Ancient History
The Pugilist began as a magazine for the 6th Form students at Easthampstead Park School in Berkshire. The first edition sold out on its first day of release. Its first page described how Steve and I arrived at the name...
"...it was a cold wintery morning when Joel addressed me, thusly "Steve! I need a name for a magazine! Quick!
Something like 'something journal'.""why, fear not young Joel. What about 'Twattybo****ks journal'? 'Nadgers Journal'
or how about somthing like 'spectator' or 'economist' yes, that's just the poodle-something 'ist, like 'Pugilist'
but not that though, because it's crap."
And so, 'Pugilist' was born.
Pugilist is a magazine and an ideal. The essence of The Pugilist is really hard to explain, but its about having a top quality laugh without having to drop the level of conversation. We like satire and silliness. And we hope you do too.
Joel
Ok, here’s my addition to the manifesto, (and now for the A-level pugilist lecture). I started off working on the Pugilist in January 2002, joining the team later than most of the others in the 6th form (when it was still the 6th form magazine). I joined as the web designer, that we gave a stupid title to that sounded glorified – like a real magazine. I started off by writing articles for the magazine and got given the web designer title because I said I’d make a website for the magazine. So anyway, time passed and I made more stuff for the magazine and become more involved in it. Then it came towards the end of the 6th form, and Joel and me wanted to carry on The Pugilist, because we enjoyed doing the magazine too much to just stop it. And this is how I became a co-editor. We decided to create Fly:weight that was to be the online edition of The Pugilist, we were going to do it in regular parts in acrobat reader and post them up. It fell apart though and we only got one edition on there out of the issue. And then this website was eventually created with the help of Matt C. This website includes articles we originally had in the paper version of the magazine, modified versions of articles we originally had in the paper version of the magazine and new articles created since then, Plus other little bits and audio and video.
What The Pugilist is to me is a hobby, it gives me something to do with my life, and I enjoy it. I also have the hope that some time in the future, it might get recognised and get lots of visitors and people will visit for something to look at when you’re bored or feel like a little comedy on the internet, that doesn’t involve videos of monkey’s throwing their crap at video camera’s. (To all of you talent scouts out there, it would be good to get an offer for a book or TV show or even radio show... that would do me!)
Rob
Some of the covers used in the original publications
P.S. We would like to encourage you to shave your eyebrows.
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