Factsheet Five
{{Short description|US magazine}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Infobox magazine
| title = Factsheet Five
| image_file = FactsheetFiveCover.jpg
| image_size = 200px
| image_caption = 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)
| frequency = quarterly (varied)
| circulation = 10,500/issue (1991){{Citation |date=August 1991 | title=Table of Contents | periodical=Factsheet Five |issue=44 |pages=1|issn=0890-6823}}
| category = Zine reviews & culture
| company = Pretzel Press (?-1991)
| publisher = Mike Gunderloy (1982–1991)
Hudson Luce (1991)
R. Seth Friedman (1992–1998)
| country = United States of America
| based =
| 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.
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 or zine culture.{{Cite journal |last=Braun |first=Jolie |date=2024 |title=1990s Zine Distribution and Understanding the Work of Zine Distros through Their Catalogs |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/731777 |journal=The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America |volume=118 |issue=3 |pages=413–441 |doi=10.1086/731777 |issn=0006-128X|url-access=subscription }} A number of underground artists and writers read or submitted their work to Factsheet Five, including Julie Doucet{{Cite web |date=2022-07-23 |title=Julie Doucet: How a Zine Author Went Canonical |url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/julie-doucet-how-a-zine-author-went-canonical |access-date=2024-04-04 |website=Los Angeles Review of Books}} and Jonathan Lethem.{{Cite web |last=Lethem |first=Jonathan |date=2023-08-11 |title=To Factsheet Five |url=https://medium.com/@jonathan.lethem/to-factsheet-five-200f234410ee |access-date=2024-04-04 |website=Medium |language=en}}
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.{{cite web |title=Issue 1 |url=https://f5archive.org/issue-1/ |website=Factsheet Five Archive Project |date=9 March 2022 |access-date=12 March 2022}} He started publishing this zine due to frustrations over the infrequent publication of The Stark Fist of Removal, of which he was a fan.{{cite web |last1=Greer |first1=J. C. |title="Zines," Dictionary of Contemporary Esotericism |url=https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55c5d9b8e4b0d420518ad021/t/5dff9e8c58924f4510c059e0/1577033357622/Zines.pdf |access-date=10 October 2023}} 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.Shane Williams, Holly Cornell, Al Kowalewski, et al., "Factsheet Five: The Fanzine Fanzine," Flipside, whole no. 53 (Summer 1987), pp. 23-25. In 1990, Cari Goldberg Janice and (briefly) Jacob Rabinowitz joined as co-editors.{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/factsheet_five_38 |title=Factsheet Five 38 (1990 Oct) |pages=15}} 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-related column called "Net Works" during the Gunderloy years.{{Citation|author=Bob Grumman|title=Daily Notes on Poetry & Related Matters|work=Bob Grumman's po-X-cetera Blog|date=1998-10-07|url=http://www.comprepoetica.com/newblog/blog00880.html|access-date=2009-04-14|archive-date=2009-08-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090802184504/http://www.comprepoetica.com/newblog/blog00880.html|url-status=dead}}
R. Seth Friedman then published the magazine for five years in San Francisco, with the help of Christopher Becker, Miriam Wolf and Jerod Pore,{{cite news|newspaper = Factsheet Five|issue = 48|date = July 1, 1993|url= http://www.oss.net/dynamaster/file_archive/040320/a41bf6fad9c9107da759f7c720f6bcdd/OSS1993-01-15.pdf |access-date = February 26, 2015 |title = Staff}} until Issue #64 in 1998. Circulation grew to 16,000 during that time.{{Citation
| last = Van Vleet
| first = Michael
| title = Farewell, Factsheet 5?
| newspaper = SF Weekly
| date = 1998-10-07
| url = http://www.sfweekly.com/1998-10-07/news/farewell-factsheet-5/1/
| access-date = 2023-03-09
| archive-date = 2011-06-10
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110610105451/http://www.sfweekly.com/1998-10-07/news/farewell-factsheet-5/1/
| url-status = bot: unknown
}}
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 {{convert|300|cuft|m3}}."A Zine Lover's Dream," New York State Library News, April 1997. However, only about 4000 zines in the collection have been cataloged.Jeremy Gardner, [http://www.librarystudentjournal.org/index.php/lsj/article/viewArticle/101/245 "Zines in the Academic Library: A Literature Review,"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101219015232/http://www.librarystudentjournal.org/index.php/lsj/article/viewArticle/101/245 |date=2010-12-19 }} ''Library Student Journal, May 2009.
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.C. Janowsky, [http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/libdev/nyla2009/non-catalog-collections.pdf "NYSL Collections That Are Not in the Library’s Online Catalog,"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091016094636/http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/libdev/nyla2009/non-catalog-collections.pdf |date=2009-10-16 }} New York State Library, June 2009.
R. Seth Friedman donated 240 zines to the Little Maga/Zine Collection of the San Francisco Public Library.{{Cite web |url=http://sfpl.lib.ca.us/librarylocations/main/bookarts/zines/zinehist.htm |title=Little Maga/Zine Collection History, San Francisco Public Library |access-date=2006-08-07 |archive-date=2006-08-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060801222434/http://sfpl.lib.ca.us/librarylocations/main/bookarts/zines/zinehist.htm |url-status=dead }}
References
{{Reflist}}
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- [http://www.zinebook.com/resource/chep.html Libraries Preserve the Latest Trend in Publishing: Zines by Ron Chepesiuk]
{{Refend}}
Further reading
- {{Cite news | first=David | last=Bauder | title=Magazine collector has his own journal | url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=y_ArAAAAIBAJ&sjid=2WkFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6042%2C1328387 | agency=Associated Press | newspaper=Kentucky New Era | date=1990-01-17 | access-date=2013-08-20 }}
External links
{{Wikisource|Factsheet Five}}
- [http://www.zinebook.com/resource/gunder.html Free download of Gunderloy's How to Publish a Fanzine]
- [http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/msscfa/sc20329.htm Mike Gunderloy, Factsheet Five Collection, ca. 1982-1992] at the New York State Library
Category:Cassette culture 1970s–1990s
Category:Quarterly magazines published in the United States
Category:Defunct magazines published in the United States
Category:Magazines about the media
Category:Magazines established in 1982
Category:Magazines with year of disestablishment missing
Category:Magazines published in California