ABSTRACT
Viz has been called the publishing success of the 1980s, a decade when its sales figures moved from 250,000 copies per issue to one and a half million. This chapter will attempt to analyse some of the reasons for its phenomenal success, and to place it in the overall history of British humour comics aimed at adults. In the 1960s and 1970s this kind of humour comic tended to be categorised as ‘underground’ or ‘alternative’, and the extent to which Viz can be regarded as part of that tradition will be discussed. Critical responses to the comic and in particular its treatment of class and gender will then be examined.
