Offbeat Journal Keeps Tabs on Its Brethren

Thousands of magazines are piled throughout Michael Gunderloy’s home, but don’t ask him to pull out a copy of Time or Newsweek or Reader’s Digest. They’re too conventional.

However, he’ll gladly produce American Window Cleaner, a trade journal for those who squeegee for a living.

Or, Gunderloy can find his copy of Civilian Defense: News & Opinion, a newsletter put out by those who believe in creating a national defense by training Americans in nonviolent non-cooperation with any invader.

There’s always Chokehold, a wrestling magazine. Daily Cow is a humor magazine written from the animal’s point of view. And Frostbite Falls Far-Flung Flier features the cartoon characters Rocky and Bullwinkle.

“It has happened that the Rensselaer post office has sent me stuff just because it looks flaky and they don’t know who else to send it to,” says Gunderloy, a 30-year-old with black hair tied in a ponytail.

Gunderloy collects the magazines for his own journal, Factsheet Five, the bible of the underground, or alternative press. Five times a year, Factsheet Five contains reviews of as many of this country’s estimated 6,000 self-published magazines as Gunderloy can get his hands on.

Anyone with access to a copier can theoretically become a publisher, and many people do. Once thought the province of 1960s radicals plotting campus takeovers, the alternative press is flourishing in the 1980s, Gunderloy says.

He calls them “zines.” That’s short for fanzines. But although many publications show slavish devotion to certain rock bands, others cover far different territories in politics and the arts.

Gunderloy has set aside his chemical engineering degree to give his full energies to his marginally profitable newsletter. His wife, a physics professor, helps pay the bills.

He chronicles publications with names like Filth, The Lame Monkey Manifesto, Nuclear Mutinous Dogs and The Occasional Journal of Nothing in Particular with obsessive detail, in print so small it’s almost painful to read.

Zines range in size from slick music publications like Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll and Flip Side, with 15,000 circulations, to The Colleen Scene, a newsletter put out by a California woman with a circulation of one.

“She types it on demand--everyone gets an original copy,” Gunderloy says. “It’s mostly rambling about what she did that day and what she heard on the radio.”

Some zine culture eventually goes mainstream. Backstreets is a widely quoted magazine devoted to Bruce Springsteen and its publisher has written a book on the Boss. Science fiction zines are a fertile ground for talent, producing such mainstream talent as writer Robert Silverberg.

Music zines routinely trumpet bands, such as the heavy metal favorites Metallica, long before they become popular.

“There is a lot of talent out there--in some cases waiting to be discovered and in some cases being discovered,” Gunderloy says.

Other zine culture will probably remain underground.

The magazine Ripping Headaches, with interviews with obscure heavy metal rockers Fatal Blessing, Devastation and Vomit, is not likely to make too many newsstands.

Cartoonists use the zines as a proving ground. Many, Gunderloy says, are mainly interested in proving how shocking they can be. Gunderloy suspects the controversy over Robert Mapplethorpe’s government-sponsored homosexual art caused many publications to push the boundaries of obscenity as far as possible.

Mapplethorpe’s work, he says, “would be far too tame for a lot of people to put into their magazines. This sort of shock therapy has gotten to the point of absurdity.”

In a strange way, Gunderloy says, the magazines he gets tell him a lot about what’s going on in the country.

Dozens of new publications provide evidence of an upsurge in environmentalism, he says. The country’s conservative drift through the ‘80s was obvious in several alternative college newspapers.

“I get the latest news from people that might not have made it into the New York Times--which I don’t have time to read,” he says.

Gunderloy’s own press run is nearly 7,000 per issue. He’ll list the magazine of anyone who sends him a copy and is available by phone.

While many zines try to entertain, others try to inform, albeit in very specialized fields. The Mandocrucian’s Digest is about people who play the mandolin. Suds ‘n’ Stuff is the newsletter of Beer Drinkers International, while Jewish Vegetarians of North America is self-explanatory.

Gunderloy says he is impressed with the quality of much of what he gets, although “I’ve also gotten things from people who are probably certifiably nuts.”

He says he once gave a bad review to a newsletter put out by a man who claimed to be psychically responsible for the auto accident that killed singer Harry Chapin.

“He wrote back a letter suggesting I could be made to slip in the shower and break an ankle,” he says.

Factsheet Five also publishes poetry reviews and keeps track of “cassette culture,” people who record and distribute their own music.

Gunderloy wants eventually to publish Factsheet Five, which began as a two-page mimeographed sheet and now stretches beyond 100 pages, every two months. He does it largely himself, sitting behind a personal computer and sifting through his mail.

“These people are out there because they’re really interested in it, they don’t care about making a buck,” he says. “That’s what excites me. It’s seeing something that’s well done.”