The Fat Slags
| The Fat Slags | |
|---|---|
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Viz |
| First appearance | 1989 |
| Created by | Graham Dury |
The Fat Slags is a British comic strip appearing in the "alternative" British comic Viz. The characters made their debut in 1989. The eponymous slags are Sandra Burke and Tracey Tunstall, known to other characters as San and Tray. They are depicted as overweight, eating large amounts of food, mainly chips, while also having a lot of casual sex. As with other Viz strips, the strip's authors use a brash writing style. "Slag" is a British English word for "slut", or loose woman.
The Slags' eating frequently follows a night of binge drinking, and the circumstances of the sex or the partner in question are rarely an issue - they have been known to leap on delivery men or workmen for gratification, with the targeted man rarely given an opportunity to resist or escape. Both slags regularly enjoy carnal relations with Baz (full name Barry Askwith, seemingly as a nod to the actor Robin Askwith), a local jobless dropout who divides his time between drinking, committing crime, and having sex with San and Tray. Baz's good-natured wife, Thelma Haystacks-Askwith (daughter of Horace Haystacks), often finds out that Baz is cheating on her, but invariably forgives him. The other major character in the strip is Baz's slightly more successful friend, Dave, who works as a refuse collector but obtains most of his income through benefit fraud.
Whilst most Viz characters are recognisably from North East England, with the comic largely written in Geordie dialect, the Fat Slags and their friends converse with a Nottingham accent. This originates with the characters' creator Graham Dury who, unlike the Geordie founder of Viz, is originally from that area.
Both characters are noticeably warm-hearted and easy-going, and their friendship is never undermined by their conquests. Although both of the Slags are somewhat stupid - albeit good-natured - nymphomaniacs, Tray is marginally more intelligent and literate than San, who is marginally more nymphomaniacal than Tray. These factors, combined with Tray's more dominant personality, make Tray the leader and San the follower in their adventures. One strip parodying the Batman films featured Tray as Batslag and San as Nobbin. In another strip, San got pregnant and brought the baby to term, tearfully vowing that she was prepared to make any sacrifice for her daughter's happiness. In the very next panel, realising that motherhood would conflict with her pub-crawling, she gave up the baby for adoption.
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