Zit (comic)

Zit was an adult British comic that was published by Humour Publications UK, beginning with a free sample issue in January 1991, and with issue 1 in February 1991, The final Issue, Issue 143 was published in May 2002

issue No.1 1991

It was one of many such comics similar to Viz, and was also of lower production quality than its inspiration. As well as comic strips, it also included photo strips, joke articles, celebrity references, and adverts for phone lines and mail order products, many of a pornographic or sexual nature.[1]

History

The owner of Humour Publications, Russell Church, attempted to stir up an aggressive rivalry between his publication and the far more successful Viz, but, as Viz editor Chris Donald stated in his autobiography, "Church's magazine was so bad he couldn't give the thing away". In 1993 Church sued another Viz clone, the Huddersfield-based Spit!, for "passing itself off" as Zit. He pursued the case all the way to the High Court, where the judge ruled that nobody "with reasonable apprehension or eyesight" could confuse the two comics. Church was ordered to pay Spit!'s legal bills, which came to around £32,000. Soon after this setback, Church was sued by the British TV presenter Anne Diamond, following a tasteless reference in Zit to her child's tragic cot death. This effectively sank Humour Publications, and Zit continued with a different publisher's backing before vanishing from the shelves in 2002.

Notable strips

More notable characters included: "Lambrusco - the Alcoholic Sheep", "Dirty Stan the Blue Movie Man", "The man who collects eyeballs", and "Middle aged Melvin".

Contributors

Allin Kempthorne wrote and drew several features including the semi-regular strip Starface. He has since gone on to become a television and film actor and writer.

Leon Horton created and wrote many characters, including Hector Rectum, Dave Beef and The Ales of Beer Tits Potter.

Ged Purvis a one time commercial artist drew Young Tarby who went on to become a tv and film actor, writer and director and also a book illustrator.

In other media

A video called Zit: The Video was produced in 1993, featuring many of its characters in five-minute animated segments in which they're Motion comics rather than actual animation. the animations were made digitally in Photon Paint, all of the characters from the Zit comics were both voiced by David Holt and Rob Rackstraw, although uncredited.

An audio cassette tape entitled "An Earful of Zit" was also released in 1993 and was marketed and distributed by PolyGram Record Operations Ltd. It was described on the cover as "fifty minutes of audio madness". It was written by Ged Backland, Leon Horton, Dave Iddon, Paul Dyson and Anthony Smith. It was Produced for Polygram by Leo Cubbin and Ged Backland and recorded at Rainbow Studios in Brighton.

References

Chris Donald Rude Kids: The Unfeasible Story of Viz- 2004 - Page 243 "..started up by cynical publishers who looked at our success and came up with the following equation: (CRUDE CARTOONS + SWEARING) = ENORMOUS PROFIT The most annoying of these cynical publishers was Russell Church of Brighton-based Humour Publications. He was the man responsible for our most persistent rival, Zit magazine. I first got wind of his activities in January 1991 when an illustrator who had been working on Zit prior to its launch fell out with Church, ..."

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[1] Chris Donald Rude Kids: The Unfeasible Story of Viz- 2004 - Page 243 "..started up by cynical publishers who looked at our success and came up with the following equation: (CRUDE CARTOONS + SWEARING) = ENORMOUS PROFIT The most annoying of these cynical publishers was Russell Church of Brighton-based Humour Publications. He was the man responsible for our most persistent rival, Zit magazine. I first got wind of his activities in January 1991 when an illustrator who had been working on Zit prior to its launch fell out with Church, ..."