Viz Comics

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If you're a fan of Viz, I'll be uploading some of the issues I've scanned over the next while. I posted some of these early ones a good while back, but I'll try to get through all the ones I have this time. You'll need the Comic Book Reader, which you can get HERE for Windows, or HERE for MAC, to read these files.




"I just bought the CD advertised in a recent Viz with issues 26-40 on it and your scans blow them out of the water. Wish I'd saved my cash now." - a happy visitor

more issues to come over the rolling years...


Armando Ianucci presented a show about British comics a few years back - here are the parts about Viz...



'Viz - The Rock n Roll Years'
is an extended radio feature about the comic... well worth a listen (it's in two parts)

and here's a site with most of the Profanisaurus definitions...


There was a live-action movie based on The Fat Slags released in 2004, featuring many famous faces in cameo roles, plus Angus Deayton, Dolph Lundgren and Naomi Campbell to name a few. It was dubbed as one of 'Britain's worst ever movies' and utterly refuted by the Viz creators, but what the hell... here we go!






Chris Donald on episode 0201 of 'The Museum Of Curiosity'

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Founder won't be celebrating Viz's 30th birthday
Oct 25 2009
Coreena Ford, Sunday Sun

Viz may be celebrating its 30th birthday this week but its founder, Chris Donald, will be taking a back seat as no longer having any involvement doesn’t bother him one bit. Chris, who lives near Alnwick, Northumberland, first came up with the adult magazine with his pal Jim Brownlow back in 1979, dishing out copies of their first edition at a gig in Gosforth, Newcastle.

He and his brothers Simon and Steve helped to flesh out characters like Sid the Sexist and Biffa Bacon from the bedroom of their home in Jesmond, Newcastle, before moving into their own studio. And the laughter organ’s characters like Eight Ace, the Fat Slags and the Pathetic Sharks soon ensured it was selling more than a million copies an issue – almost toppling the UK’s bestselling magazine of the time, the Radio Times. However, Chris quit as editor in 1999 . . . and says he’s never looked back.

He said: “It’s odd to think that Viz is 30 years old. When me and Jim Brownlow started putting the first edition together in 1979 it was only intended as a one-off. We did it for a joke, to amuse our mates. We didn’t think it would last a week. I’ve not been involved with Viz for the last 10 years. I still keep in touch with the people at the comic, but I’ve not done anything for their anniversary issue or their recent books. Although I did lend them a bunch of old cartoons for the London exhibition. I don’t think I’ll be going to see it. I have an allergy to London, and I’ve seen all the cartoons before. I don’t miss Viz at all. I wasn’t happy doing the same thing over and over again. It was like being on a treadmill. I’ve got a real treadmill now. It’s more fun, and I’m losing weight. I left Viz because I wanted to try something different. I worked in a bookshop for five years, then I got sick of that. I’ve recently started drawing cartoons again, for the QI TV show’s 2010 annual. I’ve got enthusiasm to last me until Christmas, then I don’t know what I’ll do next. Sit in the park and drink cider perhaps. I’m planning my own little celebration in Newcastle to mark the 30th anniversary. Just a handful of mates, a few strippers and a Transit van full of lager, perhaps. Nothing too fancy.”

The current editorial team – Simon Thorp, Graham Dury and Davey Jones – are marking Viz’s birthday, which falls on Tuesday, with an exhibition in London at the Cartoon Museum. And they’ll also be heading North for several book signings, of their 30th anniversary edition and their two new books, the news annual “Council Gritter” and the “Magna Fartlet”. The trio will be at HMV in Newcastle on Thursday and at Waterstone’s in Gateshead on Saturday, and they’ll also return to the region, to the Borders store at Silverlink, North Tyneside, on November 7.

As the team look forward to – hopefully – another 30 years of filthy gags and crude characters, Chris lets us have a sneak peak at the early days of Viz, through a series of snaps taken behind the scenes. Over the years, a raft of stars took part in spoof photo love-stories, posters and adverts, from Alexei Sayle to Peter Cook.

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Happy 30th birthday Viz
Sinclair McKay
17 October 2009
spectator.co.uk

Some night soon on the peaceful back streets of Bloomsbury, you might want to keep an eye out for two young ladies from the north for whom the term ‘muffin top’ might have been invented. They will be extremely drunk, laughing like open drains and displaying unsuitable underwear. They will be looking for romance. They are known widely as the ‘Fat Slags’.

Sandra and Tracey are two of the Hogarthian figures that populate the pages of Viz, a distinctly adult comic. It is now celebrating an anniversary that few children’s comics ever see: 30 years of scatalogical, frequently obscene cartoons. To celebrate this birthday, the normally decorous Cartoon Museum in Bloomsbury is staging a special Viz exhibition. The Fat Slags will be there, alongside a sweary parade of characters who have, over the past few decades, provided a most unflattering reflection of modern British society. Among these are: Sid the Sexist; Roger Mellie, the Man On The Telly; Mrs Brady, Old Lady; Finbarr Saunders and his Double Entendres; Millie Tant And Her Radical Conscience; Billy The Fish; Major Misunderstanding. All are drawn in a richly detailed style reminiscent of every comic you grew up with. Viz also has a raucously funny letters page, and a ceaselessly ingenious ‘Top Tips’ advice column (‘Catch moths using a mousetrap baited with a jumper’ was one recent suggestion).

But the genius of the comic throughout the years has been its unflinching and rather unforgiving approach to various forms of antisocial behaviour. From benefits fraud to unreconstructed sexism to alcoholism to tiresome green posturing, Viz characters are quite often vividly irredeemable. The comic’s founder Chris Donald once disingenously described the Fat Slags’ ceaseless promiscuity as ‘unbecoming’.

For long-term fans, it is a shock to think that Viz started as far back as Margaret Thatcher’s first term as prime minister in 1979. ‘We still get a few young readers,’ says co-editor and prolific cartoonist Simon Thorp drily. ‘That is, people in their late thirties and upwards.’ Thorp has been with the comic since 1985. The Viz office, just outside Newcastle, comprises himself and his fellow cartoonists Graham Dury and Davy Jones, plus Stevie, their office manageress, and their designer Wayne. For a publication so comically ferocious, its monthly gestation is very equable. They all sit around on sofas ‘discussing what they watched on television’; ideas come up; and if one person writes a script, then the other will draw the strip for it. Thorp says that the only real editorial requirement is that the stuff that makes them all laugh loudest goes in. And despite language that would make a horse retch, Viz is embraced snugly in the bosom of the comedy establishment. For instance, the veteran comic genius Barry Cryer is a huge fan, and once took the Viz team out to a pub — accolades really do not come higher.

Take another look, though, and some of the strips seem — unless this is my imagination — surprisingly right-wing, as opposed to simply anarchic. One regular is ‘8-Ace’, a frequently incontinent alcoholic made to live in his shed by his understandably violent wife. Ace’s sporadic attempts to find gainful work are always scuppered by his remorseless daily consumption of eight tins of extra-strength ‘Ace’ lager. Then there is ‘Tasha Slapper’ and ‘Tasha’s Mum’ who seem to be emblems of a Jeremy Kyle culture — caterwauling, pathologically selfish, and again frequently drunken. It is all prime Iain Duncan Smith material.

Elsewhere, in Mrs Brady Old Lady’s latest adventure, the formidable old bag is seen diddling her disability allowance and then, having fooled the benefits inspector, refereeing a football match. Meanwhile, the Fat Slags — and their various paramours — are rarely seen in any form of legitimate employment. In other words, the implication of these recurring strips is that the welfare state as it stands is often being played for a patsy by feckless, irredeemable monsters.

Add to this the nauseatingly right-on monologues of spoiled, mollycoddled Student Grant, and the insanely politically correct diatribes from lesbian Millie Tant and... well, it is certainly not Guardian territory. Indeed, traditional Guardian readers are also traduced in the ‘Modern Parents’ strip, in which a pair of sanctimonious, ill-tempered eco-hypocrites bully their poor children out of mass-produced toys, TV-watching and meat-eating.

But Simon Thorp recoils from this suggestion of right-wingery like a cat squirted with lemon juice. ‘No, I don’t think we are right-wing,’ he protests. ‘I don’t even know where we stand on the Lisbon Treaty.’ He also says that Viz tries to be even-handed with politicians, in the sense that ‘we lash out at everybody’. ‘We once included Stephen Pound’s name for some reason in a word-search puzzle which was themed around “large organs”,’ he says. ‘He sent us a box of chocolates.’ Thorp also cites the long-running Viz character Baxter Basics MP — who as the name implies, came into being at the end of John Major’s premiership, ‘but then flipped to being New Labour’.

The circulation might not be quite what it was 20 years ago — there was a point when Viz was outselling Radio Times, with a million copies per issue — but Thorp is aware of just how loyal long-term Viz readers are. The forthcoming 30th anniversary issue features the return of such old favourites as Roger Irrelevant and Finbarr Saunders. ‘Some characters have continual appeal because they reflect the times,’ Thorp says. ‘Billy the Fish (half-fish, half-goalkeeper, Viz’s surreal answer to Roy of the Rovers) will be competing on Strictly Come Dancing.’

Perhaps average Viz readers now resemble the three-bearded real-ale bores who sometimes appear in the comic. Every time I see someone chortling away at it, it’s a middle-aged man in a jacket and tie. Oh, hold on. That’s me as well. ‘We have had people reading us for a very long time. And convicts,’ Thorp adds helpfully. ‘We had a plaintive letter from a convict recently complaining that he couldn’t get Viz in his prison. We sent him an issue with the proviso that on his release, he must never offend again. We always look out for our incarcerated clientele.’

Thorp is thrilled about the forthcoming Cartoon Museum exhibition. His own favourite artists are H.M. Bateman and Pont. ‘Pont...’ he says wistfully. ‘I only wish I had that subtlety. It’d have to be an accident.’ Too modest! In truth, the needle-sharp satire of Viz — combined with the important fact that it is consistently, howlingly funny — means that it has more than earned its place in the comic pantheon.

The Viz exhibition is at the Cartoon Museum, Little Russell St, London WC1, from 4 November.


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Roger Mellie, It's Him Off The Telly
October 27, 2009
Jo Couzens,
Sky News

Roger Mellie talks to Sky News Online on Viz's 30th birthday and reveals which Sky presenter he thinks most closely resembles him.

Q. Who do you admire at the moment on telly?

A. It's got to be Brucie, hasn't it? What a pro, still going after all those years at the top. Amazing. Getting a bit long in the tooth now, and that's definitely a wig, but I only hope I look as good when I reach that age.

Q. How popular do you think you are with today's audience?

A. In this business you have to keep re-inventing yourself for each new generation. You've got to keep in touch with all the latest fads and crazes that the kids are getting "into". That's what my new show Roger Mellie's Groovy Hula-Hoop Barbecue (Sky One) is all about.

Q. Which Sky News presenter do you think is most like you, and why?

A. Definitely Eamonn Holmes, because like me, he (the rest of this answer has been omitted on legal advice).

Q. Who in the media would be your ideal date?

A. Apart from Fiona Bruce, you mean? You know, I've always thought that Janet Street-Porter was the most fascinating woman in the media. She's got the most amazing mind - she's witty, clever, well-informed, and she's got a strong personality and knows exactly what she wants. But have you seen the state of her? Bloody hell. So, if I had to pick my ideal date, it would probably be someone with big knockers like Krystle off Page Three.

Q. What would be your perfect night out?

A. When you're a celebrity, you're forever running the gauntlet of the paparazzis' cameras. Whatever you do, it's difficult to stay out of the public eye. So I've recently joined an exclusive club where I can relax and be myself without getting splashed all over the tabloids in the morning. It's very discreet, tucked away under some railway arches in Acton and the dancers do this trick with ping-pong balls that would make your eyes water.

Q. Have you got any new TV shows in the pipeline?

A. Yeah, we've always got a few irons in the fire. In fact, my production company's got a few things in development with Sky at the moment, as it happens. Television has been dumbing down a lot recently, so we're trying to redress the balance a bit, come up with some more intellectually-demanding programme formats. Topless Paintball Question Time with Diane Abbott has just got the green light, and we've got high hopes for Kerry Katona's Sky at Night.

Q. Are you planning to write any more books?

A. I'll let you into a little secret. Us celebrities don't actually write our own bestsellers - we're far too busy. For example, it's a well known fact that Jordan gets someone else to type all her books out for her - she just comes up with the ideas. I've taken that process one step further. Someone else thinks up my ideas and does the writing.

Q. Are you still working with Tom?

A. Who? You mean the bloke with the beard and the specs? Oh yeah, me and Tom go back years. We met on the set of my first show, Family Fart-Tunes, 30 years ago, and he's been with me at FTV ever since, through thick and thin. Sadly, though, I had to make him redundant last week. I'm having my office refitted and it was either Tom or the iridescent tiles in my en-suite bathroom. They really are beautiful tiles.

Q. Sky notices you have a Twitter page and a Facebook page. What do you think of the latest social networking tools?

A. I don't really know the first thing about computers, to be honest - I'm no Stephen Fry! Though funnily enough, I met him last week in the BBC canteen, as it happens. Shorter than he looks on the telly and smelled very strongly of TCP. Hang on, I tell a lie, that was Moira Stuart.

Q. Would you consider working for Sky News?

A. Yeah, why not? I'm not proud. Is Paul Ross not available or something?

Q. What advice do you have for someone wanting to get into television work?

A. It's the hardest game in the world, it really is. The competition is so fierce. My advice to any young women who want to get into television is to get in touch with me, Roger Mellie, c/o FTV Television Centre, Fulchester. I'll happily do what I can to give them a leg up, and keep my eye out out for any openings, so to speak.

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Sky News interviewing a cartoon character - nothing ever changes!

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Viz Comic takes over the Guardian
On the occasion of its 30th birthday, Britain's fourth or fifth funniest comic does its business - Warf! Warf! – all over our pages. Check the images below for our exclusive Viz strips
Justin Quirk
The Guardian,
7 November 2009

This month sees the 30th anniversary of "the magazine that's not as funny as it used to be". Viz, Chris Donald's foul-mouthed comic, evolved from a 12-page fanzine hawked around Newcastle's pubs into one of the country's highest-selling titles, shifting over a million copies an issue with celebrity fans ranging from David Bowie to Simon Bates. Since that 1990 peak, sales have declined to around the 100,000 mark; however, the comic which first posed the then-unanswered question "Morrissey; pop genius or twat?" is still going strong as it enters its fourth decade.

Viz's influence on British comedy has been profound. Its squalid brand of anarchy and self-referential surrealism is present in everything from Mitchell and Webb and The League Of Gentlemen to Little Britain and The Daily Mash. And while its writers resist serious analysis, Viz's most overlooked quality has always been a furious intelligence.

As its numerous, pathetic imitators (Smut, Zit, Brain Damage etc) proved, a comic cannot survive on profanity alone and Viz strips like Biffa Bacon, Sid The Sexist and The Fat Slags tell you more about the national character than many literary heavyweights. In a tongue-in-cheek documentary, Auberon Waugh suggested that "if the future generations look back on the literature of the age, they'll more usefully look to Viz than they would, for instance, the novels of Peter Ackroyd or Julian Barnes, because Viz has a genuine vitality of its own which comes from the society which it represents". His favourite strip was The Bottom Inspectors, by the way.

The classic premise of situation comedy has always been that of a man trapped in his surroundings; and this is the case in Viz's finest strips, the characters poignantly locked in a doomed cycle by their giant testicles, religious fervour, undiagnosed autism, painful haemorrhoids, and terminal stupidity. Writer Graham Dury claims a core readership of "the well educated, the unemployed and people in prison" and Viz speaks to the parts of Britain that have a simmering and instinctive dislike of the rich, the show-offs, the moronic and the vain.

Viz has been entirely prescient about where our culture is going. Once, its obsession with third-rate celebrities, Roger Mellie's endless ideas for cheap television ("I've got an idea, Tom – Celebrity Shit Bucket!"), dishonest overselling, and ludicrously hyperbolic real-life stories seemed like flights of fancy. Now, they look like the vast majority of the modern media.

"We pride ourselves on the fact you're no cleverer when you've read Viz," says Dury. "You might have had a few laughs, but you've not learnt anything." If that really is the case, then the fault lies with the reader, not the comic.

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4 more issues added to the first post - 151,152,153,154