A magazine that first hit newsstands 100 years ago today was unlike anything readers had seen before. Its cover featured a brightly-colored painting of people ice-skating on a comet as it zoomed past Saturn. Its founding editor, Hugo Gernsback, called it “a new sort of magazine” – “a magazine of ‘scientifiction'” – a genre known today as science fiction.

Amazing Stories was the first magazine dedicated solely to the genre. Its debut issue, which was dated April 1926, carried reprints of stories by Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Edgar Allen Poe, and others. The story titles included “The Man from the Atom” and “The Thing from – Beyond.”

The magazine was an instant hit. Within a year, monthly circulation was at 150,000. Other publishers quickly caught on, and began publishing many more sci-fi magazines. Over the decades, they included such titles as Fantastic, Astonishing, and Astounding. They featured many of the major figures of science fiction’s “golden age.”

Their inventive stories and eye-catching covers caught the attention of lots of youngsters. The magazines inspired many of them to pursue careers in astronomy, physics, engineering, and related fields. They also inspired future filmmakers, who expanded “scientifiction” far beyond the printed page.

Few science-fiction magazines have survived. But their influence is still felt today – on Earth – and beyond.

Script by Damond Benningfield