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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. A number of underground artists and writers read or submitted their work to Factsheet Five, including Julie Doucet and Jonathan Lethem.
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.
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. 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.
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.
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 ."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, "Zines in the Academic Library: A Literature Review," ''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, "NYSL Collections That Are Not in the Library’s Online Catalog," New York State Library, June 2009.
R. Seth Friedman donated 240 zines to the Little Maga/Zine Collection of the San Francisco Public Library.
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