From the founders of Viz comes Codswallop and Chips
A new rib-tickler from the Donalds
In the very nick of time… along comes the perfect Christmas present for the Viz fan in your life. And weirdly, it’s not the Viz Annual (although that would probably do nicely, come to think of it).
But this is a new comic produced by Viz founders Chris and Simon Donald – or “errant Viz magazine founders” as they describe themselves on the front cover of the very first issue of Codswallop and Chips.
It’s presented as a periodical but I’ve a sneaking suspicion this might be the one and only, since it’s to be published by the Globe Gallery on a Thursday every 800 years.
This late flowering of Viz-style comic genius from the Donald brothers – or “scurrilous farrago of gutter language,” according to Major Reginald Umbrage-Bligh (Ret’d), a possibly invented contributor to the letters page – is part of the North Shields 800 celebrations.
Although to say it’s testing the patience and humour of the good folk of North Shields would be putting it mildly.
So far, so good, though.
Just hours before the presses rolled, some spoilsport at the council pointed out that it might be a good idea to run one of the strips past the staff at a local hostelry that features, ever so lightly disguised, in a strip called Poor Willie, the ‘Armchair Critic’.
“Y’divvun wanna gan in there, mind. Place is full of tossers,” Willie advises a couple about to venture into the Enema Pap (sic) – Heritage Micropub.
Heart in mouth, Rashida Davison, Globe Gallery founding director, popped along with a proof.
“It would have needed a hell of a lot of rejigging if they’d objected,” smiled Chris happily. He’d already run it past his own finely-tuned good taste monitor and decided: “I’ll just put it in. They’re not going to mind the joke.”
As it happened, they didn’t. “Oh my god, that’s mint!” said the man at the Enigma Tap. Apparently.
Rashida and Colin go back a long way with Chris and Simon. They met when Rashida was a model for one of the famous Viz love stories, for which Colin was taking the photographs.
At Thursday night’s launch session at the Globe Gallery, during a break from signing copies of Codswallop and Chips, Chris recalled his initial response to Rashida’s suggestion that they do a special comic for North Shields 800.
“You’re kidding. Impossible! How do you do a comic about a place when you don’t even live there?
“But she kept pestering and I do bring my dog here quite a lot for a walk along the beach.
“One day I had the idea of a Robinson Crusoe-style cartoon where the dessert chef of a cruise ship wrecked on the Black Middens (notorious rocks at the mouth of the Tyne) is washed up on the beach.
“I thought about it a bit more and then drew a little sketch based on a famous French pastry chef. The idea grew on me so I told Rashida we’d do it.”
From which we can deduce that Chris’s brain works in mysterious ways and Rashida knows this fine well.
The Dessert Island Adventures of Robinson Crèmebrûloe is now a feature of the comic Codswallop and Chips.
As it states on the page: “Marooned in a strange, foreign land, as a passionate pâtissier Robinson knew his first challenge was to try and source high quality ingredients locally. Then improvise, as best he might, essential items of kitchen equipment (a confectionary thermometer, for example). He would use these tools to create the most daring, decadent dessert dish of his life! For he knew that his only hope of salvation lay in the pursuit of culinary confection par excellence.”
You’ll have to get your hands on a copy to find how well that goes down in North Shields.
Other features of the new comic, which tests modern sensibilities with its dash of retro 1980s-style humour (only slightly watered down), include Charvas in ‘Clavas, Charvas in ‘Jamas and King of the Jungle, in which two sailors on shore leave go in search of the “perfect night” – which is to say “birds, booze and a fight” – and are confronted by a pub quiz and earnest questions about stamp collecting.
Chris stepped down as Viz editor in 1999 and he said he and Simon hadn’t worked together since some “sit-down comedy” at The Stand comedy club before the Covid pandemic.
He said he’d enjoyed getting ink on his fingers again and seeing the old pen callus rising once more on his forefinger. Simon, on the other hand, “lazy bastard”, had been more inclined to resort to an iPad.
The pair of them together, though, back in harness, have produced a collector’s item which might yet – it’s early days – get them into some unforeseen trouble. Just like in the old days.
Chris reminisced about his years at Viz, picking on random famous people to poke fun at (it was sort of permissible in the 1980s).
“Brian May, Mick Hucknall… that was the fun of it. Some people didn’t mind at all and went along with it quite happily.
“Other people, like (let’s spare his blushes, or not revive his apoplexy… but a certain TV presenter), were straight on the phone to their agent.
“I remember our publisher saying, ‘I’ve just had ???’s agent on the phone saying leave him alone’. So obviously we cranked it up after that.”
Different times!
But the Donalds, for a few glorious months, were back at the cartoon coal face, inventing a local criminal law firm called Cummon-Havagan and products such as a ceremonial ermine dryrobe, enabling members of the House of Lords or local mayors to enjoy “fashionable beach life on the North East coast”.
“There are so many mad things in the world at the moment that you just can’t parody them but the fact there was such a narrow focus, just on North Shields, helped,” said Chris.
“I just wandered round secretly, going into places and drawing them or taking photographs. I felt like a spy. It was quite exciting.
“A friend of mine used to drink here sometimes. He’d say, ‘Shall we go for a drink in North Shields?’ And we’d go into a random pub, one of those that was a bit rough and ready.
“Generally when you go to a place like that you have a great time.
“I also like Barry’s fruit and veg shop – places like that. Rashida’s good at networking so she’s got everyone on board.”
Rashida, of course, appears in one of the comic strips, looking disapproving.
Sketches by the Donald brothers are currently on the walls at the Globe Gallery, at 97 Howard Street, where you can (before stocks run dry) buy a copy of Codswallop and Chips for a fiver (that’s inflation for you) or, indeed, one of Chris’s popular travel posters, ever so slightly amended.
And there ought to be a prize for anyone spotting the very subtle reference to Shakin’ Stevens – another popular Viz ‘victim’ – somewhere in the new comic’s pages.