Viz (comics)

This article may contain excessive or irrelevant examples. Please help improve the article by adding descriptive text and removing less pertinent examples. (March 2022)

Viz
Cover of Issue 199
Publication information
Publisher	Diamond Publishing[1] (Metropolis International)
Format	Adult
Publication date	December 1979–present
No. of issues	329 (as of September 2023[update])

Viz is a British adult comic magazine founded in 1979 by Chris Donald. It parodies British comics of the post-war period, notably The Beano and The Dandy, but with extensive profanity, toilet humour, black comedy, surreal humour and generally sexual or violent storylines. It also sends up tabloid newspapers, with mockeries of articles and letters pages. It features parody competitions and advertisements for overpriced 'limited edition' tat, as well as obsessions with half-forgotten kitsch celebrities from the 1960s to the 1980s, such as Shakin' Stevens and Rodney Bewes. Occasionally, it satirises current affairs and politicians, but it has no particular political standpoint.

Its success in the early 1990s led to the appearance of numerous rivals copying the format Viz pioneered; none of them managed to attain its popularity. Circulation peaked at 1.2 million in the early 1990s, making it the third-most popular magazine in the UK,^[2] but ABC-audited sales have since dropped, to an average of 48,588 per issue in 2018.^[3] The 300th issue was published in October 2020.^[4]