Mastodawn

Not enough people have any fucking idea how INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT AND INFLUENTIAL FACTSHEET FIVE WAS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factsheet_Five?wprov=sfla1

FS5 was Google for zines. Mike Gunderloy was a god. A benign god.

@jerod23 gets a well deserved mention above.

People who grew up knowing only the internet have no idea of the amazing diversity of thought and implementation people pulled off using paper and postal service. Social structures unthinkable electronically.

Slower, obviously. Somehow today, mid 2025, that sounds less frustrating than six months ago it might have.

I still have 6 or 8 feet of zines. Each quarter inch would take an hour or more to go through.

Postal services have been around for what, 150, 250 years, depending on where you live? The subtlety of expression is kinda unthinkable today.

Oh well. Lol.

Factsheet Five - Wikipedia

Show thread

Kevin Bowen 🐭3d ago

@tomjennings @jerod23

That was THE Bible of zines.

If it wasn't on the shelves at the bookshops I worked/volunteered at between '89 & '95, Factsheet Five was close at hand to help get that oddball, obscure samizdat into one's hands.

N.B. The USPS was a lifeline for facilitating this too. Getting the word out to folks who lived out in the sticks was essential for helping many subcultures grow & thrive & survive.

Yeah. The US postal service may prove to have been the best service the US ever provided to its citizens. Its not an American idea but it was done very well. Internet kids don't get it I don't think. Deliver an ounce/28 grams of paper to any physical address within 8 billion sq km for the same pocket change.

The best art and communication medium ever.

@jerod23

Show thread

Jerod Poore 3d ago

@tomjennings @kevinbowen
Absolutely! For all its faults sending a couple of sheets of paper from Bangor Maine to Honolulu Hawaii for less than the cost of a daily newspaper (kids, ask your parents) and having it arrive in a matter of days was amazing.

Zine culture would never have flourished the way it did in the 20th century without the USPS.