Friday, July 27, 2007

R. Seth Friedman

R. Seth Friedman was the final publisher of Factsheet Five and publisher of The Factsheet Five Zine Reader (as seen in the photo). Seth published F5 quarterly from 1991 until it folded in 1998. He gained mainstream media attention during the 1990s when zines became popular, and was often featured in panel discussions about the medium. I tabled next to Seth at the zine convention and shot this photo at in some art gallery in Pioneer Square. Seth was totally cool, he told me all kinds of zinester stories and gave me a free autographed copy of his book. I also met Aaron Cometbus for the second time this weekend, but Aaron deserves his own entry. Apparently Seth now lives in Portland, but he hasn't had anything to do with zines in a long time.

Odd R. Seth Friedman facts:
  • The movie Capturing the Friedmans is a documentary about his family and the allegations that his dad and brother sexually abused children. It's a great movie that really leaves you torn between them being railroaded and being guilty, and the trippy part is a lot of the footage was from the families' home movies. Seth refused to be part of the movie, but appears in a few of the clips as a kid
  • During the 1990s, Seth hosted a weekly poker game regularly attended by a number of fairly well-known zinesters, including John Marr of Murder Can Be Fun, Chris Becker, Jerod Pore (Poppin' Zits), Mark Saltveit (The Palindromist) and John Held (Bibliozine).

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