Viz comic: Encyclopedia II - Viz comic - History

Viz comic - History

The comic was started in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1979 by Chris Donald who produced the comic from his bedroom, with help from his brother Simon and friend Jim Brownlow. It came about at around the time, and in the spirit of, the punk fanzines, and used alternative methods of distribution such as the prominent DIY record label and shop Falling A Records which was an early champion of the comic. The first 12-page issue went on sale for 20p (30p to students) in a local pub that hosted punk gigs, and within hours the run of 150 copies had sold out. What had begun as a few pages, photocopied and sold to friends, became a publishing phenomenon. To meet the demand, and to make up for Brownlow's diminishing interest in contributing, freelance animator Graham Dury was hired and worked alongside Chris in his bedroom.

After a few years of steady sales, mostly in the North East of England, circulation had grown to around 5,000. As the magazine's popularity grew, the bedroom became too small and production moved to a small office in Newcastle docks. Donald also hired another freelance animator, Simon Thorp, whose work had impressed him. For over a decade, these four would be the nucleus of Viz. In 1985 a deal was signed with Virgin Books to publish the comic nationally every two months. In 1987 the Virgin director responsible for Viz, John Brown, set up his own publishing company, John Brown Publishing, to handle Viz. Sales exploded, and at the end of 1989 passed one million, making Viz for a time the biggest-selling magazine in the country. Inevitably a number of imitations of Viz were launched but these never matched the popularity or success of the original.

Sales steadily declined from the mid-1990s to around 200,000 in 2001, by which time Chris Donald had resigned as editor and passed control to an "editorial cabinet" comprised of his brother, Simon, Dury, Thorp and new recruits Davey Jones and Alex Collier. In June 2001 the comic was acquired as part of a £6.4 million deal by I Feel Good (IFG), a company belonging to ex-Loaded editor James Brown, and increased in frequency to ten times a year. In 2003 it changed hands again when IFG were bought out by Dennis Publishing.

Soon after, Simon Donald quit his role as co-editor, taking Collier with him to start a career in television.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki