Viz Comics

I've got a whole heap of them from 15 years ago.

Johnny Fartpants & Mrs Brady Old Lady were my favs.

Top Tips - save on the cost of contacts by cutting small circles of gladwrap and pressing them on your eyeballs.

Buster Gonad.

Oh.......and the Fat Slags!

I was just about to say the Fat Slags.

Fru. T. Buns the Master Baker is my favorite............. ''Take that your fithy buscuit bitch''

I also love the Drunken bakers.....so so grim

Profanasaurus is also great for a laugh

I grew up reading English comics so this was a lot of fun.

Like a lot of the in-joke humour in Private Eye, the funniest thing about Viz was the repetition, and once you read a few issues it not only became funnier but also you felt like you were in a group who knew what was going on. That was probably a nice feeling for a lot of its readers.

Like the Family Guy, I feel that the satire was often lost in the bawdiness-gross out-misogyny (Fat Slags, Mrs Brady) and most of the readership probably just took that at face value rather than as satire. The strip I liked most of all was the Human League in space one, which wasn't very funny, but was about the Human League.

Twenty years ago I met with John Brown who was hoping to get the company I was working for to publish Viz locally. We didn't take it up (probably for the best, though who knows) but I did give him one piece of advice: whatever you do, don't rewrite the comics for a local audience eg replacing £ with $ or trying to smooth out the northern England-isms. I said Australians are used to English dialect and money and even if the Englishness is a drawback in the sense of comprehensibility, any attempt to change it will look like shit.

Imagine my surprise when that was exactly what they did - replaced the £s with $s, etc, in a really scrappy obvious way. I'm glad I gave them that idea. Not that I'm saying that's why the Australian version failed. But it's a sign of how unaware the Australian publishers were of their audience, in my opinion. Perhaps also of how hard it was to sell something like Viz in Australia. Though that doesn't explain the popularity of Monty Python etc here.

The UK version is still around and hasn't changed much.

Biffa Bacon. Ye callin wor a pouf?

I also love the Drunken bakers.....so so grim

plus one

I always felt kind of sorry for Biffa Bacon. His family were such cunts to him.

What was the one about the Black Bin Liner?

I still remember one of the letters to the editor.

I am a nurse, my brother is a teacher and my husband is a social worker.

One of my favourite letters:

Dear Viz,

About 6 months ago I was sitting in bed reading the newspapers with my husband when he let rip with a fart, that distinctly sounded like 'Pol Pot'. Imagine my shock the next day to read that the former Cambodian dictator had passed away.

After sharing a bath with my husband last night, and a similar incident occurring, I can only register the grave fears I now have for the health of Edward Woodward.

It was prescient too.

mrsjackwhite said 49 minutes ago:What was the one about the Black Bin Liner?

Black Bag -The Faithful Border Bin Liner!

Oh, & my fave was Rude Kid.

Up the Arse corner is gold

Imagine my surprise when that was exactly what they did - replaced the £s with $s, etc, in a really scrappy obvious way.

And that local The White Van Men strip they put into the early issues was fuckin dire.

Points for the artfulness of changing a reference to a TV channel where you can see foreign films with tits in 'em late at night from ''Channel Phwooooar'' to ''Channel Ohhhhhh!'' though.

Fat Slags, Sid The Sexist (''tits oot for the lads''), The Modern Parents, Roger Mellie, Black Bag - The Faithful Border Bin Liner, Ravey Davey, Finbarr Saunders and his Double Entendres, Student Grant... ah, memories...

I used to like this, bought it regularly when I first moved to the UK in 1990.
There were a heap of knock-offs around too, which were uniformly shite.

...it used to be quite funny.

(groan)

I have the Viz Book of Crap Jokes at home.

Roger Irrelevant was my fave - ''He's completely hatstand!''

wibble! fish!

''He's completely hatstand!''

I still use that phrase occasionally.

Not sure if it was a one-off or a regular character, but i loved Metal Mickey - he has to have heavy

''D'ye play death speed?''

''If i was a drummer, ah'd use fuckin' hammers''

Viz and Fortean times were our lunchroom magazines of choice when i worked ina factory. Good factory. We got to listen to RRR and PBS on the radio, too.

I loved the modern parents. A couple of wankers I used to laugh at until I became one

I liked Christ on a Bike. Also Terry Fuckwit.
Top Tips were always great too.
Also liked the souvenir ads

simon saladcream

I still buy it every month. Finbarr Saunders is my favourite!

By month I mean 7/12ths of a year

wait... 12/7ths..7 times a year.

Finbarr Saunders & Billie the Fish were always my favourites...all good though.

Top tip: A car radio aerial bent just the right way makes a handy replacement for a coat hanger

fnarr...

but the fart joke letter back up there made me make a similar noise.

Eight ace!

Big Vern & Paul Whicker the Tall Vicar were my favourites.

we sold loads and loads of Viz at the old Half A Cow store in the late 80s. Loads of em. They were in a cardboard magazine holder with 'Cheers' written above it. The backpackers loved it. ''fancy a shag?''

love

fnarr fnarr

Classic strips here - check out Balsa Boy. Makes me wish i had a stack of Viz to trawl through this weekend.

Yes a good formula to which they have added pretty much nothing in 20 years and presumably made a fortune from it. Bravo!

There was a great animated series of Roger Melly with Peter Cook voicing Roger.
Good evening and fuck.

And Terry Fuckwit was great. Terry Fuckwit - He's a bit of a fuckwit.

The Mark Of Zorro:
'I give you seven out of ten Zorro'

Biffa Bacon was always my favourite.

Chris Donald used to come into our shop quite regularly, but i've only met Simon donald once, he's a bit of a prick.

Classic strips here - check out Balsa Boy. Makes me wish i had a stack of Viz to trawl through this weekend.

Thanks for the link Intruder. Hilarious stuff there. I'm surprised how much some of those (better) earlier issues are going for at the Viz website. Vibrating Bum Faced Goats and Tinribs are still brilliant.

The Mark Of Zorro:
'I give you seven out of ten Zorro'

GENIUS!

So not genius.

Anyone with a moderately skewed perspective and a conservative sensibility and a day to do nothing but throw around ideas based on easy puns could do as well.

I'm not saying it's not fun. Can we just call it 'fun'?

That wasn't fun.

Anyone with a moderately skewed perspective and a conservative sensibility and a day to do nothing but throw around ideas based on easy puns could do as well.

Have just seen some decidedly average shows at the comedy festival recently so my comedic judgement may be slightly skewed.

The new episode of South Park rips off Buster Gonad completely.