Finbarr Saunders

The following is a list of recurring or notable one-off strips from the British adult spoof comic magazine '' Viz''. This list is by no means complete as with each issue new characters/strips/stories are introduced.

A–E

* Abel Unstable – A man convinced he will suddenly catch fire at any moment, but never does. The strip often ends with someone else spontaneously combusting or exploding, leading Abel to grumble and remark "lucky sod" or similar.
* Acker Bilk – See Jimmy Hill.
* Abraham Lincoln – A strip about the 16th president of the USA feeling so envious about Isambard Brunel having a taller hat than him.
* Abraham Linked-in – A strip about Abraham Lincoln constantly getting messages on his smartphone from the app LinkedIn.
* Adam and the Aunts – Adam Ant receives help from his four elderly aunts.
* Afternoon tea with Mr Kiplin – About Mr Kiplin (a parody of cake manufacturer Mr Kipling) inviting someone over for tea but because he eats so much cake, he eventually vomits for the whole night.
* Aladdin and his Magic Tramp – A parody of Aladdin with a homeless person instead of a genie.
* Albert Einstein – About Albert Einstein and the antics of his three nephews, Hughlich, Dewlich and Loulich (a parody of Huey, Duey and Louie from Walt Disney's Ducktales).
* Albert Gordon – Traffic Warden – A strip from the Big Hard Number Two annual about a corrupt traffic warden who assaults members of the public and gives them fines for the most extraordinary reasons.
* Albert O' Balsam and his Magic Hat – A man who claims his hat has magic powers, but who annoys everyone he sees.
* Alcan Foil Wrapped Pork Stock Warrior – a young boy who becomes a "superhero" (in reality, completely useless) with the aid of tinfoil and pork stock.
* Aldridge Prior – a pathological liar whose lies are ludicrous, such as The Nolan Sisters living in his fridge or he is related to some very famous person. Prior is instantly recognizable for his unfashionable dress, usually a tartan jacket with a sheepskin collar and a pair of uncomfortable-looking platform shoes.
* Alexander Graham Bell-End – a crazy inventor who continually rubs his penis on things and then tricks his assistant into touching them with his hands or mouth, at which point Alexander laughs uproariously whilst exclaiming "I TOTALLY rubbed my bell-end on that!" A pun on Alexander Graham Bell.
* Anna Reksik – a model who repeatedly vomits in order to keep her thin shape. Most strips involve Anna resorting to extreme lengths to lose weight (encouraged by her friend Belle Emia, a fellow model); only to unwittingly eat something (usually very small, such as a potato crisp) that causes her to instantly put on an unrealistically huge amount of weight. The strip attracted press controversy because of the strip's portrayal of eating disorders and cocaine addiction.
* Archie McBlarter – Everyday Farting Dilemmas – A newer strip featuring a middle-aged and rather obese man who has almost permanent trouble with his guts (Not to be confused with Johnny Fartpants (which see)). He is his own worst enemy, as he loves the various types of food which cause extreme flatulence, such as scotch eggs, curries, beans, etc. (often referred to as 'musical food') Sometimes he comes to grief in the most extreme way, for example, he has a giant fart at the same time a bolt of lightning hits his house, and the fart explodes spectacularly, destroying the home and he ending up in hospital. The last frame has him ordering his breakfast – scotch eggs.
* Arse Farm – One-off strip about a farmer who cultivates human buttocks on his land.
* Arsehole Kate – One-off parody of '' Keyhole Kate'' in which Kate instead likes to look up people's bottoms.
* As If By Tragic – A parody of Mr Benn, in which the shopkeeper dies of a heart attack while Mr Benn is on the moon, leading to astronauts finding his body fifty-years later wondering how he got there.
* Auntie Cockwise – An old lady who can tell the size of a man's penis just by looking at him, much to the amusement of her little nephew.
* Bad Bob, the Randy Wonder Dog – About a policeman who visits a retirement home on Christmas Day with his Jack Russell terrier Bad Bob, who proceeds to have sex with one of the resident's legs causing him to have a heart attack (with Bad Bob doing the same to the thigh of the matron who bends down to try and revive him).
* Bad Girl Ballet Borstal at the Bottom of the Sea – A girl is sent to an underwater borstal and forced to do ballet lessons all day. She discovers that the establishment is part of an elaborate scheme to send the borstal inmates to a zoo as food for tigers. The girl attempts to raise the alarm, but is trapped by the homicidal ghost of Rudolf Nureyev, with the strip abruptly ending on an explanation that had it continued she would have been miraculously rescued by police in a submarine.
* Badly Drawn Man – a poorly drawn character.
* Badly Overdrawn Boy – a parody of the pop singer Badly Drawn Boy, who is seen busking outside his local bank because he is broke (issue 126)
* Balsa Boy – a take on ''Pinocchio'', in which a lonely old pensioner makes a "son" from balsa wood. While Balsa Boy does have dialogue, all the speech bubbles unambiguously emanate from the old man. The strip ends with the old man being sent to a mental institution after burning down the house while trying to dry off Balsa Boy in front of the fire, but by the last frame he is busy working on making another "boy" out of scones.
* Balthazar Sparrow and his Shit Christmas Gift Disposal Wheelbarrow – A one-off strip where the titular character collects unwanted Christmas presents on Boxing Day from people for £1 each and takes them to the local tip on his wheelbarrow, only to have to spend all the money he's earned on a disposal charge as since he's being paid to take it the rubbish is reclassified from 'domestic waste' to 'commercial waste'.
* Barbara Cartland's ... – Barbara Cartland pays a visit somewhere (such as a farmyard or barber salon) and ends up inadvertently foiling criminals.
* Barnaby's Spelling Bees – A strip about a boy called Barnaby Bixby who owns a swarm of African Killer Bees who can sting anyone if their owner says a word beginning with the second letter of the English alphabet.
* Barny the Complete Bastard – A strip featured in The Big Stiff One annual about some guy getting falsely accused of doing bad things for no reason.
* Barney Brimstone's Biscuit Tin Circus – a boy who owns a miniature circus inside a biscuit tin.
* Barry the Cat – a one-off parody of ''The Beano''s acrobatic crimefighter Billy the Cat. Unlike his ''Beano'' equivalent, Barry is incompetent, hopelessly uncoordinated, and is immediately recognised despite his "cat-suit" disguise. The final panel shows him in hospital, suffering from multiple injuries, being told that he has acted "very foolishly".
* Bart Conrad – a store detective who takes his job far too seriously.
* Bassey Come Home – in which a young boy who lives on a farm has Shirley Bassey as a pet, and must fight to keep her from being sold when the farm falls on hard times.
* (Sir) Baxter Basics – An occasional strip featuring an extremely amoral, self-serving and sexually deviant right-wing Conservative (and later Labour) MP who first appeared at around the same time as John Major's Back to Basics campaign, and a transparent statement on the hypocrisy of politicians. Drawn by Simon Thorp.Who farted? British comic art
. Tate Modern, 1 May 2010. Retrieved 15 March 2014
* Becky Thump – a girl from the North of England who hates southerners so much she even assaults a supermarket delivery man for bringing her southern fried chicken. Is also shown reading a book entitled '1001 reasons to hate Southerners'. Her name is a parody of the Northern expletive 'Ecky-Thump!'.
* Beddley Wetterton – A strip about a man who attempts to wet his bed, but his various flatmates keep preventing him to do so.
* Beeny of the Lamp – An ''Aladdin'' parody in which Sarah Beeny comes out of a magic lamp to help a young couple wishing for advice on buying a property.
* Ben and the Space Walrus – a one-off strip centred on a fat kid named Ben who finds a SpaceWalrus and eats his dog Bunny. ''(001)''
* Benny's Hedges – a one-off strip featuring a boy who walked round with two hedges on wheels, helping various members of society. This included a peeping tom who used the hedges to hide behind, and leer at passing ladies. Benny also created a "maze" to entertain two unruly children, one of which exclaimed "Tee-hee, help, I'm lost!" The name is a play on words of the cigarette brand Benson and Hedges.
* Bert Midler, Biddy-Fiddler – a pervert with a fetish for very elderly women. After he finally gets a date with a 92-year-old, he is disappointed to be told that she has died; only to cheer up again when he is invited to her funeral with all her friends of similar age.
* Bertie Blunt (His Parrot's A Cunt) – a boy who owns an extremely violent, foul-mouthed parrot that insults everyone and encourages him to commit suicide. When the parrot kills Bertie's grandmother, who leaves them all her money, Bertie fights back by spending his inheritance on a microwave oven which he then uses to cook the parrot alive. Chris Donald, creator of ''Viz'', has said that in the early days of the magazine he would not permit the "c word" to be used, until an outside artist (Sean Agnew) sent him this strip which he found to be so good he decided to use it anyway.
* Bicycle Bellend – a man on a bicycle berating drivers for "showing him disrespect" even though he is actually the dangerous road user (often not looking and causing accidents, and at one point he rides the wrong way up a one-way street), getting his comeuppance when he tells off a burly driver who subsequently beats him up.
* Biffa Bacon – A very long-running icon of Viz, featuring Biffa (shortened from Bifferidge) and his family – Mutha and Fatha (real names Vermintrude (née Haystacks) and Billy or Basha Bacon) – hail from the Tyneside region of North East England and speak in the Geordie dialect. Biffa is constantly subjected to abuse by his parents – even being kicked in the groin by both of them. Biffa is a visual parody of the character Bully Beef from ''The Dandy''. His mother, who is rough-looking and masculine, resembles Desperate Dan. The characters were allegedly inspired by a real family observed by ''Viz'' editor Chris Donald in Newcastle upon Tyne city centre, where the son began an unprovoked assault on another boy; the parents, rather than intervening, began shouting encouragement to their child. As soon as it appeared the victim of the assault was able to defend himself, the father joined in the attack, ceasing only when police officers intervened. Some characters who have extended the Bacon family include Biffa's new baby brother Basha and a dog called Knacka (a pun on Dennis The Menace's dog Gnasher and the slang word "knacker"), Biffa's uncle Dekka, Biffa's grandfather (on his father's side) who is bald, and also Biffa's grandma. Accasionally he comes into contact with his opposite number, Cedric Soft. This character's name speaks for itself!
* Big Fuckin' Dave – a big, burly and mentally unstable man with his name often tattooed across his forehead, sometimes back-to-front, who beats people up for being ' queeahs' because he believes they are drinking only a half-pint of beer, not drinking the full ten pints before having a slash or smoking less than full-strength cigarettes. Usually egged on by his much smaller, trouble-making (unnamed) friend ("Come on Dave – I just seen a guy in the lounge drinkin' halves!" "THE BLOODY QUEEAH!!"). Has been part of other strips, notably Sid the Sexist.
* Big Jobs – a one-off strip in which Steve Jobs unveils the iPoo, a portable toilet which he demonstrates by defecating and vomiting into it. It is revealed that the waste is sent to another dimension (rendered, unusually for ''Viz'', in full colour) where it is eaten by the inhabitants who do not care where it comes from since it is free.
* Big Vern – an East End gangster. Almost every strip follows the same story, in which Vern and his friend Ernie will begin an ordinary activity but with Vern convinced they are actually committing a criminal 'job', believing Ernie's protests that they are not is just a cover story. At some point, a person will make an innocent remark which makes Vern shoot the person in the head believing he is the police (while shouting something along the lines of "No bastard copper's gonna take me alive!" or "Get dahn, Ernie, he's going for his piece!") before then shooting Ernie (sometimes believing Ernie 'grassed' him up, while other times doing it to save him from prison) and occasionally others, and finally himself. The shootings are always shown in an extremely graphic fashion (blood, gore and goodness-knows what-else in every direction – but because the strip is in black-and-white much of the impact is lost!), but despite this both are always resurrected for the next issue. Vern's second name is Dakin, a reference to the notably violent 1971 British crime thriller ''Villain'', whose anti-hero (played by Richard Burton) is named Vic Dakin.
* Bill WeetaBixby – a one-off parody of The Incredible Hulk about Bill Bixby who turns into a violent piece of Weetabix when he' is confronted by muggers, only for them to promptly step on him.
* Billy Banana Head – An early strip about a man with said fruit for a head.
* Billy Bloater – an extremely fat and greedy schoolboy whose gut is so vast that it distorts gravity and pulls stray bank notes into his reach, allowing him to indulge in an 'all you can eat' feast which increases his density until he effectively becomes a black hole and the artist realises that he does not know how to complete the strip.
* Billy Bottom and his Zany Toilet Pranks – a literal toilet humour strip, based around a somewhat obese man and his attempts to defecate whilst various factors and circumstances conspire to prevent him from doing so. The first strip carried a spoof certificate of the type given to films by the BBFC, classifying the strip as "puerile". One of the latest has him as a caveman who is caught by the incoming Ice-Age, and is frozen solid for two million years. He is eventually freed by two archaeologists but the stink is so atrocious that he advises them 'I'd leave it for ten minutes if I were you!' Conceived by Tom Bambridge.
* Billy Bound (It's Always His Round) – a man whose friends constantly trick him into offering to buy the next round of drinks.
* Billy's Bollocks – A one off strip from The Big Hard Number 2 annual about a person called Billy Baxter who found a pair of large spherical fossils in a rubbish bin outside a natural history museum and uses them for a game of Conkers. He ends up throwing them into some man's car and gets ten pounds from him and then flies away using his balls as a helicopter to escape a bully.
* Billy Britain – a right-wing ultra-nationalist resembling Enoch Powell who appeared in two very early strips. Chris Donald considers him an early prototype of Major Misunderstanding. He also made a one-off reappearance in the September 2002 issue satirising the issue of asylum seekers, where after he spends the strip making several futile attempts to round up illegal immigrants, the local authorities turn his home into a detention centre for refugees.
* Billy Bumble Beard – A man who has a beard of bees, who consequently cannot attract ladies. The one lady he finally got off with was Marjorie Wasp-Fanny, but ended up with a large bandage on his private area for obvious reasons.
* Billy the Fish – A very long-running and iconic VIZ strip featuring Billy who is half man, half fish, he is a star footballer despite being drawn with no legs (he does apparently own a pair of football boots, but it is not clear why). The strip is a satire of, or homage to, the popular football comics of the 1960s and 1970s such as ''Roy of the Rovers'', and also satirises topical football incidents. Starred in a spinoff cartoon, voiced by Harry Enfield. According to ''Viz'' cartoonist Graham Dury, "half the readers thought he stripwas shit, and the other half thought it was really shit." Undaunted, ''Viz'' cheerfully called one installment "Billy the Shit". Each episode ends with an 'on the brink' promising to resolve in the next publication...but never does.
* Billy No-Mates – a miserable, asocial teenage boy who spends most of his time alone in his dark room playing video games. If anyone disturbs him he becomes extremely irritated. He also has an obsession with masturbating, collecting large numbers of pornographic magazines and calling sex hotlines.
* Billy Quiz – a man who constantly acts like a game show host in everyday situations.
* Bipolar Bear – a polar bear who suffers from severe bipolar disorder.
* Biscuits Alive! – some biscuits that mysteriously come to life to help their boy owner out of some trivial problem.
* Black Bag – "The faithful border bin liner". A black bin liner which lives the exciting life of a sheepdog; a parody of ''The Dandy'''s Black Bob and the anthropomorphism of animals. Black Bag was drawn by Graham Murdoch, under the pen name of Snoddy (his cat). Black Bag rescued Brotherhood of Man from a well.
* Bo and Luke Brummell – A parody of ''The Dukes of Hazzard'' in which the two main characters are Regency-era dandies.
* Bob-a-Mob – A man who becomes violently enraged and attacks others he perceives as paedophiles, always due to some kind of misunderstanding or his own paranoia.
* Bob-Faced Betty of the Biscuit Shop Ballet – A young ballerina who, after plastic surgery gone wrong, is stuck with the face of TV presenter Bob Holness.
* Bob Mortified – One-off strip in which Bob Mortimer goes fishing with Paul Whitehouse. After failing to catch a single fish, Mortimer is so embarrassed he bursts into tears; while Whitehouse decides he'd rather fish with Harry Enfield instead.
* Bodley Basin – "He's On The Square". The adventures of a "strict Freemason". This one-off strip ended with the apparent murder of the cartoonist.
* Boswell Boyce – He Throws His Voice – An incompetent ventriloquist who repeatedly tries and fails to become famous.
* The Bottom Inspectors – based on the traffic wardens of Newcastle. The Bottom Inspectors were also influenced by a single editorial comment made by John Brown, the original publisher of ''Viz Comic'': "The only editorial comment I ever made", explains Brown, "was in the early days, when I told Chris that I thought one issue was particularly 'bottomy'. He didn't say much at the time, but The Bottom Inspectors appeared for the first time in the next issue." Considerable overtones of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four as well as more than a hint of the Nazis (their ranks sound very Nazi: 'Herr Oberbottomführer!', etc.). Their shout 'BARE YOUR BOTTOMS!' has become almost iconic, even appearing on the front cover recently!
* Boy Scouse – a gang of delinquent schoolboys from Liverpool who earn Boy Scout badges for mugging pensioners, spraying graffiti and other such antisocial activities. MP Louise Ellman complained that it set a bad example and petitioned to have it banned.
* Boyz R Uz – A stereotypical boy band who are ripped off by their handler. They do not sing or dance – only mime.
* Brian's Bannister – An early strip about a boy who owned a bannister who tries to take it to the local park, only to find out that bannisters are not allowed in public.
* Brian Cunt – a representative from a gas supply company, who, when called out to a suspected gas leak, does nothing to help and instead pressures the customer to buy a new central heating system they do not need, resulting in the house blowing up.
* Britpop Pop Bri – A man obsessed with nineties Britpop (especially Oasis

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