De Re Bombshellica
Or
‘How to Dismantle a Bish Bombshell’

 

Plotting
Almost as soon as HMS Pinafore ended, work on Bish Bombshell 1987 began. In the best traditions of political mandate-seeking and legitimisation, an elite cadre of 5th year students staged a coup, and formed a revolutionary – sorry – magazine committee. We had a sort of lunchtime club mostly consisting of 5A students who stayed in school to eat lunch, and in these hour and 10 minute sessions of mastication and cogitation, a plot was hatched.

The initial group consisted of me, David Gibbons, Colin Lally and Mike Kavanagh. David and Mike fancied themselves as literary types, and would form the editorial core, and I would draw and coordinate the artwork and design. Colin was nominally treasurer, but as that didn’t really require too much administration, became another editorial contributor. Of course, you couldn’t have Mike Kavanagh without his almost-symbiont Colm Fahy, and so he was co-opted too, into a position of collecting advertising and sponsorship. We realised that almost a third of the magazine was usually given over to sports coverage, and so Paolo Magnetti, having a wide range of sporting interests, slotted into that role nicely. Finally, as nobody knew how to get a magazine from adolescent idea to printed product, Robert Gander was our missing-link to the typesetters and printers.

We marched up to that smoke-filled den of iniquity, otherwise known as the staff room, to announce our presence – to Mr Small I believe, who had been ‘in charge’ of the magazine in previous years. Having met him and informed him of the politburo formation, we dispensed with his services, and that was the end of his involvement. We were on our own - to wreak havoc however we saw fit.

Production
We had about 2 months from concept to sale, so we got cracking! We found a little room on the ground floor near the gym, commandeered it, and went there any time we had a class we didn’t like under the guise of ‘working on the school magazine’. On one particular occasion, (after provocatively too many absences from class), Mr Keenan stormed in and demanded that his pupils return to do some Applied Maths. Colin, David and I had foreseen such an eventuality and showed him that despite our absence, we had completed maths exercises up to two chapters ahead in the book. He was placated somewhat, but in future we decided to sacrifice someone else’s class instead. I believe Mr Dobbyn’s chemistry class was the substitute ;-)

As with most school magazines, not only did the editorial committee edit, but we wrote most of the material too. Among other things, David wrote a surrealist short story, which was inspired to some extent by his listening to the 1975 classic, The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. (His mum thought it was the product of a schizophrenic mind.) Mike (the editor) wrote a polemic about sectarian strife in Northern Ireland; it seems quite biased to today’s sensibilities and pretty heavy going for school kids. Colin did a piece on ‘The Show’ – notable for its photos of him as Captain Corcoran, Dave as Dick Dead-Eye, and even me in the background as a ‘common sailor’. There were of course some pretty girls in view too, which would help with sales! Paolo almost single-handedly put together all of the sporting section, which I think was under-appreciated to some extent. I also strayed outside my artistic remit, and wrote a few pieces, including an ‘Artist’s Note’ in which I castigated the school for its lack of art facilities, although I neglected to mention that someone had to pay local artist Bernie Keogh to come and teach us! Art class did have other merits though…

However, other students made not-insignificant contributions – notably the Wallflowers prepared by another self-chosen clique of 6th years. (At least the printers had heard of the word ‘pookie’, unlike the following year when several student photos had captions referring to them as ‘bookies’ - which would lead one to suspect that the Bish was a notorious gambling den, rather than a haven for Cure-heads.) There was even some good material from people whom I mildly despised.

Artistic Differences
Being in charge of the artwork involved me producing ‘The Cover’. The previous year’s edition had pioneered the use of a bi-colour process for the cover artwork, and we were keen to use that. I drew my initial sketch of two aliens reading a magazine on the moon, and cleared it with the rest of the guys. (They didn’t really have much choice as they were, frankly, unable to draw.) I got the idea and general layout from a graphic in a 1985 issue of Computer & Video Games. Then, I had to colour it in blue and green, trace over the green parts on clear acetate, and then the blue on another sheet of acetate. Putting the two sheets together formed a complete image, so it was important to get everything matching up. Luckily it did, and it looked good.

As for the other artwork in the magazine - a lot of the cartoons were based on certain teachers in the Bish, and were often drawn while in class so I could get the subject first hand ;-) Others were pictures sent in by students, but needed re-drawing to get up to ‘standard’. Then there were a few advertisers or sponsors who gave us money but not an advert, so I had to improvise a few designs for them. Some other graphics then were simply photocopies of things from comics and magazines just to fill spaces in the layout.

Sales Pitch
When we had most of the material written, collected, edited, proofed, etc. we convened a pow-wow at Colin’s house to put the whole lot together. A few fraught hours later and we had our final layout. We put it in a binder (to bring to the printer on the Tuam Road the following day), and David put it on the carrier of his bike. He and I cycled in the same direction home, and as we turned up Maunsell's Road, the clip came loose, and lots of lovely raw magazine fell onto the road, which being in Galway, was of course nice and wet. Aaargh! We managed to salvage everything, and dry it off in David’s house, and re-assembled it to its former order… with only a few minor alterations.

The boxes of printed mags finally came back from the printers a few days later, and a quick skim through later and we knew we were on to a winner. We dropped the obligatory copy in to Br. Angelus for vetting, but as he was quite busy, he didn’t read it before we went on general release next morning. Just as well – there were some decidedly suspect jokes and cartoons that would not have made it past the blackout marker if he had!

Having flogged our magnum opus for 80p a copy to scores of Bish pupils in the morning, we spent the rest of the day going from school to school peddling our wares. (These were all girls’ schools of course!) We went to The Mercy, The Presentation, Taylor’s Hill and Salerno. I remember sitting on the wall outside Taylor’s, and the headmistress came out in her habit and wimple telling us to clear off. A bit of explanation was required, but she let us come in and sell our fine publication. Everywhere we went, we had a great reception – we sold as many copies in the girls’ schools of Galway as in the Bish itself. I seem to remember doing a roaring trade in the foyer of Salerno for some reason.

For reasons that were of paramount importance at the time, I was particularly interested in the Pres as a selling venue, and as I had previously met the principal, we were allowed to sell from class to class - including 5A2... Given that there were a large number of 5th year Pres girls in HMS Pinafore, take up was quite good too!

 

Moolah!
By the end of the day we had sold the vast majority of our print run – we had the most successful Bombshell in history, and had not only broken even, but made a profit somewhere in the region of £200! There was some heated debate as to what to do with this money – was it ours to spend or money that rightfully belonged to the school? We sat on a bench by the canal across from the Cathedral and thrashed it out. Luckily no-one was injured. In the end, we spent about £50 on lunch in The Brasserie, and we gave Br. Angelus the remainder in his office the next day. He was extremely grateful – though what he did with the money we never knew…

We had about 20 copies left over – so we split them between us to keep as souvenirs. I still have my few copies, and even the original acetates for the front cover rolled up in a cardboard tube. And now you can see it here all again, 20 years later - online.

Doing the magazine was certainly one of the highlights of my time at school. Add to that HMS Pinafore, Bish Discos, Revelation (our band), eventful nights out in The Lion’s Tower(!), Rumurs, and The Warwick, and 1987 turned out to be a vintage year!

Philip O’Toole,

22nd March 2007.