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kingwenclas@yahoo.com wrote:
> There was a distinct difference between the two versions of Factsheet
> 5. I remember first hearing about, then seeing, the Gunderloy version
> with its tiny print and underground feel and look. ("Factsheet 5?
> What's Factsheet 5?" Even the name was compelling.) It had a sense of
> mystery about it, of real samizdat; that something culturally under
the
> surface was really happening. There was a trade-off in taking it
> mainstream-- seeing slick copies on the shelves of monopoly chains
took
> off most of the edge.
> That said, Seth Friedman was a nice guy who put a lot into putting F5
> and zinedom on the map.
I printed up my first poetry chapbook in Summer 1983 and carried them
around person-to-person, and the only thing close to a zine I knew of,
or had contact with, at least, was Trouser Press, which, amazingly, I
could buy right here in Shadowville. I new of comix & sci fi zines from
the 1970s, and still read Comics Journal... I drew comix as much as I
wrote poetry & songs, in those days, hardly at all, now.
Through Comics Journal, I discovered Clay Geerdes' Comix Wave
newsletter, but that focused exclusively on comix, no other zines...
but since the zine I did back then, Shaman Newspaper included
everything, comix, poetry, stories, et cetera, I got involved in 1984,
along with fellow Shadowville artists Tom Snelling, pd wilson, Jonathan
E. Jones.
By 1985, the mini-comix small press was booming, Matt Feazell got that
going, and there was a pretty sucessful reviewzine called S.P.C.E. from
Tim Corrigan, which, though I didn't know at the time, was patterned
closely on Factsheet 5. It was through S.P.C.E. that I learned of F5,
actually, through a small somewhat dismissive review from Tim... and
that's when the lights came on: *here* was full out small press, of
*all* kinds... it turned out that the hundreds of mini-comix were only
a small part of a scene where there were hundreds of poetry zines,
music zines, personal zines, and what were known as "crudzines"...
where at S.P.C.E. there were, that I can remember, about three poets
among the comix creators [Ian Shires with Mysterious Visions, still
being put out today, btw, and Rick Howe, who several years later moved
to Shadowville for a few years, and me] at Factsheet 5 there were at
least hundreds of poets, each issue bringing more in.
1985-1991 were great years for "snail mail", always trading, and once
in a while selling stuff back and forth. It came to a crashing halt in
Summer 1991 when Gunderloy handed it over to Hudson Luce, who put out
one pretty crappy issue, and vanished. By the time Seth took over [I
wonder if anyone remembers Roller's "bootleg" F5 that attempted to fill
the void after Luce? I'm sure Seth does, because it got ugly for a
while, there, legal actions threatened, et cetera...] over, the
momentum was gone for me, and I drifted more and more into the "real
world" again, making music and poetry in the local scene, helping kick
start live music and poetry in Shadowville, eventually leading me to
the place I am now. I avoided the internet until 1998, and didn't run
across Usenet until sometime in 2002... which was as much a revelation
as F5 was in snail mail days.
Hmmm. Pleasant memories of long ago times... Gunderloy's Factsheet Five
and the golden age of small press.
Never surrender! Take no prisoners!
Will
The Shadowville/Netherlands project:
http://www.kannibaal.nl/shadowville.htm
"Mirror Twins":
"Black Eagle Lady" by Will Dockery & Henry Conley:
http://www.lulu.com/items/84000/84578/1/preview/Henry_Conley_-_06_-_Black_Eagle_Lady.mp3
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