Simon Thorp

Viz
Cover of Issue 199
Publication information
Publisher	Dennis Publishing
Format	Adult
Publication date(s)	December 1979–present
No. of issues	261 (as of December 2016)

Viz is a popular British comic magazine founded in 1979 by Chris Donald. It parodies British comics of the post-war period, notably The Beano and The Dandy, but with vulgar language, toilet humour, black comedy, surreal humour and generally sexual or violent storylines. It also sends up tabloid newspapers, with mockeries of articles and letters pages. It features parody competitions and advertisements for overpriced 'limited edition' tat, as well as obsessions with half-forgotten kitsch celebrities from the 1960s to the 1980s, such as Shakin' Stevens and Rodney Bewes. Occasionally, it satirises current events and politicians, but has no particular political standpoint.

Its success in the early 1990s led to the appearance of numerous rivals crudely copying the format Viz pioneered; none of them has managed to seriously challenge its popularity. It once enjoyed being the third most popular magazine in the UK, but ABC-audited sales have since dropped, to an average of 50,750 per issue in 2014 (from 1.2 million).

The comic was started in Newcastle upon Tyne in December 1979 by Chris Donald, who produced the comic from his bedroom in his parents' Jesmond home with help from his brother Simon and friend Jim Brownlow. Donald himself cannot remember exactly where the name of the magazine comes from. The most he can remember is: at the time, he needed to come up with a proper name for it, and he considered the word "Viz" a very easy word to write/remember, as it consisted of three letters which are easily made with straight lines.

It came about at around the time, and in the spirit of, the punk fanzines, and used alternative methods of distribution, such as the prominent DIY record label and shop Falling A Records, which was an early champion of the comic. The first 12-page issue was produced as a fanzine for a local record label 'Anti-Pop records' run by Arthur 2 Stroke and Andy 'Pop' Inman, and went on sale for 20p (30p to students) in The Gosforth Hotel Salters road, which hosted 'Anti-Pop' punk gigs, and the run of 150 copies had sold out within hours. What had begun as a few pages, and sold to friends, became a publishing phenomenon. To meet the demand, and to make up for Brownlow's diminishing interest in contributing, freelance artist Graham Dury was hired and worked alongside Chris Donald.