Here's a really bad comic for you to endure - Fizz. Although no date appeared on the cover or inside, I would date the comic in the early months of 1995 as it was illegally produced to compete with Fizog. The contents were reprinted from Acne without the editor of Acne (Dean Wilkinson) giving permission to the dubious editor of Fizz, so Fizz was immediately stopped. This 99p comic came with a free gift - one of those classic nail-through-finger pranks.
The comic strips in these Viz spin-offs are very different compared to the much more popular humour comics such as the Beano and Dandy both in the artwork and stories. The stories are much more graphic and violent and the artwork never seems as smooth as in other titles.
The first strip I'll be showing comics from Gary Whitlock, who also drew Dasher in the Beano.
In my opinion the best-drawn strips in this comic are Jonathan Woss and Fireman Stan. Both strips are by the same artist, but who that is I don't know.
Grandad Pat is by Mark Rodgers and Ian Jackson, who also worked on Oink a few years earlier.
Once page had a selection of mini-strips three - five panels long, with one artist I recognise called Dicky Howett, who illustrated Supermum in Whoopee.
Dicky Howett had a full-page strip inside as well, called Bloody Ages Ago.
I'm glad Dean Wilkinson managed to stop Fizz so quickly. Nobody wanted to work for the unnamed editor of Fizz anymore so he stole material without permission and created the comic as cheaply as possible (although probably got fined a decent amount for doing so). This is a dubious part of comics' history that should never be repeated, and hopefully this will serve as a reminder that when tried it doesn't work.
8 comments:
I have two issues of Fizz, not sure if there were any more - but once you get into the strange world of "rude" comics like this you'll find a LOT of crossover!
Most, if not all, of the content in Fizz was from Acne, but the same pages/characters also appeared in Gutted and The Big Greenie. Gutted also featured a few pages that has also appeared in Oink, it's a confusing mess!
-In case you're wondering what the free gift was on the front of this one, it was one of those joke nail-through-the-finger things.
Yes, I think I had this too before realising it was an Acne knock off. Even as a pre-teen I knew Acne was massively unsubtle violence-for-the-sake guff. Ive got three copies of The Big Greenie upstairs. Was absolutely convinced no-one else had ever bought it ever.
Three Big Greenies you say? I have two of them - think it was the free pog on the cover that attracted me to it!
Are you sure Elephant Kid is by Colin Whittock? I read the signature as 'G. Whitlock' so would assume the artist is Gary Whitlock who drew Dasher for The Beano once upon a time.
Harry's correct that Elephant Kid certainly is not drawn by Colin Whittock, and the signature reads G Whitlock - but I couldn't have told you about Dasher! :)
@TwoHeadedBoy - Well, I know it ended quickly so I doubt there'd have been more than two issues.
As I said in the post the comic was reprinted from Acne and presumably a few other comics without permission, so it was produced illegally.
Thanks for telling me what the free gift was - I'll add it in.
@Harry - thanks for that, I'll make the change. I can't think of Dasher at the moment, can you tell me when the strip appeared?
I only know of Dasher's existence through 'The History of The Beano' and a time Gary mentioned on one of Lew's Beano-related FB status updates when he drew Dasher. Wikipedia says 2001 for Dasher#s debut though. :)
The cover-mounted gift for issue 1 that I have was not a nail-thru-finger but a keyring with a green skeletal hand. Could it be that they had a job lot of gifts and they varied from batch to batch? D. Robinson PE3 6LG
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