Net.Weirdness: Alternative Media

Net.Weirdness, part 2: Alternative Media

What's alternative? (What's media?) Let's see what it looked like in 1995?

Back of Air Pirates Funnies, 1971

Survival Research Labs
FTP: srl.org
"Pictures, updates, and propaganda from the most well-known industrial performance art group—Survival Research Laboratories."

Still online? Yes! Finally, a survivor! Well, their FTP has been replaced by a website at the same domain. "Dangerous and Disturbing Mechanical Presentations Since 1979" is their tagline, and it looks like they've kept at it.


Comix List
Mailing List
"Catch the latest in comix talk—just don't mention the Fantastic Four or any other mainstream comic book pabulum."

Still online? No internet record of the comixreqest mailing list, but their ISP, The World, is still going strong. Even more impressive, The World was the first commercial ISP. You can also find plenty of information on and discussions of "comix," where the "x" was/is used to differentiate from the mainstream (and to emphasize x-rated, which is also found in non-mainstream comics).


Sci-Fi Book Reviews
Gopher: gopher net.bio.net
"How come every time you go into a bookstore you can't remember any of the cool titles you've heard about? [...] Next time, before you go shopping, check out this Gopher site. It reviews just about every new and old sci-fi book."

Still online? First, support for the gopher protocol is a rare thing these days, "yielding to the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)." But second, bio.net is still online and supporting open science communication, and has an archive that includes references to its past gopher access. Apparently, the sci-fi reviews were tucked away among discussions on maize and urodele amphibians.

And third, there is no shortage of Sci-Fi book reviews and information collections on the internet at large. One notable source is The Internet Speculative Fiction Database, which started in 1995, home to information on not only science fiction, but also fantasy and horror.


Factsheet Five—Electronic Edition 
FTP: etext.archive.umich.edu
Gopher: well.sf.ca.us
"Here are reviews of just about every zine on the planet, sensibly organized, and presented for your browsing pleasure. Make sure that you buy copies of the paper version of Factsheet Five, too—if these folks go out of business, the world will immediately grind to a halt."

Still online? No.
Archived? A version of etexts, yes, and a few editions of the hardcopy are available via the Internet Archive (late 1980s through early 1990s). Mike Gunderloy, the maniac (in the best sense of the world) behind Factsheet Five, donated his zine collection and business files related to FF to the New York State Library, as documented here.


Wiretap Online Library 
FTP: wiretap.spies.com
"The repository for every bit of nuttiness committed to electrons and zapped over the Internet."

Still online? No.
Archived? Yes, in a fashion. It's the web presence of what was an FTP (and gopher service). There's also a lot of "nuttiness" in the web at large now, so there's definitely more oddities and weirdness to capture, but this is definitely a fine collection of the fringe and freaky.