I've decided to put my foot down and stop the proliferation of NEVER - ENDING War News polluting this blog (at least for one post...)


Today is going to be all about FUN STUFF (yay!)

If you want to feel bad today, go look at your paycheck stub...

At this blog, TODAY WE'S HAVIN' FUN!


I first encountered Viz comics (NOT to be confused with the US Manga/Anime distrubuter) in the early '90's when my friend Brian H. from Glasgow sent me a copy back from "Thee Olde Country." Needless to say, I was blown away by the Fat Slags, Spoilt Bastard (the ultimate paraody of the Dennis the Menace school of comic monster children) & Sid the Sexist...They were the funniest and raunchiest comics I'd seen since National Lampoon's comic section tanked in the early '80's.

Haven't laid eyes on a Viz for at least 8 years or so...Used to be one could get them at Barnes and Noble and Better News Stands when I lived in Austin and Seattle. Dunno if they're still around on this side of the Big Ditch...

Regardless, they're still going strong in Britain, having just celebrated their 25th anniversary, although these days sales are ONLY in the lower six figures (!!! In the U.S. comics sales RARELY leave the range of tens of thousands.)

Here's an article about Viz's anniversary:

(Brief translation note: Geordie=person from Newcastle and Tyneside in Northestern England)




http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1353475,00.html

All in the worst possible taste

From tiny beginnings, Viz went on to sell a million copies - and made characters such as the Fat Slags, Spoilt Bastard and Roger Mellie household names. William Cook looks at the Geordie comic, 25 years old this month.


 Twenty-five years ago, three Geordie teenagers published 150 copies of a brand new comic. Priced 20p (30p for students), The Bumper Monster Christmas Special - all 12 pages of it - went on sale in a suburban pub in Newcastle upon Tyne. Within a few hours, they'd sold every copy. A decade later, Viz was selling more than a million copies per issue, outselling every magazine in Britain apart from The Radio Times, The TV Times and Reader's Digest. How did this tiny organ - as Viz stalwart Finbarr Saunders, famous for his double entendres, might put it - grow so big? And what's happened to it since?


A comparison of current and early issues confirms that Viz is still just as funny as it was in its heyday - if not funnier - and if it no longer seems so shocking, that's because everyone else has caught up. There are no secrets in publishing, and although none of Viz's insipid imitators ever made much impact, plenty of other publications now mimic its irreverent tone. Viz has become a victim of its own success.