VIZ -- fish wrapping or klassic komix?

The regulars - especially not hard satirical stuff like Roger Mellie - keep up a remarkable consistancy, whilst The Critics and The Modern Parents ensure that on the level of cultural critique they can mix with the middle classes as well.

Merely for Eminemis The Menace, Spice 1999 and the Simon Sald Cream story....Oh so classic.

Equivalence should also include the fact that at its peak Viz was the 4th biggest selling magazine, of any kind, in the country.

As for VIZ equivalents in the US - always thought Mad was pitched at a slightly younger audience (eg Bart and Millhouse) than VIZ which, almost uniquely amongst English language comics, has a v. high over 18 readership (as well as many younger readers of course.) It still sells over 200,000 an issue and costs abt 17 pee to produce, so remains a nice little earner.

Three Bears story, every week = they have bang-up meal in top nosh spot ("We'll have everything" – we see em eating a mound of ice cream and chips, I think Baxendale's own culinary invention), then they can't pay, and have to do the washing up. EVERY WEEK!! Viz is a monthly and Nobby's Piles are not always featured!

The Churchill thing might well have been in the Sunday Post, which still has an astonishingly high circulation but is rarely even mentioned by the media. Here's ana musing Observer article about the most conservative paper in Britain.

last time i was in glasgow (a VERY long time ago = c.15 yrs?)), i had brief sight of an hilarious samizdat version of Oor Wullie, produced using tippex, black biro and someone's office photocopier, in which sed urchin spent entire time, whatever the adventure, frantically wanking (and announcing, every so very often, "Ah jiz all day and ah jiz all day")

like all much-repeated jokes, it became sidesplitting and still makes me grin

Am at home today and dug out my copy of the Baxendale book. Terrible story in there abt Davey Law, fantastic first Dennis the Menace artist, being barred from entering the DC Thomson building after he became Treasurer for the local branch of the NUJ.

Newcastle-based Viz , a naughty upstart in the traditional school of British comics, achieved cult status among students and young males in the early 1990s with its surreal mixture of satire and smut. After a long, niggling campaign of mickey-taking, it has provoked a much older boy, the Dandy, into retaliation.

For years the Dandy and its stablemate, the Beano, have endured the taunts of Viz , which has shamelessly borrowed and parodied characters from their Dundee publisher, DC Thomson . The Dandy's editor, Morris Heggie, said: 'Half of Viz is based on Beano and Dandy characters. Our 'Black Bob the Border Collie' became their 'Black Bag the Binliner'. 'Little Plum' became 'Little Plumber', their 'Three Chairs' are based on our 'Three Bears' and they turned 'Winker Watson', predictably, into ' Wanker Watson'.

Mr Heggie said he had never objected. 'I don't mind the imitation. We take it as a compliment. We are in a different market, catering for children Viz is really 'top-shelf' stuff.'

DC Thomson 's lawyers, however, took a different view. After Viz ran ' Wanker Watson'earlier this year, they threatened legal action for breach of copyright if DC Thomson characters were ever 'borrowed' again.

Viz 's publisher John Brown ordered editor Chris Donald to comply. Mr Donald's response was to introduce a completely new character - 'DC Thompson, the Humourless Scottish Git'. In the current issue of Viz he appears as an irascible old man in a kilt who complains of breach of copyright when he sees a greengrocer selling 'little plums' and a mother telling off her son Dennis for being a menace.

To the relief of Mr Brown, DC Thomson responded not with a writ but with a comic strip of its own, 'The Jocks and the Geordies', in last week's Dandy. A gang of Scottish schoolboys gets the better of Geordie rivals in a contest to produce the best comic. The Geordies suffer the full range of Dandy indignities - jabbed up the behind with pencils, falling down manholes and being biffed on the chin by the triumphant Scots.

'The return of the 'Jocks and the Geordies' is a one-off and just a bit of fun, friendly rivalry,' said Mr Heggie. 'I hope it shows we are not really humourless Scottish gits.'

The original 'Jocks and Geordies' strip made its debut in the Dandy in November 1975. More than 1,000 strips appeared before the retirement of artist Jimmy Hughes in 1990. The originals were rival gangs from schools on either side of the border whose encounters invariably ended with a punch-up.

They had historical precedents, said Mr Donald at Viz 's Newcastle HQ. 'We're very familiar with the situation on Tyneside. Trainloads of Scotsmen used to come to Whitley Bay in the shipyard holidays specially to pick fights with Geordies. It was a bit of a hobby of theirs. I'm glad the Dandy has responded to our strip in the spirit it was intended. Ever since we started Viz in 1979 we've been doing spoofs of Beano and Dandy.The whole thing is a parody of them. DC Thomson don't have world copyright on drawing cartoon characters in boxes. We have borrowed their formulas, just as they have worked on the formulas of cartoonists who drew in the Twenties and Thirties.

'When John Brown told us not to parody Beano and Dandy any more, I went along with it at first, then started to think it wasn't fair. I got pissed off with John. I thought he was getting soft and in danger of forgetting the spirit of the magazine. So I came up with the DC Thompson [with a 'p'] character instead.

'Our solicitor, who's a very boring woman in London who talks like the Queen, only posher, panicked a bit at first but eventually said it was legally OK. She said we weren't allowed to have DC sitting on a bucket, though. Buckets were copyright DC Thomson because 'Oor Wullie' in the Sunday Post sits on one. So we drew a slit in the bucket so we could stand up in court and say, 'This is no bucket, your honour - it's Ned Kelly's hat.'

'I'm personally on good terms with Morris Heggie. He rings me up sometimes for a chat - although because it's long-distance and he works for DC Thomson he isn't allowed to stay on the phone for more than a minute or two. He's a nice bloke. I imagine him sitting there in his Dickensian office in Dundee, covered in cobwebs. We get on great with the writers and cartoonists at DC Thomson - it's just the old fogeys upstairs who can't take a joke.'

Both the Dandy and Viz have seen better days. Viz , a bi-monthly which was produced for the first six years of its life by Mr Donald, 35, and his brother from a bedroom at their parents' Newcastle home, had an average sale for January-June of 527,030, half the figure of five years ago.

Dandy, founded in December 1937, has fallen farther, but from a much greater height. It peaked in the early Sixties with a weekly sale of more than two million, now down to about 130,000. 'In those days children watched much less TV,' said Mr Heggie. 'There were fewer comics and computer games hadn't been invented. We can still hold our own against other comics, but the main opposition is on a screen these days.

' Viz is pretty good, but it's past its peak. It used to be hilarious. Now I think it goes over the top.There are only so many laughs you can get from four- letter words. There's no substitute for really funny stories.'

Mr Donald said he had not yet decided whether to respond to the 'Jocks and Geordies' jest in the next issue of Viz . 'I was going to leave it,' he said. 'But after this 'Jocks and Geordies' thing anything might happen.'

Viz is classic. Well, was classic, certainly. May still be, but I don't really read it anymore. I think Billy The Fish was my favourite, a hilariously mental tale which emcompassed kidnappings, death, ressurections, exploding robots, Mick Hucknall out of Simply Red and some football.

HSA, however, loves it. He gets a copy and cackles over it for hours. I feel like banishing him to the toilet with it.

He says "Oh, but it satirises the right wing tabloid media in a way that no one else dares."

You know, not all satire is progressive or even a good thing. I don't read it as piss-taking to prove a point, I just read it as piss-taking for the sake of being rude and provocative. What's the point? ANd it's not even FUNNY. Sigh.

Sometimes I read the Profanisaurus, thinking, OK, rude words are funny, there will be something funny in here, and I just end up shaking my head for 20 minutes.

Sigh. But remember, I have no sense of humour.

Viz Comic availible in pubs for a £1 with a pint. Fear it may be a CAMRA Ruse.

Awesome, verging on the Tex Avery.

For a period of about four years, in the late 80s, I loved Viz. The news features were fabulously spot-on. Some of the spoofing was brilliantly observed (cf You are the ref: You notice the number ten of the home team is none other than Nazi War Criminal Martin Bormann. Do you a) book him for ungentlemanly conduct, b)...).

I stopped buying it because it got repetitive and the smutty ads made me feel cheap and guilty. Oh and the rest of the country cottoned on.

Why I love...

...the Drunken Bakers

Steve Lowe
Wednesday September 17, 2003
The Guardian

Comedy drunks have been around since drinks began, but few have been so utterly forlorn as The Drunken Bakers. As the name suggests, this cartoon strip - a semi-regular feature in that fine comic institution, Viz - concerns some bakers who get drunk. The essentials don't vary much: the average black-and-white, page-long episode sees a customer coming in with a simple request for, say, a wedding cake or some buns. With the best of intentions, the sweet-looking, white-haired pair head out back to gather ingredients and mix dough. But soon, one will quietly suggest a little drop of something - Drambuie or gin, perhaps - and the other will stoically agree. Before long, they're both staggering round a smoke-filled bakery surrounded by empty spirits bottles. Again. It's tricky to say what's so appealing about their slide from being worthy citizens to utterly wrecked lost souls. Writer Barney Farmer and artist Lee Healey imbue the strips with a real sense of despondency; these aren't drunks who have convivial escapades or adventures - they are drunks who drink, get drunk, pass out and burn the cakes. And being bakers somehow makes it worse: it seems such a wholesome occupation. Recently, one baker headed off for supplies and, in the next speech-free frame, was shown on his hands and knees in a shopping centre surrounded by liquid oozing out from a mess of broken glass and polythene. The look of sad befuddlement on his face was kind of moving. So, yes, clearly there are limits, plot-wise. But I'm hoping that for some while longer, Viz continues to show us the non-exploits of two bakers who, tragically, never quite manage to bake.

"That fat blerk cannat swim!"

My favourite Viz thing ever is "Balsa Boy".

The Mark Thompson strip in this month's Viz is one of my favourites for a long time.

which one was that? The whole issue is fucking great, esp Care Home Bears strip done by Drunken Bakers guy, Eight Ace putting the Nanomart out of business for a £1.49 reward and then being unable to spend the £1.49 reward because he's put the Nanomart out of business, and the Tourette's florist delivering a bouquet spelling "SUCK MY COCK YOU CUNT" to Andrew Sachs' house

Little tiny line of text announcing Steve Donald's death at the bottom of the Viz-speak legal blurb on the last page was poignant

It was good. I thought they might use Roger Mellie to tackle *that* but fair play.

WTF is up with the free calendar thing - they did 'Victorian Razzle' last year and some of it killed me but this month's thing is pointless and not funny

xpost

Mark Thompson strip = Tourette's florist

The Enrazzlement model who also appears in all the "Dear Deirdre" pisstake strips: uber-crush.

Care Home Bears strip done by Drunken Bakers guy

This was so fucking depressing... reminds me of when they did the "Play School characters meet up for Big Ted's funeral" strip, with a one-eyed Jemima going "he looks so peaceful... Floella couldn't make it but she sent a lovely card"

That's some poignant shit right there.

(Rude Kid's mother) "What would you like in your sandwiches, dear?"

(Rude Kid) "Granny's pubes you whore!"

the Enrazzlement chick with the sunken eyes is really hot yeah

Why have they done the Halloween special in February?

No idea. Weakest issue in some time, this one, I thought. It's rare for a Davey Jones strip to be a total miss, but Charlie Christ (or whatever it was called) was dire.

if Max Clifford is so good at PR, how come everyone thinks he's a cunt?

40 years old! http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/nov/07/viz-comics

cried with laughter first time i read the Bob Hope strip grimly mentions upthread.
it's here: http://www.viz.co.uk/strips.html

30, surely.

The Gilbert Ratchet strip for The Guardian had me lol-ing like a drain when I read it at the weekend. Brilliant stuff.

the Enrazzlement chick with the sunken eyes is really hot yeah

Miss Ruby > Miss Rose imo.

30 yeah. i was getting confused with um, Sesame Street.

they are both about the duality of man

I keep meaning to dig out that The Two Ronaldos strip from 2004, I hope I still have it

those 'classic strips' are magnificent...i never knew!

There's a Viz exhibition going on right now at the cartoon museum in Bloomsbury - I keep meaning to go.

omg Mr Logic

i don't rly need to say any more

I keep meaning to dig out that The Two Ronaldos strip from 2004, I hope I still have it

― MPx4A, Wednesday, November 11, 2009 12:08 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Scan?

I was at a used bookstore, reading on a chair, and a man came up to me and said, "I like a smart woman like you, reading like that." I was in the middle of a SHITTY DICK strip in a Viz compendium called The Dog's Bollocks..............smart.

It's so fucking funny, though.
I first discovered Viz in a book about underground comics at my hometown's public library. I was 14 at the time and I realize reading it again it has probably influenced the type of comics I like and make more than anything else.

it is probably my biggest literary influence

I just look at the pictures.

It may be giving me unreasonable conceptions of British people's relationship to cornflake packets.
I think RUDE KID is my favorite.

my actual favourites are some of the Franklin Mint spoof adverts and other articles, they tend to cause that laughter where i think i'm about to bust an artery

Hahah that's a great story, Abz. Those fake ads and letters were amazing.

It's a con!

http://www.viz.co.uk/sexistrecords.html

^^^ those are mostly brilliant too

Loved Viz in my youth, so much great stuff. The Vibrating Bum Faced Goats, Black Bag and Gilbert Ratchet linger in memory. One of my colleagues has decorated his work space with some of the fake Yellow Pages ads, including (my favourite):

AARON A AARDVARK, Incompetent Domestic Builder,
Drains cracked * Carpets ruined * Cement mixed on your patio.
All prices include 6 bags of hardened cement left by your front door.
Plaster trailed through your home at no extra cost.
Tel 0191 233 002
Aaron A Aardvark - Not very good, but first in the book.

Conversations I only have in person 101

are any of the viz photocomics online? i learned from viz photocomics that britkids like to use the word 'ace' a lot.

'Ace and Skill' to be precise.

Nipsey Hussle features in the Profanisaurus section of the brand new issue of Viz

ace and skill?

http://28.media.tumblr.com/zLamiYX5Rjjgqhy7aveklZ4po1_500.jpg

there was a book club spoof where instead of books it was ducks. one of the ducks was marked as "sexually explicit" and one as "two count at one choice".

IT'S THE BAILIFFS

also learned 'phoaaar' from viz.

I was actually reading an old Viz from the 90s just the other day, moving house turned up some things I'd had packed away for years.

CD's autobio Rude Kids is splendid, not only recommended for comedy spods interested in the history and stories behind the rag, but a thumping read in general.

omg that elvis tutankhamun dambusters clock. I think it might even beat The Life of Christ in Cats.

good thread

Is there a @vizcomic Letter or Top Tip that lives rent-free in your head? EVERY time I'm driving, I think of the person who wrote in to say "Why should I use my indicators? It's none of your business where I'm going"

— Drivelcast (@drivelcast) July 24, 2024

There is one that I'm blearily paraphrasing because I haven't seen it in years that said "this morning my wife came into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Little did she know that I was watching her from inside a cupboard I had drilled a small hole in".

Also "if Max Clifford's so good at PR, how come everyone thinks he's a cunt?"

Oh I already posted that...15 years ago, ouch

"I've done four shits today, can any of your readers beat that?"

... and then in the next issue ... a special section in letters for the 20+ replies, including

"I do more than that before I get out of bed in the morning"

haha

(yeah that is a good twitter thread)

"Bottled water users: save money by filling a bottle with water"

Not a letter, but one of my favourite Viz moments was a parody of a Nat-West advert: Gnat-West - just left school? No job? No money? Then fuck off.

that Wasp World ad never fails to kill me, some of the ads in Viz are the funniest material for me.

Related: I always remember what I think was a one-off feature about the 'Bees of Barnton Hall', notable because they flew about in a 'huge, cock-shaped swarm'.

My fave was always

https://i.imgur.com/qHbml3k.jpeg

https://64.media.tumblr.com/1f4020fe40d1567b1038159a69a08a60/tumblr_mzmb65jLAV1s8su8go1_1280.jpg

The bit in "The Phantom of Fairpools" where the dad starts randomly hacking fuck out of the bottom of the boat while the son cheers him on is one of the funniest single Davy Jones panels imo

pic.twitter.com/28H166keL5

— No Context Viz (@VizNoContext) December 23, 2023

Also Terry Fuckwitt thinking he's a department store Santa but actually being about to get the chair

Gradually collecting a "what posh dickheads call their houses" for my Blue Sky account:

https://i.imgur.com/ZQliXsY.jpeg

(Subtitle: things that should be an entry in the Profanisaurus)

I was walking past a mess of a modern posh detached house, an architectural wart from the 90's. Named after some obscure German village that even fucking Hitler wouldn't have known. There is a sign near the house that reads: Smile, You are being recorded on CCTV. Don't know what unspeakable acts people have been doing there, but for whom it may concern please carry on doing it.