Rude Kids

“We pride ourselves on the fact that you’re no cleverer when you’ve read Viz. You might have had a few laughs, but you’ve not learnt anything”. – Graham Drury

Viz is now so firmly entrenched in the British culture that we’ve all pretty much come to take it for granted and, like Top Of The Pops and other favourites of yore, we would only miss it when it was gone. The story of Viz, as detailed in Chris Donald’s book Rude Kids, is one of triumph. Triumph of the underdog. Triumph against the odds and, ultimately, a triumph of knowing stupidity over useless intelligence.

Starting out as a zine flogged to punks at the Gosforth Hotel in Newcastle, the first issue (published 10th December 1979, fact fans) was 12 black & white pages of nonsense flogged at 20p a pop for regular patrons, and 30p to students, who would be the first to champion its “anarchic” sensibilities. Anyone who’d grown up on the British comics like Beano, Dandy, Topper, Whizzer & Chips, Cor! etc. would have immediately recognised what Donald was parodying, but then using that subversive first assault to allow through what would become a sophisticated and biting critique of everything that was wrong with Britain.

His timing was perfect. Thatcher was in power, the industrial powerhouse of Britain was about to be switched off, converted into lofts within which drones for the new service-based economy could store their Ikea furniture and video collections. The mentality of the tabloid newspapers was infesting every aspect of the nations media, and the charts were full of twats. Donald and his cohorts had been gifted with more raw material for satire than you could shake a shitty stick at, and they went at it with all blind gusto of the Light Brigade. Six years later, only a dozen issues had been published but John Brown at Virgin Books signed up the title for bi-monthly distribution. Key characters such as Roger Mellie, The Man On The Telly; Sid The Sexist; Billy The Fish and Biffa Bacon had all been established by this point, but the first issue published by Virgin – #13 – immediately ran afoul of the tabloid table-thumpers and as a result of the storm-in-teacup that followed all copies had to be pulled from Virgin Megastores. The reason for all the upset was the inclusion of a photo-story inspired by those seen for years in girls’ titles like Jackie and Blue Jeans, that featured a young couple running off to London to get away from their disapproving parents. Unfortunately, the couple in question were three-year-olds and that’s what seemed to cause the upset. It would not be the last time that Viz got into such trouble.

My favourite incident came with #44, that featured on page 3 a new strip entitled ‘The Thieving Gypsy Bastards’. It starts with a cry that the gypsies are coming, followed by mothers frantically taking in the washing from the line before it can be stolen…and it goes downhill from there, indulging every prejudice anyone has ever held against the Romany’s. Having lived close to a “gypo camp” throughout my entire childhood I knew that washing-line thefts and petrol siphoned from cars was the least of it, and felt that at worst it was a good-natured dig… but claims of incitement to racial hatred followed and the strip gained a notoriety that prevails to this day. What people tend to forget is the short three-panel strip included in the same issue entitled ‘The Nice Honest Gypsies’ where we see the peg seller giving change back to the housewife and the promise that in the next issue “the gypsy’s buy a tax disc!”

They were on a roll by this time, with students prancing about in Pathetic Sharks t-shirts and TV rent-a-gobs referring to the title in glowing terms. There was a spoil of great characters – Paul Wicker The Tall Vicker, Victor Pratt The Stupid Twat, Terry Fuckwit, Mr Logic, Postman Plod, Farmer Palmer (”Red skoi at noight, get orf moi laaaaand”), Roger Irrelevant (”He’s completely hatstand”) and Rude Kid. Even today, people recall Rude Kid with a fondness usually reserved only for favourite childhood pets. Rude Kid was our inner idiot made manifest and allowed free rein – and to understand his appeal you have to remember that in the early 90’s Britain was stull under the cosh of the politcal correctness lobby and to have a character whose typical response to anything an adult might say to him was something like “Piss up a rope fuckstick” was nectar and ambrosia. Other siginficant entries in the Rude Kid lexicon, which I urge you to try for yourselves, include:

Mother: Good morning dearest.
Rude Kid: PIGS’ NIPPLES!!

Mother: Have you been out playing football in your shoes?
Rude Kid: PISSFLAPS!

Mother: Would you like sugar on your Cornflakes dear?
Rude Kid: BIG DOG’S COCK!

Not forgetting to flick the two’s up every time you open your mouth. It’ll certainly liven up those dreary office meetings.

The most significant new characters to arrive at the peak of the titles popularity were, of course, The Fat Slags, received with predictable howls of “outrage” as if somehow the Viz collective were being any way unfair to the very real women upon whom these harmless caricatures were based. A measure of how warmly these characters were received in the hearts of the British people was the giant 6 foot tall cardboard cutout that stood in one of your offices in Leeds for years. They were the Britannia of their era, representing the new hedonism sweeping the country in response to Euro 96 and the strange collective fantasy that this country wasn’t such a shit place after all. The Fat Slags were always a bit obvious for me, as I could see those rather depressing antics going on every Friday night in Morley if I wanted to, whereas the fake news stories in Viz were always a source of surprise and amusement, mercilessly parodying tabloid-speak and the fake sincerity of the authors, such as the story of the woman (a “mental patient”) who claimed a string of affairs with Children’s TV favourite such as Basil Brush, Thunderbirds and the cast of Rainbow. And let’s not forget Top Tips such as – Homeless people. Lighten your load by not buying a dog – or the brilliant letters pages, where the readers themselves display enough wit and wisdom to suggest that today’s crop of stand-up comedians are a bunch of useless shitmunchers. One of my favourite letters in Viz, which seems to say so much about our country in so few words, was the earnest question: “If you rear-end a jam sandwich will the guns in the boot go off?”

In the mid-90’s Viz fell foul of D.C Thompson, publishers of Beano and Dandy, who had exceeded their tolerance level when it came to Viz’s relentless parodies of their most cherished copyright creations such as Desperate Dan and Little Plum. They even took umbrage at the act of lovingly-sustained surrealism that was ‘Black Bag, The Faithful Border Bin Liner’ and called in their lawyers to intervene. Denied access to the source of the titles creation it was the first sign that all was not well at Viz Towers. Since then there’s been pitiful business decisions made (often against the original creators wishes, as was the case with the disastrous Fat Slags film), and a succession of buy-outs during which former-Loaded editor James Brown was in charge for a while, increasing the circulation to monthly and causing an inexorable fall in quality. Brown’s company was bought out by Dennis Publishing in 2003, and Viz is now a pale and bloodless shadow of its former self. Chris Donald quit as editor in 2000 and can no longer be held responsible for the failing fortunes of the title which still remains at heart a great idea but has been co-opted by the media shitmunchers who are more concerned with spreadsheets than the actual content which, amidst the phone wank adverts, is now only worth five minutes of your time these days, as you stand in a chain newsagents and guffaw at the latest additions to the Profanisaurs. If a guide to profanity, double entendres and sexual euphemisms was all that the Viz project will ever be remembered for then they can still carry their heads high, as its contribution to the evolution of the English language cannot be overstated. Here’s just a few of my favourite entries:

audition the finger puppets v. A single-act, one man show, not suitable for children.

beer scooter n. Miraculous method of transport employed when leaving the pub after drinking large amounts of beer. So called due to the ‘lost time’ affect when returning home seemingly in no time and at incredible velocity.

Blanket Welder n. A gentleman who partakes in the activity of blanket welding using sticky adhesive male substances, ie one who clears the custard in the farting sack.

bury the hobbit v. To lose Bilbo Bellend in the wizard’s sleeve (qv).

crescent wank n. To arrange one’s favourite jazz periodicals in a half moon display, before kneeling down to perform a five finger exercise on the spunk trumpet.

Ghandi’s flip-flops adj. Descriptive of the dryness of a nun’s Berkeley hunt.

pensioner’s leg n. A thin, pale, knobbly, veiny penis.

setting the video n. Sexual position in which the lady is on her knees and elbows, with her arse in the air, tutting.

slappertite n. A hunger for loose women. ‘Do you fancy a shag, Bill?’ ‘No thanks, Hillary, I don’t want to ruin my slappertite.’

squid wank n. The kind of wank received from a lady inexperienced in the provision of wanks. Descriptive of the distinctive motion of the hand.

zuffle v. To wipe one’s cock on the curtains after having sex in a posh bird’s house.

The last significant furore the title caused was the strip Harold & Fred They Make Ladies Dead, where Harold Shipman and Fred West compete to be the first to attack any female that comes within their range. Undoubtedly tasteless, it tapped into the scaremongering of the tabloids and their thirst for ever-higher bodycounts, and it would be the last time that the news media paid any real attention to Viz, proof – if any were needed – that it had become a hollowed-out karaoke version of the original, existing merely as a brand to sell spin-off tat and as an advertising base for low-rent pornographers. It’s legacy prevails though, ensuring Viz a place as a uniquely British icon, and one that most will only give a toss about when its gone.

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