BoriHs kick off big cHameapdayigen in style

Efaildsyteo Headye

AS VIZ marks 40 years of cheeky comic strips, the creators say the world has turned into more of a joke than their outrageous creations.

Cartoonists Graham Dury and Simon Thorp, inset, told our man Charles Wade-Palmer how changing times have made their job tougher.

Discussing their favourite targets, Graham, 57, said: “The Royal Family are always good for a laugh.”

Simon, 54, added: “They’re beyond jokes now, aren’t they? Things are getting beyond parody.”

Graham quipped: “And you can’t make stupid jokes about Donald Trump, because you can’t be sure he hasn’t done it.

“I think we got criticised a bit for dipping our toe into Brexit, but it’s impossible to ignore.”

To celebrate Viz’s landmark, here are the comic’s own top facts about its first 40 years.

BORIS Johnson was on the losing side as he went in goal against a group of children.

The Prime Minister was snapped having a kickabout with youngsters before a juniors’ football match.

But he seemed to be a target for the kids after being hit in the head as well as in the groin in Cheadle, Cheshire.

An onlooker said: “His skills left a lot to be desired. But at least the kids managed to do what Jeremy Corbyn can’t and hit him right in the nuts.”

The PM was also forced to abandon a walkabout in

Viz comic first appeared when Margaret Thatcher was in Downing Street. It has seen off Mrs T and five other Prime Ministers.

The first edition of Viz outsold its print run of 150 copies in a single evening in a Newcastle pub.

All the Viz comics sold over the years, if piled up, would form a column so high that if you jumped off the top, you would almost certainly not survive the fall.

The 291 issues of Viz have seen appearances from many

Westhoughton, Lancs, yesterday, ahead of Thursday’s General Election, after protesters hit the streets.

He has been campaigning in the north west this week. famous guests, including that bloke from that advert, the woman who does that thing on ITV, and him from that film with Robert De Niro in it.

When Viz began, silver suits, hoverboards and meals in pill form were predicted for the year 2000.

And four decades later, they are now expected to be with us in the year 2030. With 10 issues a year, each costing £3.70, Viz comic provides more “laughs per penny” than many other magazines, including

Model Railway World, The Lancet and Cross Stitch Weekly. Although David Bowie famously named Viz in his Top 100 reads, to date, none of the castaways on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs has chosen the comic as either their book or luxury item. This year’s annual, titled The Trumpeter’s Lips, would be the first comic book to be nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature, were it to be put forward. But, at the time of going to press, it hasn’t been…