Disco Junkies

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[edit] Disco Junkies

The underground cartoon Disco Junkies was written and illustrated by Alex Fryer, and first appeared as a free black and white comic in the summer of 2005, distributed through the Internet and live music scene of Guildford. It initially took the form of graffiti style stickers and flyers, largely consisting of single illustrations and one pannel jokes.

Several bars and clubs in the city, having commissioned illustrations, helped to popularise Alex's style of illustration, which carried the 'Disco Junkie' tag. Several indy bands used 'Disco Junkie' artwork in their flyers, the most notable being 'The Fake' and 'Jack Rabbit Agenda'. The 'Disco Junkie' label received indirect criticism from the Surrey Advertiser, after a sticker and flyer campaign involving artwork designed to look like parking tickets and currency, fell foul of a local councellor. Not long after this, Disco Junkies returned to being purely a comic, rather than a brand of localised flyer design.

Since the comics sketchy beginings, the stories were further developed, and a series of new characters added. While loosely based around The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the comic contained many drugs references, topical story lines, and borrowed themes from several schools of fantasy, science fiction and comedy. Many of the characters were anthropomorphic, and caracatured people in the media and politics.

Alex Fryer, was, at the time a Video Production student in Guildford. Though the future of the comic was never certain, several short illustration anthologies were printed in black and white and artwork still appears around the city from time to time.

Alex Fryer is also credited as an editor for this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx4dsmwzIEE