Currently reading 'Rude Kids – The Unfeasible Story of Viz' by Chris Donald. It's quite good, if not as funny as the exploits of classic Viz creations like Roger Mellie, Finbarr Saunders and Johnny Fartpants. The book tells the story of how the foul-mouthed comic created by a few Geordie misfits became one of the UK's best-selling magazines. It contains many anecdotes based on confrontations between the Viz boys' no-bullshit geordie attitude and the media business pretension they encountered as Viz – almost despite their efforts – entered the mainstream.

One such is the story of how in the summer of 1991 the Viz team were despatched by their publisher to the country house hotel Huntsham Court to try to come up with ideas for comedy TV shows. The hotel was a bit of a media hangout and, though they failed to come up with any TV ideas (except for a proposal for a series called The Pond Makers, 'a bit like Dallas but with two large garden pond manufacturers competing for business in a sleepy English village') an encounter with some advertising types led to the creation of a new Viz character.

"Just before we left Huntsham, a group of young advertising executives arrived from London and we had the misfortune to spend a short period of time in their company. The loudmouthed little yuppies were full of themselves and very keen to brag about their respective CVs. They all seemed to be in awe of one particular bloke, a short-arse called Beesley Beesley – honestly, that's what they called him – whom one colleague described as a 'bladdy clever guy'. 'This is the man responsible for Mars Ice Cream,' he said, as if we were in the presence of a god. 'Did you really invent Mars Ice Cream?' Graham asked. 'No!' One of his colleagues snapped with obvious frustration. 'He was the guy responsible for the Mars Ice Cream advertising campaign.' In their eyes that was clearly far more important than the product itself. When we got back to Newcastle we set to work on a new character called Dickie Beasley, schoolboy advertising genius."

Chris Donald's contempt for the advertising industry can also be enjoyed in a Media Week interview of 1995, in which he says ‘Any artist who devotes their talent to selling products is a prostitute. People higher up the tree, like the Saatchi brothers, are pimps.’

This gives me the opportunity to reproduce for your amusement a couple of the Dickie Beasley strips. Perhaps not vintage Viz, but worth another look for their neat satirisation of the classic late 80s/early 90s advertising twat/prostitute.

What I'm wondering is – do any of our readers know who this 'Beesley Beesley' was? Which agency did he work at? Who were the 'loudmouth little yuppies' with him at Huntsham Court in 1991?  And was the masterwork below the god-like Beesley's claim to fame?

Meanwhile, I recommend following Viz top tips on Twitter.