Pantosfinx

Pantosfinx was filled with amusing articles and curious items. It firstly emerged within the student magazine The Sphinx, before being published as its own publication from 1925 onwards. All advertisements were paid for by local businesses but produced by students, often leading to witticisms, cartoons and innuendo, rather than professional adverts. However, this was in keeping with a broader style and tone, evident in its comedic guides to Liverpool, free ‘gifts’ and short stories. Pantosfinx was a magazine filled with joyful enthusiasm, all the more obvious for the fact it was for a good cause. In later years, the content became much more tongue-in-cheek and was often perceived as offensive, with nudity and sexism as a common feature - so much so that the Vice-Chancellor of the University threatened to ban it in 1976. 

As shown in the photographs above, advertising the Pantosfinx was in itself an event! These photographs are from the archive collection of Mary Riddick (D730), who studied here in the mid-1930s.