Factsheet Five

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Factsheet Five was a periodical consisting almost exclusively of short reviews of privately produced printed matter (originally mostly science fiction fanzines), along with contact details.

In the early 1990s, its comprehensive reviews (literally thousands in each issue), made it the most important publication in its field, heralding the wider spread (beyond science fiction fandom) of what would eventually be called fanzine or zine culture. Before the adoption of the web & e-mail beginning around 1994/5, publications such as Factsheet Five formed a vital directory for connecting people of like-mind: one of many examples of this is the queer 'zine culture of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

(Compare to the periodical Sound Choice in the cassette culture.)

The magazine was originally published by Mike Gunderloy when he lived in a slanshack in Alhambra, California in the early 1980s, prior to his move to New York state, where he continued to publish. Gunderloy quit after Issue #44 in 1991. Hudson Luce resumed publishing with Issue #45, after which R. Seth Friedman published the magazine in San Francisco until 1998.

Gunderloy currently works as a computer programmer and farmer. He co-authored the book SQL Server 7 in Record Time ISBN 0782121551.

[edit] In Other Media

Jerod Pore took the bits that generated the paper Factsheet Five and produced Factsheet Five - Electric, which was one of the first zines to use the Usenet newsgroup alt.zines. Gunderloy and Pore also established a substantial online presence on the WELL, an influential, private dial-up BBS based in San Francisco, beginning in the late 1980s.

Two books were published based on Factsheet Five: The World of Zines, by Gunderloy (1992; Penguin) ISBN 014016720X, and The Factsheet Five Zine Reader by Friedman (1997; Three Rivers Press) ISBN 0609800019.

Mike Gunderloy's Factsheet Five Collection is now held at the New York State Library and Archives in Albany, New York, where it occupies 300 cubic feet. 240 zines that R. Seth Friedman donated are in the collection of the San Francisco Public Library.