Factsheet Five

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Factsheet Five
FactsheetFiveCover.jpg
Factsheet Five #25, February 1988, featuring cover art by Freddie Baer
Editor Mike Gunderloy ("Æditor", 1982–1991)
Hudson Luce (1991)
R. Seth Friedman (1992–1998)
Categories Zine reviews & culture
Frequencyquarterly (varied)
Circulation 10,500/issue (1991) [1]
PublisherMike Gunderloy (1982–1991)
Hudson Luce (1991)
R. Seth Friedman (1992–1998)
First issue1982 [2]
Company Pretzel Press (?-1991)
CountryUnited States of America
Language English
ISSN 0890-6823

Factsheet Five was a periodical mostly consisting of short reviews of privately produced printed matter along with contact details of the editors and publishers.

Contents

In the 1980s and early 1990s, its comprehensive reviews (thousands in each issue) made it the most important publication in its field, heralding the wider spread of what would eventually be called fanzine or zine culture. A number of underground artists and writers read or submitted their work to Factsheet Five, including Julie Doucet [3] and Jonathan Lethem. [4]

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 in his bedroom in a slanshack in Alhambra, California, though the first issue notes he was located at Hyde Park neighborhood in Boston. [5] He started publishing this zine due to frustrations over the infrequent publication of The Stark Fist of Removal, of which he was a fan. [6] The original focus was science fiction fanzines (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 poetry from 1987 to 1992.

Gunderloy later moved to Rensselaer, New York, where he continued to publish. By 1987, he was running a zine BBS, one of the first associated with an underground publication. [7] In 1990, Cari Goldberg Janice and (briefly) Jacob Rabinowitz joined as co-editors. [8] Gunderloy quit publishing Factsheet Five following the completion of Issue #44 in 1991. [2]

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-related column called "Net Works" during the Gunderloy years. [9]

R. Seth Friedman then published the magazine for five years in San Francisco, with the help of Christopher Becker, Miriam Wolf and Jerod Pore, [10] until Issue #64 in 1998. Circulation grew to 16,000 during that time. [11]

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. Beginning in the late 1980s, Gunderloy and Pore also established a substantial online presence on the WELL, 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 mail art is now held at the New York State Library in Albany, New York, where it occupies 300 cubic feet (8.5 m3). [12] However, only about 4000 zines in the collection have been cataloged. [13]

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. [14]

Two hundred and forty zines that R. Seth Friedman donated are in the collection of the San Francisco Public Library. [15]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fanzine</span> Magazine published by fans

A fanzine is a non-professional and non-official publication produced by enthusiasts of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest. The term was coined in an October 1940 science fiction fanzine by Russ Chauvenet and first popularized within science fiction fandom, and from there the term was adopted by other communities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zine</span> Collection of self-published work reproduced by photocopying

A zine is a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via a copy machine. Zines are the product of either a single person or of a very small group, and are popularly photocopied into physical prints for circulation. A fanzine is a non-professional and non-official publication produced by enthusiasts of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest. The term was coined in an October 1940 science fiction fanzine by Russ Chauvenet and popularized within science fiction fandom, entering the Oxford English Dictionary in 1949.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Science-fiction fanzine</span> Fanzine on science fiction

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" was coined, and at one time constituted the primary type of science-fictional fannish activity ("fanac").

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Punk zine</span> Fanzines of punk rock

A punk zine is a zine related to the punk subculture and hardcore punk music genre. Often primitively or casually produced, they feature punk literature, such as social commentary, punk poetry, news, gossip, music reviews and articles about punk rock bands or regional punk scenes.

A minicomic is a creator-published comic book, often photocopied and stapled or with a handmade binding. In the United Kingdom and Europe the term small press comic is equivalent with minicomic, reserved for those publications measuring A6 or less.

Jack Melton Boardman, commonly known as John Boardman, is an American physicist. He is a former professor of physics at Brooklyn College; a noted science fiction fan, author and fanzine publisher; and a gaming authority.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Lethem</span> American novelist, essayist, short story writer

Jonathan Allen Lethem is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was published in 1994. In 1999, Lethem published Motherless Brooklyn, a National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novel that achieved mainstream success. In 2003, he published The Fortress of Solitude, which became a New York Times Best Seller. In 2005, he received a MacArthur Fellowship. Since 2011, he has taught creative writing at Pomona College.

Aaron Elliott, better known as Aaron Cometbus, is an American musician, author, songwriter, roadie, and magazine editor, best known as the creator of the punk zine Cometbus.

Donna J. Kossy is a US writer, zine publisher, and online used book dealer based in Portland, Oregon. Specializing in the history of "forgotten, discredited and extreme ideas", which she calls "crackpotology and kookology", she is better known for her books Kooks: A Guide to the Outer Limits of Human Belief and Strange Creations: Aberrant Ideas of Human Origins from Ancient Astronauts to Aquatic Apes (2001). Kossy was also the founder and curator of the Kooks Museum, and the editor-publisher of the magazine Book Happy.

British small press comics, once known as stripzines, are comic books self-published by amateur cartoonists and comic book creators, usually in short print runs, in the UK. They're comparable to similar movements internationally, such as American minicomics and Japanese doujinshi. A "small press comic" is essentially a zine composed predominantly of comic strips. The term emerged in the early 1980s to distinguish them from zines about comics. Notable artists who have had their start in British small press comics include Eddie Campbell, Paul Grist, Rian Hughes, Jamie Hewlett, Alan Martin, Philip Bond and Andi Watson.

Boiled Angel was an early 1990s independent comic book created by Florida-based underground comic book artist Mike Diana. The comic contained graphic depictions of a variety of taboo and gory subject matters. It effectively became the first comic book in the United States to cause its creator to be convicted for artistic obscenity.

Trajectories was a 1980s tabloid magazine published in Austin, Texas by Richard Shannon and Susan Sneller. It featured news and articles on fantasy, science, science fantasy, science fiction, and science fiction philosophy. It contained reviews of books, poetry, short stories, music and performances. Articles and stories were contributed by Lewis Shiner2, John Shirley, Bruce Boston, Uncle River, Winter Damon and others. A total of six issues appeared irregularly over a six-year span.

Richard Shannon is a writer, performer, and speaker.

<i>Janus</i> (science fiction magazine)

Janus was a feminist science fiction fanzine edited by Janice Bogstad and Jeanne Gomoll in Madison, Wisconsin, and closely associated with that city's science fiction convention, WisCon. It was repeatedly nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Fanzine ; this led to accusations that if Janus had not been feminist, it wouldn't have been nominated. Eighteen issues were published under this name from 1975 to 1980; it was succeeded by Aurora SF.

Argentus was a science fiction fanzine edited by Steven H Silver. It won the Chronic Rift Roundtable Award for Best Fanzine in 2009 and was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Fanzine three times (2008–2010). The magazine ended publication in 2014.

Psycho Moto Zine is a periodical published from the late 1980s to the present day, consisting mostly of short stories, reviews, and artwork. This fanzine would be the birth of the Antagonist Art Movement, a consortium of like-minded artists, writers, filmmakers, etc.

<i>Rockets Blast Comicollector</i> Comics advertising fanzine

Rocket's Blast Comicollector (RBCC) was a comics advertising fanzine published from 1964 to 1983. The result of a merger with a similar publication, RBCC's purpose was to bring fans together for the purpose of adding to their comic book collections. It also proved to be a launching pad for aspiring comic book creators, many of whom corresponded and exchanged their work through RBCC, and published work in the fanzine as amateurs.

Michelle Rau is an American cartoonist, writer, and artist known for publishing her cartoon zine, Lana's World. She was an active contributor in the alternative publishing, queer zine, and comics landscape of the 1980s and 1990s.

Capitol Crisis was a fanzine from the Washington, D.C. punk scene created by musician and disc jockey, Xyra Harper. The zine published five issues from November 1980 to May 1981 and was part of the foundation for D.C.'s emerging punk music scene. According to scholar Shayna Maskell, Harper and Capitol Crisis "worked to contest the dominant maleness of D.C. hardcore and its cultural production."

References

  1. "Table of Contents", Factsheet Five, no. 44, p. 1, August 1991, ISSN   0890-6823
  2. 1 2 Gunderloy, Mike; Cari Goldberg Janice (1992), "Introduction" , The World of Zines, New York: Penguin Group, p. 4, ISBN   0-14-016720-X
  3. "Julie Doucet: How a Zine Author Went Canonical". Los Angeles Review of Books. 2022-07-23. Retrieved 2024-04-04.
  4. Lethem, Jonathan (2023-08-11). "To Factsheet Five". Medium. Retrieved 2024-04-04.
  5. "Issue 1". Factsheet Five Archive Project. 9 March 2022. Retrieved 12 March 2022.
  6. Greer, J. C. ""Zines," Dictionary of Contemporary Esotericism" (PDF). Retrieved 10 October 2023.
  7. Shane Williams, Holly Cornell, Al Kowalewski, et al., "Factsheet Five: The Fanzine Fanzine," Flipside, whole no. 53 (Summer 1987), pp. 23-25.
  8. Factsheet Five 38 (1990 Oct). p. 15.
  9. Bob Grumman (1998-10-07), "Daily Notes on Poetry & Related Matters", Bob Grumman's po-X-cetera Blog, archived from the original on 2009-08-02, retrieved 2009-04-14
  10. "Staff" (PDF). Factsheet Five. No. 48. July 1, 1993. Retrieved February 26, 2015.
  11. Van Vleet, Michael (1998-10-07), "Farewell, Factsheet 5?", SF Weekly, archived from the original on 2011-06-10, retrieved 2023-03-09{{citation}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  12. "A Zine Lover's Dream," New York State Library News, April 1997.
  13. Jeremy Gardner, "Zines in the Academic Library: A Literature Review," Archived 2010-12-19 at the Wayback Machine Library Student Journal, May 2009.
  14. C. Janowsky, "NYSL Collections That Are Not in the Library’s Online Catalog," Archived 2009-10-16 at the Wayback Machine New York State Library, June 2009.
  15. "Little Maga/Zine Collection History, San Francisco Public Library". Archived from the original on 2006-08-01. Retrieved 2006-08-07.

Further reading