''Factsheet Five'' was a periodical mostly consisting of short reviews of privately produced printed matter along with contact details of the editors and publishers. In the 1980s and early 1990s, its comprehensive reviews (thousands in each issue) made it the most important publication in its field, increasing distribution channels for self-publishers and heralding the wider spread of what would eventually be called

fanzine A fanzine (blend word, blend of ''fan (person), fan'' and ''magazine'' or ''zine'') is a non-professional and non-official publication produced by enthusiasts of a particular cultural phenomenon (such as a literary or musical genre) for the pleas ...

zine A zine ( ; short for ''magazine'' or ''fanzine'') is, as noted on Merriam-Webster’s official website, a magazine that is a “noncommercial often homemade or online publication usually devoted to specialized and often unconventional subject ...

culture. A number of underground artists and writers read or submitted their work to ''Factsheet Five'', including

Julie Doucet Julie Doucet (born December 31, 1965)
is a Canadian

and

Jonathan Lethem Jonathan Allen Lethem (; born February 19, 1964) is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. His Debut novel, first novel, ''Gun, with Occasional Music'', a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, ...

. Before the widespread adoption of the web and e-mail beginning around 1994, publications such as ''Factsheet Five'' formed a vital directory for connecting like-minded people. It was the literary equivalent to such phenomena as '' International Sound Communication'' in the period of cassette culture.

History

The magazine was originally published in 1982 by Mike Gunderloy on a

spirit duplicator A spirit duplicator (also Rexograph and Ditto machine in North America, Banda machine and Fordigraph machine in the U.K. and Australia) is a printing method invented in 1923 by Wilhelm Ritzerfeld, which was used for most of the 20th century. Th ...

in his bedroom in a slanshack in

Alhambra, California Alhambra (, , ; from "Alhambra") is a city located in the western San Gabriel Valley region of Los Angeles County, California, United States, approximately east from the downtown Los Angeles civic center. It was incorporated on July 11, 190 ...

, though the first issue notes he was located at Hyde Park neighborhood in

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

. He started publishing this

due to frustrations over the infrequent publication of ''The Stark Fist of Removal'', of which he was a fan. The original focus was

science fiction fanzines A science-fiction fanzine is an amateur or semi-professional magazine published by members of science-fiction fandom, from the 1930s to the present day. They were one of the earliest forms of fanzine, within one of which the term "''fanzine''" w ...

(the title comes from a short story by science fiction author John Brunner), but it included other reviews. Bob Grumman contributed a regular column on

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

poetry from 1987 to 1992. Gunderloy later moved to

Rensselaer, New York Rensselaer is a city in Rensselaer County, New York, United States, and is located on the east side of the Hudson River, opposite Albany and on the western border of Rensselaer County. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 9,210. ...

, where he continued to publish. By 1987, he was running a zine BBS, one of the first associated with an underground publication. In 1990, Cari Goldberg Janice and (briefly) Jacob Rabinowitz joined as co-editors. Gunderloy quit publishing ''Factsheet Five'' following the completion of Issue #44 in 1991. Hudson Luce purchased the rights to ''Factsheet Five'' and published a single issue, Issue #45, with the help of BBS enthusiast Bill Paulouskas, cartoonist Ben Gordon, writer Jim Knipfel, and artist Mark Bloch, who had authored a

mail art Mail art, also known as postal art and correspondence art, is an artistic movement centered on sending small-scale works through the mail, postal service. It developed out of what eventually became Ray Johnson's New York Correspondence School and ...

-related column called "Net Works" during the Gunderloy years. R. Seth Friedman then published the magazine for five years in San Francisco, with the help of Christopher Becker, Miriam Wolf and Jerod Pore, until Issue #64 in 1998. Circulation grew to 16,000 during that time. Gunderloy later worked as a computer programmer before retiring in 2020. He co-authored the book ''SQL Server 7 in Record Time.''

In other media

Jerod Pore collected articles and reviews from the print version of ''Factsheet Five'', and with them produced ''Factsheet Five - Electric'', one of the first zines to use the Usenet newsgroup

alt.zines A zine ( ; short for ''magazine'' or ''fanzine'') is, as noted on Merriam-Webster’s official website, a magazine that is a “noncommercial often homemade or online publication usually devoted to specialized and often unconventional subject ...

. Beginning in the late 1980s, Gunderloy and Pore also established a substantial online presence on the

WELL A well is an excavation or structure created on the earth by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

, an influential, private dial-up BBS. Three books were published based on ''Factsheet Five'': ''How to Publish a Fanzine'' by Gunderloy (1988; Loompanics), ''The World of Zines'', by Gunderloy and Janice (1992; Penguin), and ''The Factsheet Five Zine Reader'' by Friedman (1997, Three Rivers Press). Until 1989, Gunderloy collected and, in turn, made available several versions of the Gemstone File. A number of Gunderloy's zine reviews from ''Factsheet Five'' also appeared in edited form in '' High Weirdness by Mail.'' Mike Gunderloy's Factsheet Five Collection of over 10,000 zines and

is now held at the

New York State Library The New York State Library is a research library in Albany, New York, United States. It was established in 1818 to serve the state government of New York and is part of the New York State Education Department. The library is one of the large ...

Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It is located on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River. Albany is the oldes ...

, where it occupies . However, only about 4000 zines in the collection have been cataloged. About 1/4 of the zines in the collection are listed on Excelsior, the New York State Library's electronic catalog; staff of the Manuscripts & Special Collection can help locate other items. R. Seth Friedman donated 240 zines to the Little Maga/Zine Collection of the San Francisco Public Library.

References

Libraries Preserve the Latest Trend in Publishing: Zines by Ron Chepesiuk

External links

{{Wikisource, Factsheet Five

at the New York State Library Cassette culture 1970s–1990s Quarterly magazines published in the United States Defunct magazines published in the United States Magazines about the media Magazines established in 1982 Magazines with year of disestablishment missing Magazines published in California Magazines published in New York (state) Zines 1982 establishments in California

History

In other media

References

Further reading

External links