Factsheet Five

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Factsheet Five
Factsheet Five #25, February 1988, featuring cover art by Freddie Baer

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
Frequency quarterly (varied)
Circulation 10,500/issue (as of 1991)[1]
Publisher Mike Gunderloy (1982-1991)
Hudson Luce (1991)
R. Seth Friedman (1992-1998)
First issue 1982[2]
Company Pretzel Press (?-1991)
Country Flag of the United States United States
Language English
Website [1]
ISSN 0890-6823

Factsheet Five was a periodical consisting almost exclusively 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 (literally 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. Before the adoption of the web & e-mail beginning around 1994, publications such as Factsheet Five formed a vital directory for connecting people of like-mind.

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

The magazine was originally published in 1982 by Mike Gunderloy on a spirit duplicator in his bedroom while he lived in an Alhambra, California slanshack. The original focus was science fiction fanzines (the title comes from a short story by science fiction author John Brunner). 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.[3] In 1990, Cari Goldberg Janice and (briefly) Jacob Rabinowitz joined as co-editors.[4] Gunderloy quit publishing Factsheet Five following the completion of Issue #44 in 1991.[2] 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 0-7821-2155-1.

[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.

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) ISBN 0-14-016720-X, and The Factsheet Five Zine Reader by Friedman (1997; Three Rivers Press) ISBN 0-609-80001-9.

Mike Gunderloy's Factsheet Five Collection of zines and mail art 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.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Factsheet Five (no. 44): p. 1, 1991, ISSN 0890-6823 
  2. ^ a b Gunderloy, Mike; Cari Goldberg Janice (1992). "Introduction", The World of Zines. New York: Penguin Group, p. 4. ISBN 0-14-016720-X. 
  3. ^ “Factsheet Five: The fanzine fanzine”, Flipside (no. 53), 1987, <http://www.operationphoenixrecords.com/flipsideissue53_9FactsheetFiveandZineList.pdf> 
  4. ^ Factsheet Five (no. 38): p. 15, 1990, ISSN 0890-6823 

[edit] External links

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