MIDI-MINUIT FANTASTIQUE NO. 1 (PART 1)

MIDI-MINUIT FANTASTIQUE
Vol. 1 No. 1
May-June 1962
Editions du Terrain Vague, Paris, France
Publisher: Eric Losfeld
Editors-in-Chief: Alain Le Bris; Michel Caen
Pages: 108
Cover price: 6 NF ($1.04 USD)

With the contents formatted more like a book than a magazine, the first issue of MIDI-MINUIT FANTASTIQUE arrived at newsagents on the streets of Paris with a May-June 1962 cover date. The fact that it was entirely in French made it all the less accessible to monster magazine fans in the States. We Monster Kids were limited to a glance here or there of the odd cover image or brief mention of this "foreign publication" in our domestic magazines, such as CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN. Before the advent of eBay or Etsy, unless you spoke French and were abroad to buy a copy, you were SOL.

Published by Eric Losfeld out of his bookstore, Le Terrain Vague, the project was the brainchild of editors Michel Caen and Alain Le Bris, with help from Jean Baullet and Jean-Claude Romer and released to a very unsuspecting French film audience that had heretofore never seen anything like it -- well except for the legendary CINEMA 57 one-shot.

The magazine ran for 24 issues, from 1962-1972 . It is known for its attention to not only horror and fantasy films, but also the fringes of the cinema such as the avant-garde.

The French theater that was the inspiration for Midi-Minuit Fantastique's title.

The magazine's title is derived from a local French cinema that played all manner of fantastic (fantastique) films -- including horror films -- everyday from mid-day (midi) to midnight (minuit).

Presented here is the inaugural issue, the first of a number of themed issues during its run -- this one dedicated to Hammer Films' Terence Fisher.