Viz: The Coppers Torch Review

 

Viz fans it's that time of year again where I go ahead and talk a look at the latest Viz annual and well then this year is no different. I will admit that joke wise there weren't as many truly laugh out loud jokes in this book but there are still some really good things to be found in this very book and so then join as I review what is the latest annual from Viz with this particular annual being called simply just "Viz: The Coppers Torch" enjoy.

As a lot of you will know by now these annual Viz annuals don't really contain any stories there just short stories all designed and thus set up to tell a hopefully good joke at the end of them. With that in mind there were some stories in this book that I just didn't like like for example any of the 8Ace stories or any of the The Drunk Old Bakers storylines just because I just don't those characters to be that freaking funny in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Art wise I thought that the that was featured / presented to us in this very book was really freaking good this might be because the makers of Viz usually take there time with things and they usually keep there outwork pretty simple. This really does work well enough for Viz since the kind of stories that Viz usually tells are pretty freaking simplistic stories and so having rather simple artwork meshes well enough with the stories that they are currently / presently trying to tell in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Now then with all that being said I do wish that some of the male characters had some slightly different designs. Just because some of this books male characters all started to look very freaking similar to me so much so that I had very completely forgotten which comic strip was actually reading at that exact moment in time and it's something that I could see over readers having an issue with as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. 

So now then of course making a return for this years annual is of course the world famous Viz newspaper stories. Which are just a pure joy to read simply because it's always funny seeing what the writers of Viz can come up with and seeing how the writers of Viz can lampoon what's currently going on in British culture and as well as in freaking British newspapers in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Now then one of the comic book strips that really did continue to freaking entertain the living heck out of me in this very book is a comic book called The Male Online. Just because alot of what they cover in the The Male Online comic book strips are things that people are still getting upset about on Twitter to this very freaking day which just makes the comic book strip not only still very freaking relevant but also still very freaking funny as all heck because were basically living these comic book strip storylines in real life in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

So now then if you've read any Viz comic book then you'll know that there comic book strips are more often then not very freaking vulgar as all heck and is also chock-full to the prim of jokes and things that you wouldn't necessarily want your parents or your Grandparents to see you reading. With this book no exception to that rule since there are alot of freaking comic book strips that are in this very book that would / will make your parents or even your Grandparents be forced to ask you why your even reading such a vulgar and disgusting book in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Now then one of the best jokes in this book is one that is literally a James Bond parody which is something that I really did love and find to be very freaking hilarious. Simply because it was a comic book strip that I wasn't actually expecting to see and plus it was also a comic book strip that managed to hit all of the James Bond clichés whilst also putting a stereotypical Viz comic book spin on them all in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

So now then this comic book strip annual is a whopping two hundred and twenty pages long which is I think the standard for these Viz annuals. However either way tho I can see alot of people whom are currently reading this review being put of by the very long page count but I ask that you all bare in mind the fact that this book is filled up with all of the best bits from a previous years worth of issues and so of course this book is going to have a freaking large page count in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Now then this is comedy comic book strip after all and so that means that I have to actually talk about the actual comedy that's actually featured / presented to us in this very comic book strip book and well then in honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual comedy that's actually featured / presented to us in this very comic strip book was a very mixed bag of affairs for me personally. Since alot of this books jokes just weren't that funny to me personally but tho at the same time tho when this book does tell a good joke it really does stand out a freaking mile tho in my freaking personal opinions anyways / at least.

Overall this was a rather good comic book strip comic book that was a rather good read but at the same time I could get the sense that this book a huge step down in quality from the last two years books tho in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now i've talked about all of the good things and as well as all of the bad things that are in this very book in this very review and as such that means that this very book erns itself a grand old score of exactly a 6.5 out of 10 from me.

Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from the official James Bond fandom wiki page , the official Viz fandom wiki page , Amazon . Co . Uk and Google Images. With my personal preferred website to use to get images from this film being Google Images just simply due / down to the fact that Google Images has alot of images from this film and alot of the images that are on Google Images are fairly high quality and as well as being fairly high definition.

Viz: The Wizard's Sleeve Annual 2021 Review

 

Viz fans it's been along time since I last talked about anything to do with Viz comics and well as luck would have it one of my presents for Christmas this year was the latest Viz annual. As such since there's a bit of a tradition going on here where I review each Viz annual when it comes out or when I get my hands on the annual it only makes sense that I review the latest annual and so here is my review of "Viz: The Wizard's Sleeve" enjoy.

CHARACTERS FEATURED INCLUDE

BIFFA BACON

For some reason this annual features alot of Biffa Bacon which for those that don't know Biffa Bacon is meant to be an average lad but he lives in a world dominated by violence. As such Biffa often finds himself in brutal but comical fights often with his own parents and for some reason in this annual the character is featured quite alot which wouldn't be an issue if the character was good or his stories really funny but sadly there not and Biffa and both of his parents aren't that good characters and so his stories just come of as dull and if i'm being honest kind of boring in my very humble opinion.

MR. LOGIC

The character of Mr. Logic does appear in few strips which is good because I find his stories to be pretty funny and the same is true here. I just love that even tho this character is very good natured he more often then not ends up in more danger or trouble then what he was in originally due to his insistence of using logic and giving people these very longwinded talks about how to reached whatever conclusion he was trying to reach.

THE FAT SL*GS

Lastly in the characters that i'm listing we have my personal favourite characters from Viz The Fat Sl*gs. I just adore these characters because not only do you get a good sense of who each of the characters are in each strip that they appear in but you could literally put these characters in any location and in case of this annual time and give them any kind of set up and it would be funny and i'll fully admit that there strips in this annual got alot of laughs out of me just due to how funny there comic strips were in my opinion.

There are alot of characters who appear quite alot in this annual and so I chose not to include them all since I would be here all day listing them all. However as you can no doubt tell by the character's that i've listed alot of the old favourite Viz characters are featured in this annual and alot of them do have some really funny storylines but at the same time characters like 8Ace only have one storyline and our featured several times and in the case of 8Ace it's that he's trying to find money to buy some beer and that's that's the story which would be fine if 8Ace appeared once but he makes a few appearences in this annual and it's all just variations of the exact same story.

As to be expected by now they don't list who's doing the artwork for each comic strip anywhere in the annual as such I cannot tell you who's doing the art work for what strip. However in terms of what I thought about the artwork that was featured in this annual it wasn't that bad with alot of comic strips having some really good art work of course the artwork isn't perfect which is to be expected but the artwork is in the minority in this case with there being alot more better drawn comic strips then there are comic strips in this annual that aren't drawn as well as the other comic strips in this annual.

There are some characters that don't make an appearance in this years annual for some reason like for example Buster Gonad is nowhere to be found. Which I found to be rather odd since from what I could gather Buster Gonad was a fairly popular character as well as a character who appeared in alot of issues of Viz Comics and so it would make sense for him to show up even once in this annual but nope him and a few other characters (who I cannot remember the names of right now) don't appear at all in this annual.

Now then since Viz Comics / Viz Magazine is a comedy comic / magazine that does mean that I have to talk about the jokes that are in this years annual. Which for me personally the jokes in this years annual weren't that funny don't get me wrong there are some really good jokes like for example alot of the newspaper stuff is really funny as are alot of the letters that are featured in the annual but alot of comic strips just either didn't make me laugh or had a very weak punchline which for Viz is never a good thing since the guys and girls over at Viz can make anything funny but they just didn't with alot f the comic strips that are featured in this years annual.

Overall while this years annual is indeed very good and can be very funny at times as i've mentioned in this review. They put alot of focus onto unfunny and uninteresting characters and tell the exact same story with the same character in multiple comic strips in the same annual but I do recommend this to any Viz Comics / magazine fan just because it's filled with the same Viz goodness that many of us know and love as such this years annual which as the title of this review says is called "Viz: The Wizard's Sleeve" gets a 7.5 out of 10 from me.

All of the images that I used in this review were gathered from either Amazon UK , Google Images , the official Viz fandom wiki page or the official Albion British Comics Database Wiki fandom wiki page. I honestly have no idea which would be the best website to use for images mostly because there aren't that many images out there when it comes to this annual and so you have to know what characters you want to feature and look up the images individually which means that the image quality really does vary as such i say use whichever website you want to use but I will say that Google Images is a very good place to start since you can get alot of images from Google Images but that's just me being helpful tho you guys feel free to use whichever website you want to images from either this annual or anything to do with Viz Comics / magazine.

 

Viz Comics June 2020 Review

Boys and girls i'm going try something that i've honestly been wanting to do for the past few months but have been putting it of and that is a monthly review of the Viz Comic strips. I'm not going to lie this could be the only one that gets done but if it gets enough support then it very well could become a monthly thing on top of the yearly Viz Annuals reviews as well and since this is a new thing i'm also going to come up with a new format which which you will see during the review and so here is my review of the June 2020 issue from Viz.

CHARACTERS FEATURED INCLUDE

8ACE

In this issue 8ace and his wife go to the shops and his wife has to stop him spending all of there money on cans of beer. I'll be honest i've never been a fan of this character to me he's just not funny in anyway and this issue does nothing to shift my opinion of him I honestly don't see why the character is still appearing in these strips since from what I can gather all of his stories are the exact same or at least in my opinion they are anyways.

THE FAT SL*GS

The story fo these two in this issue is that after having thirty six pizzas in the space of a week they decide to grow some vegetables. It's a really simple story which I think works well for these characters but it did leave me wondering how in the hell they could afford over thirty pizzas in the space of a week when they have no jobs but overall it was a very enjoyable story and one that made great use of the characters.

THE MAIL ONLINE

I love this strip and the story for this issue I thought was pretty funny with the story being that the wife character wants to go out but the husband following the strict UK lockdown guidelines refuses to leave the house and so we see what happens to him after a month of not leaving the houses even refusing to go into his own garden. This was actually a pretty funny story simply because it's something that rings true for a lot of people right now and the fact that it didn't demonise people who are like that to me made the story feel more sweet.

NEWSPARER ARTICLES

As is tradition with these Viz issues there are some spoof newspaper articles which I personally didn't mind that much this time around. Sadly tho they weren't as funny as perhaps they could have been especially given what's been going on in the world over the past month there's a lot of stuff that they could have lampooned but sadly they don't do it which is a shame but hey it means that they will have stuff ready for next month's issue at least.

There are also a bunch of spoof comments from the general public as well some of which I thought were pretty funny. With perhaps the best example being someone asking why elephants have this reputation for remembering everything when they don't have have a go at him for something he did fifteen years ago which while it's not laugh out loud funny it is still a pretty funny joke and one which I liked.

ONE OFF STRIPS

A STEPTOE AND SON ONE OFF SPOOF

Now i'm not going to mention anything about the art just because if this is going to be a monthly thing then it's something that I don't want to bring up and repeat myself with every single month. What I wasn't expecting was a Steptoe And Son spoof which for you Americans is the show that spawned Sanford And Son , I honestly wasn't expecting this since no one talks about Steptoe And Son and really hasn't done for decades and so to see the characters spoofed here was a real joy for me personally and I hope that they spoof more classic British comedies in future issues.

A KING KONG SPOOF

Yes ladies and gents you read that right there's a King Kong spoof in this months issue which I have to admit was fairly funny. To put it simply the spoof follows the plot of the original Kong except it replaces the characters with British TV stars even Kong himself is here portrayed by a British TV star i'm trying not to spoil anything just because if you can find away to read this issue then I highly recommend it just for this strip alone because it really is that funny in my opinion.

Overall while alot of this issue isn't that funny there are still alot of funny stories in this issue that make it worth reading in my opinion. There you go guys that was my pilot review for the Viz Comics series with any luck this series will continue every month with a review of the latest issue and i'll review the yearly annuals as and when I possibly can , sorry for the lack of HD images but if you know Viz then you know the type of content that they include hence why i've edited one of the names and not included that many HD images as for this issue tho it gets a 7 out of 10 from me and well i'll see you all in July with the nest issue.

  

Viz: The Pieman's Wig Annual 2019 Review

Comics fans i'm British and more importantly i'm from the north of England I mention all of this because not only am I reviewing my first British comic strip and it's one that i'm sure alot of older fans will love so here is my review of Viz: The Pieman's Wig.

I really would like to comment on the plot of the stories except each strip has no real plot since it's a collection of stories from previous issues of the magazine so you can really read any of the stories and have a fair understanding of the characters as well as the world that they live in. I will say that like alot of things in this book the stories are very adult so please do NOT read anything from Viz unless you are over the age of 18.

Due to the adult nature of Viz comics the images I use won't be from the actual book itself and the names of certain strips will have to be edited but I will say that if you love character names with great puns or names that just make you laugh then this is the series for you because there are names like Billy the Fish someone who is half man half fish and is a footballer (soccer player) , Buster Gonad and his Unfeasibly Large T*******s does it really need saying why this is a great name , The Fat S***s these are two women who love s** and food. 

There are honestly more great funny names in the book but these are just the best ones in my opinion and yes I did have to censor some of the names but tho that's just because I want to make sure that alot of people remain happy with the post and it's honestly because alot of the names are quite rude and yes there is a chance that you'll be hearing me say that it's a rude book many times in this review.

One of the things that the magazine became famous for is it's spoof news articles like for example the one seen in the above picture and I will say that like alot of things in this book I was laughing quite a bit of the time while reading some of the headlines unfortunately tho I cannot supply you with any of them mostly because i've forgotten alot of them so you'll just have to trust me on this but tho I will say that you will get the jokes not only in this book but also in the news articles if your British.

Speaking of being British all of the shows characters live in the north of England which is where yours truly is from and if you are from the north then you might pick up on where some of the characters are from because like any good comic strip does it doesn't tell you out right where they are from instead it lets you work out from certain words that the characters use.

As you might have seen by the two actual images from Viz magazine the art style for each strip is exactly the same i'm not even kidding outside of the characters there's nothing to tell each strip apart to me that is both a good and bad thing good because it means that these characters can live in the same universe but bad because there are times were you can't tell where one strip ends and the other begins so having something visually to tell us that were reading another strip would have been nice.

I don't really think I can stress enough how adult this book and the magazine is heck if you want prove of how adult this series is just try and work out some of the words that i've censored that alone should give you some idea of what to expect in this book because yes each of the characters that i've listed does appear in this book at least several times but the jokes in those strips are usually all different which is good.

Now this isn't the first time that Viz have put out an annual infact they do it at least once a year and they pretty much have done since either the late seventies or the early eighties I can't really tell since there's no way of finding out for sure but all of them collect the best bits from previous issues I like to think of them as a more funny version of the collected editions from either Marvel or DC.

Overall it is a really funny and adult book but at the same time I think that only us British would like it since alot of the jokes would fly over everyone else's head and since this is a collection of stories i'm not going to give a rating mostly because I am a fan of Viz but also because I can't think of one.