Imagination 195408 - A magazine cover of a man and a woman in front of a spaceship

Imagination was an American fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in October 1950 by Raymond Palmer's Clark Publishing Company. The magazine was sold almost immediately to Greenleaf Publishing Company, owned by William Hamling, who published and edited it from the third issue, February 1951, for the rest of the magazine's life. Hamling launched a sister magazine, Imaginative Tales, in 1954; both ceased publication at the end of 1958 in the aftermath of major changes in US magazine distribution due to the liquidation of American News Company.

The futurism movement looked at how the imagined future would have looked like for people during and prior to the 1960s (think of it as us looking at people from the past, who are looking back at us, who are from the future, or our present moment). Retrofuturism, on the other hand, combines elements of the past and the future in a nostalgically idealized vision of what the future could have been. It is characterized by a fascination with futuristic technology and design from the past, often depicted in science fiction literature and art, and a desire to recreate or reimagine that vision in the present. Retrofuturism often includes elements of science fiction, nostalgia, and a sense of longing for a future that never came to pass. It can be seen in various forms of media, including literature, film, television, art, and design, and has had a significant influence on popular culture. The dubious origins of the term indicate that it was first used by Lloyd Dunn in 1983 as presented by the Fringe Art Magazine (1988 to 1993). Other indications mention it was also utilized by the author T.R. Hinchcliffe in his book titled, Retro-futurism (1967), which was published by Pelican Books. However, there are various sources that indicate the book does not exist and some sources provide evidence that it does.