When JS exploded onto the scene in February 1967, featuring The Beatles on its first cover, it quickly captured the zeitgeist of the urban youth of a nation grappling with shortages, rising prices, and joblessness. It was a grim and austere time. There was no TV, save a lone, uninspiring black-and-white channel; the young read books and listened to music, while most papers and magazines were pedantic and mundane.
Under the leadership of Desmond Doig, an India-born Anglo-Irish artist and writer, and previously a roving reporter for The Statesman, JS magazine was run by a bunch of enthusiastic college graduates. It swiftly gained a reputation as an irreverent, chatty, insightful magazine, always engaged with its reader.