edition was not till 1953. So it would have been a case of demand; they'd have had to pay reprint fees, presumably, but they figured they'd recoup the money in increased sales. As I say, I can't really add any of this, since I can't source it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:54, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

• I note that there is no mention in the article/navbox on Walter M. Miller, Jr.'s story mentioned in this article.

  No doubt it's not a particularly distinguished story; I only mention it because one of the sources does, and I would guess he only did so because Miller is a well-known name. It's a fairly early story by Miller, but he was very productive the first couple of years, as you can see here. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:54, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

• "The title changed from Fantastic Stories Quarterly to Fantastic Stories Monthly with the fifth issue" Really? This isn't the title mentioned in the lead or on the cover of the image you use.

  I can't believe I messed that up. Fixed; thanks for spotting that. And I also had several instances of "Fantastic Stories" instead of "Fantastic Story", which I've also fixed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:54, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

• "There were seven volumes of three numbers, and a final volume of two numbers" Why "numbers"? Would "issues" not be standard?

  I see both in use in sources on magazines, but perhaps "issues" is a bit less jargony, so I've changed it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:54, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

• "throughout its life" Is life the right word? Run? Publication?

  This is really just elegant variation; I used "run" a sentence or two before, so was trying to avoid that. "Publication" doesn't really bring to mind the entire run, including every issue, which is what's needed here. I'm open to rephrasing if you can think of another way to put this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:54, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

• How sold are you on the use of the cover image? We could have a freely-licensed logo image (or even multiple logo images) as you have done on other articles about magazines without free covers. (On a related note, do you happen to know where we could find a freely-licensed cover illustrated by Earle K. Bergey? He apparently did a lot of the Wonder Stories covers; it'd be great if we could replace the non-free image on his article with a free one...)

  We can dispense with the image; I think it's a pity to have no image at all of the cover, but I'm no non-free use expert and will defer to you if you think it isn't really justified. You can see here that there are two versions of the logo. Re Bergey: your note reminded me that I'd done a search on Startling Stories some time ago, and here is what I found. If that's right then all Bergey covers on Startling that predate 1950 should be free. That's most of them. Thumbnails are here, linked to the underlying image files. An index of Bergey's covers is here. However, I suspect I may have been wrong in my search as it appears there are several pre-1950 Bergey covers marked as non-free. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:54, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

As usual, this seems to be a solid, well-sourced article. I've done a bit of copyediting and a good amount of linking- please double-check my edits. Josh Milburn (talk) 17:50, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the review. Your edits all look fine to me. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:54, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

I am happy to promote at this time. I cannot in good conscience demand that you remove the cover image if you want it there, as it is generally assumed that a single cover image is acceptable for a magazine article- I only meant to offer you an alternative. Thanks for the info concerning other articles, and, as ever, nice work. Josh Milburn (talk) 14:16, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Your edits look fine. I think I'll let the cover stay; I do think it helps the article, and I'm glad to hear it's generally accepted. Thanks for the review and promotion. If I get a moment I will go check again on the Bergey covers; if I once again find no evidence they were renewed I'll change some of the licenses. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:08, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Mention of Back to the Future

Elendil's Heir, I see you've reverted my undo of your addition of the information about Back to the Future. Can you comment here about why you think it's worth adding? This is something that might interest a reader of the article about the film, and I can see they might want to click through to this article. But no sources about the magazine mention it, so I don't think it's notable in the context of the magazine. Also pinging J Milburn, who did the GA review, for another opinion. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:50, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, Mike C.. As I wrote on your own comments page, the magazine's appearance in this very popular movie is, I'm sure, far and away the most prominent reference to the magazine in all of pop culture, seen by tens of millions of people, and is thus significant and worthy of inclusion on Wikipedia. I would appreciate your not deleting it again. Thanks! Elendil's Heir (talk) 19:32, 20 July 2021 (UTC)Elendil's Heir

Also pinging Ian Rose, who has reviewed a lot of science fiction magazine articles, since Josh appears to not be very active at the moment. Ian, can you give an opinion? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:56, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, the fact that something is mentioned somewhere doesn't make it appropriate to include, especially when it's cited to a primary source like a YouTube clip. Also, as a matter of procedure, the article should remain as it was before the disputed info was added while that addition is being discussed. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:46, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

The magazine would be unknown today to most people but for its being briefly shown in Back to the Future. I'm baffled why a single line about that appearance, added to a short article like this, would be deleted. And what better primary source could be used, under the circumstances? Elendil's Heir (talk) 14:12, 21 July 2021 (UTC)Elendil's Heir

The way I think about it is that it's the sources about the article's topic that make something notable. If a reliable source for Back to the Future mentions Fantastic Story Quarterly, that justifies adding a mention of the magazine to the article about the film. If a source about the magazine mentions the movie, then the movie can be mentioned here. There are cases where editorial judgement is required -- for example I could imagine some Back to the Future article in which the journalist dug up information about the magazine and wrote several paragraphs about the magazine and why it was a suitable prop in the film. That would probably justify a mention here. Without some filter like this, it's too easy to end up with "In popular culture" sections that accumulate every mention of something in other media. See WP:IPC: the key point from that essay is "their sources should establish their significance"; I think that's what's missing here. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:37, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. As a quick third opinion: I'd support including a mention of the appearance in Back to the Future, but only if a reliable third-party source can be identified. I agree that an appearance in a big film could be worth mentioning, but only, I think, if it's been deemed worth mentioning in reliable sources (whether journalistic or scholarly). I wouldn't support including it cited only to a YouTube video of the film. Josh Milburn (talk) 07:07, 22 July 2021 (UTC)