The Viz biz

FROM the outside, the offices of Viz barely register. A painted black door is set in a Victorian red-brick house on a suburban street in middle-class Tynemouth.

There's no evidence of the Fat Slags. Sid the Sexist doesn't drink around these parts either. Inside, the door to the Viz office gives way to three men standing studiously at their drawing boards. The walls are cream, the carpet new and the row of Viz comics and cartoon proofs on the back wall the only indication of what goes on here.

"Hello," they chirp in friendly unison. "Nice to meet you."

Where's the belching, the quick-fire laddish jokes, the rapier repartee?

"I've never really been that laddy," says Graham Dury, mug of tea in hand, as he climbs the stairs to the comfy sofas.

"We're all very sensible really. I've got some lovely slippers."

Graham, a former botanist, and Simon Thorp, a former freelance cartoonist, have been with the comic for more than 20 years. They work alongside Davey Jones and Wayne Gamble, Viz's chief designer.

Graham, 'Thorpy' and Davey, all cartoonist/editors, tend to write the strips together and draw the characters between them. The process is time consuming, with each creation drawn by hand in pencil before being inked over, scanned into the computer and the colour added.

"I'm not quite sure how it works," admits Graham, 45, of Whitley Bay.

"We tend to sit down and talk about what was on the telly the night before, then someone will say something that makes the others laugh. We do get writer's block sometimes when we can't think of anything funny - some people would say that's lasted a long time - but on days like that you've just got to do something else."

But there's not much time for procrastination. The guys produce ten issues a year, a Christmas annual and updates to the weighty tome Roger's Profanisaurus Rex, which contains the meanings to a multitude of swear words and naughty phrases - 35 of which have made it into the Oxford English Dictionary, says Thorpy proudly.

"I think dog's bollocks is one," adds Graham. "And 'gagging for it'. It's not things we've made up, but apparently we're the first to use them in print."

Viz was started by three Geordie teenagers - comic artist Chris Donald, his brother Simon and Jim Brownlow - with the first issue, the Bumper Monster Christmas Special, going out in December 1979. It cost 20p and was sold at punk nights at the Gosforth Hotel.

The trio sourced their outrageously offensive creations from their Newcastle surroundings - its nightlife, its drinking culture, its people - but in doing so gave a snapshot of working-class life in Britain. Soon, they had a melee of names who would go on to become Viz institutions - the foul mouthed TV presenter Roger Mellie; Billy The Fish, Johnny Fartpants and, of course, those legendary Fat Slags, to name a few.

At the time when Viz came out, there was nothing like it. No subject or person was safe from its irreverent humour encased in a hybrid of comic and tabloid newspaper.

Sales grew steadily after a publishing deal with Virgin Books in 1985 saw a wider circulation. They continued to climb, eventually by the mid-90s reaching a staggering 1.3 million copies, the third best-selling magazine behind the Radio Times and TV Times.

Chris Donald and his brother have since left Viz and it is now published by Dennis Publishing, owners of lads mag Maxim. ABC figures for July to December last year showed a circulation of 94,364.

While its characters could have dated over the years, the Traceys and Sandras (aka the Fat Slags) are still seen on the streets of many of Britain's cities in the early hours of Saturday night, kebabs in hand and bulbous bellies hanging over their mini skirts.

There is also the scope to create new characters, although these are usually given a one-off platform initially. "It might be a character that lasts for a page and then runs out of steam," says Davey, 39, of Newcastle.

"Fru T Bun was done as a one-off because we thought, how many jokes can you get out of a baker baking a bun? But now he's quite a regular. Anytime you want to do a story on a sexual theme it's probably funny if you get a man doing it and he's a gingerbread maker. You think some footballer's done something in a car park and you think, Fru T Bun could do that."

Asked how they keep up to date with their characters' histories and Graham laughs. "Ooooo, I'm sure if you went through them there'd be a minefield of inaccuracies," he says. They admit they deal in stereotypes with some, such as Spoilt Bastard, based on people they know.

"He was actually taken from my brother because he was really badly spoilt by my granddad - although he didn't behave as badly as that," says Graham. "Mr Logic is based on Chris and Simon's brother and the Fat Slags were just an amalgam of people."

It must be difficult to keep the characters looking exactly the same week after week. But, as it happens, they don't.

"If you look at the Fat Slags from the first edition to now they're completely different," says Graham. "But it happens very slowly and hopefully our readers don't notice. We like to think the comic is read and laughed at then forgotten because we can sell them the annual two years later."

Viz has had its share of criticism over the years, but not as much as one would think given its politically incorrect nature.

"We used to get a lot of complaints from grown-ups who had bought it mistakenly for their children," says Graham. "We've also had a few death threats from religious groups, but I think people just ignore it now. They treat it with the contempt it deserves."

There are few subjects or people who escape the Viz treatment. The only time in recent history they've held back on the jokes was when Princess Diana died.

"There was all this mass hysteria and we didn't do anything about Diana for a couple of issues," says Graham. "Then in the second week people were starting to make jokes.

"We tend to edit ourselves. If your first reaction is to go 'oooo', and then laugh then you shouldn't write about it, but if you laugh first then do the 'oooo' bit, that's all right."

"Sometimes people say 'you wouldn't dare do that', but it's not about daring and we're not here to shock," adds Davey. "It's about making people laugh. If you make people wince then it's not really the point of the comic."

Which is why Graham has no qualms about his kids reading Viz, even his youngest, ten-year-old Arthur. "He's our biggest fan actually," he says.

And while they'll carry on pushing the boundaries, the only late nights for these guys are when deadline day comes around every five weeks.

"People are often disappointed because they're expecting these madcap guys like The Three Stooges to be running around," says Graham.

"But me and Thorpy have three kids each..."

"And I've got a very nice cardy," chips in Davey.

"We had a party to celebrate our 25th, but come our 30th, we'll probably just stay in. We might even have a takeaway."

* The 2008 Viz annual, The Pearl Necklace, is out now.