Zit was an adult

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

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 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,

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references, and adverts for phone lines and mail order products, many of a pornographic or sexual nature.

Chris Donald Chris Donald (born 25 April 1960 in Newcastle, England) is the founder of, and one of the principal contributors to, the British comic magazine '' Viz''. Biography Donald attended West Jesmond Primary School,http://www.communitychannel.org/c ...

''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, ..."

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

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 Huddersfield is a market town in the Kirklees district in West Yorkshire, England. It is the administrative centre and largest settlement in the Kirklees district. The town is in the foothills of the Pennines. The River Holme's confluence into ...

-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 A television presenter (or television host, some become a "television personality") is a person who introduces, hosts television programs, often serving as a mediator for the program and the audience. Nowadays, it is common for people who garner ...

Anne Diamond Anne Margaret Diamond (born 8 September 1954) is a British journalist and broadcaster. She presently hosts the weekend breakfast show on GB News with Stephen Dixon as her co-presenter. She hosted '' Good Morning Britain'' for TV-am and ''Good ...

, 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 Allin Kempthorne (born 1972) is a British actor, magician and entertainer. As a magician he works under three distinct identities as Alan Thorn, Professor Strange (with which he appeared on the television show Britain's Got Talent) and Gizmo. He ...

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 A motion comic (or animated comic) is a form of animation combining elements of print comic books and animation. Individual panels are expanded into a full shot while sound effects, voice acting, and animation are added to the original artwork. Tex ...

rather than actual animation. the animations were made digitally in

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, all of the characters from the Zit comics were both voiced by David Holt and

Rob Rackstraw Robert Rackstraw (born 31 October 1965) is a British voice actor who has worked in various animated films, television shows and video games. Career Rackstraw has an extensive voiceover career over 20 years. He voiced the main villain Pew in ' ...

, 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

{{reflist Zit British comics Defunct British comics 1991 comics debuts 2002 comics endings