Picking up the pieces
Picking up the pieces |
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Page 24 of 38  'Tank Girl' (1989) as she will be remembered, in battered but pouty pose. Art: Jamie Hewlett. Script: Alan Martin. Unfortunately, the character was killed off by an appalling film adaptation in 1995. As the comic found its feet, so more attention was given to spoofs of tabloid newspapers. A mock letters page was included, and a list of'Readers' Top Tips' ('an elastic band with a dab of toothpaste makes an economical substitute for chewing gum, and is better for your teeth'). Also, there were full prose features, often involving celebrities and the royal family. For example, the special investigative report 'Mutant Horror at the Palace' was a touching story about Prince Derek, the lost son of Edward VII, who was born a rhino and tragically received no royal visitors in his time at Whipsnade. Pop stars were especially popular targets: Shakin' Stevens, Paul McCartney and a number of others came in for particular attention. Eventually, a fake pop chart was instituted whereby a band's chart positioning was a function of how much they had 'bribed the editors'. However, unlike 2000AD and Deadline, pop culture was only included in order to be sent up: because Viz had no pretensions, it remained more 'credible' than either of them (one mark of counterculture respect was the fact that strips were reproduced in the respected punk magazine Vague). By the mid-1980s, Viz was selling around 4,000 copies per issue in Newcastle, but virtually none anywhere else. It was at this point, however, that the creative team was expanded by hiring two new staffers, Graham Dury, who would draw and write 'Buster Gonad and his Unfeasibly Large Testicles' (so unwieldy that they are constantly being bruised - 'Yow! Me Plums!'), and Simon Thorp, responsible for 'Finbarr Saunders and his Double Entendres' (consisting of a stream of crashingly obvious, but constantly amusing nudge-nudge misunderstandings). Even though the comic was probably at its creative peak during this period, it still lacked a proper marketing strategy, and distribution in the south remained elusive.  Covers to two other British 'style comics': Sphinx (Bold, 1990), Art: Paul Peart, aimed at black youth; and Heartbreak Hotel (Willyprods, 1988), Art: Groc. |