During the Gulf War of 1991, SEPECAT Jaguar GR1A bombers of the Royal Air Force featured such Viz characters as Johnny Fartpants, the Fat Slags and Buster Gonad as nose art. [27] Controversy [ edit ] One of the most pun-based strips was "George Bestial", about famous footballer George Best committing bestiality. The strip was discontinued after the death of Best, but has since reappeared.

A long-running segment has been the Top Tips, reader-submitted suggestions which are a parody of similar sections found in women's magazines offering domestic and everyday tips to make life easier. In Viz, naturally, they are always absurd, impractical or ludicrous: Serial killers Fred West and Harold Shipman have also featured in a strip as rival neighbours trying to kill the old woman next door and foiling each other's plans ( Harold and Fred – they make ladies dead!). [17] Other content [ edit ] Spoof news stories [ edit ] Pyton was a similar comic from Norway which was quite popular in the Nordic countries in the 1990s; the Finnish translation of the Pyton comic continued as the comic Myrkky until 2009. Reel by Real: "Bags of Fun With Buster" ". Chalkhills. 7 March 2009. Archived from the original on 19 May 2011 . Retrieved 28 March 2010.

Viz is Britain’s 3rd (or possibly 4th) funniest magazine

In November 1987, a free mini-issue of Viz was given away with issue 23 of computer magazine Your Sinclair. This was done in response to Your Sinclair's competitor, CRASH, giving away a mini-copy of Oink! comic with their issue 42. [21] [22] Photo-strips [ edit ]

For example, a young woman is convinced that the spirit of her dead husband has possessed the family dog, and after some soul-searching, begins a sexual relationship with the dog. A running joke in these stories is that they often feature a car accident in which one of the characters is run down. In every case, the same man is driving the car, and always responds with the same line: "Sorry mate, I didn't see him/her!" The locations for the photo-stories are recognisable as the suburbs of Newcastle upon Tyne where the Viz team are based. The case was later settled out of court for an undisclosed sum (donated to Comic Relief); but many Viz readers believed that the comic had given permission for their use, leading to Top Tips submissions such as:

NEW ISSUE OUT 03/09/2023

Geordie magazine editors. Continue paying your mortgage and buying expensive train sets ... by simply licensing the Top Tips concept to a multinational burger corporation. Don't invite drug addicts to your house on Boxing Day. They may find the offer of cold turkey embarrassing or offensive Save money on sex-lines by phoning up the Samaritans and threatening to kill yourself unless they talk dirty The Lord of Harpole's Seasonal Message". 27 November 2006. Archived from the original on 11 December 2021 . Retrieved 28 March 2010– via YouTube. Diamond Publishing Ltd, The Metropolis Group, 2nd Floor, Saunders House, 52-53 The Mall, Ealing, London, W5 3TA

This article may contain indiscriminate, excessive, or irrelevant examples. Please improve the article by adding more descriptive text and removing less pertinent examples. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for further suggestions. ( March 2022) Highlights of the comic are collected into regular annuals, invariably with innuendo-laden titles. There have also been a large number of themed collections published, which focus on a particular character or column. VHS releases of each series went on sale during the same months of broadcast. Chris Donald revealed in his book Rude Kids – The Unfeasibly True Story of Viz that the magazine's publishers had pencilled in Student Grant as the next animated release but this never came to fruition. He went on to say that he was pleased that the project did not go ahead as he felt the quality of the previous releases was disappointing. In 1985, a deal was signed with Virgin Books to publish the comic nationally every two months, starting with the 13th issue, dated August 1985. In 1987, the Virgin director responsible for Viz, John Brown, set up his own publishing company, John Brown Publishing, to handle Viz. Sales exceeded a million by the end of 1989, [10] making Viz for a time one of the biggest-selling magazines in the country. Inevitably, a number of imitations of Viz were launched, but these never matched the original in popularity, and rarely in quality. [12]A long-running joke has been small adverts for bizarre sheds ("TV Sheds", "Shed Bikes", "Shed Snakes", etc.). Testament to the quality of these is invariably provided by a Mrs. B. of Essex. Genuine competitions have been run by Viz, with proper prizes. One of the earliest was a competition to win 'a ton of money' a pointed satire of tabloid newspapers promising huge cash prizes to boost circulation, the prize was in fact a tonne of one- and two-pence pieces, equivalent to a few hundred pounds sterling. Recently [ when?], they were giving away a plasma screen television provided by the producers of Freddy vs. Jason. Viz poked fun at the movie, describing it as " shite" in the competition description, and described the runners-up prizes of DVDs of the film as "frankly worthless", which led to the producers refusing to hand over the prize, for insulting their film. Sports clothing manufacturer Kappa insisted that the comic drop the name of one of its characters, "Kappa Slappa", as it had no permission to use the brand name. [29] Kappa also believed that the character in question insulted its customer base. "Slappa" was an obnoxious, uneducated, highly unattractive and sexually promiscuous 14-year-old living on a Tyneside council estate, always wearing a Kappa shellsuit. The characterisation was said [ who?] to be more descriptive than insulting. [ citation needed] However, after several runs of the strip, Viz agreed to change her name to " Tasha Slappa". Adverts for loan companies have been parodied frequently since approximately 2000, usually with an absurd twist, such as ones aimed at vagrants, offering loans of between 5 and 10 pence for a cup of tea. Roger Mellie has frequently starred in such spoof advertisements, both in separate sections in Viz and also his own strip. Mellie is portrayed as someone who is willing to endorse any product whatsoever for money or gifts. Some tips are for ludicrous motives, such as "how to convince neighbours that your house has dry rot", while others are for ostensibly sensible motives but with ridiculous and impractical suggestions for their application: