Eight Ace

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Eight Ace is a comic strip in Viz magazine that charts the exploits of the eponymous protagonist Octavius Tinsworth Federidge Ace,or Eight Ace for short. He is a miserable, foul-mouthed, unclean alcoholic, named after the quantity and brand of lager which rules his life and prevents his battleaxe wife from ever letting him into their ramshackle home, in which she brings up their huge number of children on the poverty line.

Eight cans of Ace Lager costs £1.49 from Mr Patel's local 24-hour nano-mart, where the friendly shopkeeper often makes a futile attempt to invite Mr Ace to purchase non-alcoholic items, such as a comb or a bin liner, but to no avail. Each story sees Eight Ace given £1:49 by his estranged wife to buy something vital for his 'bairns' (the Geordie dialect word for children) like medicine, or something needed for school or just food for their evening meal. The story sees Eight Ace telling himself, in a mildly inebriated manner, that this time he won't buy his favourite lager but will get the item his wife has demanded.

He maintains this self-instruction right up to arriving at the store - and then orders Eight Ace instead. He drinks each can one by one at great speed while loudly chastising himself for weakening again, and usually comes to a sticky end when he returns to his wife; often this is another night in a leaking shed, sleeping off the alcohol in a puddle of his own urine.

Curiously - as has been brought up by a number of readers of Viz in the letter's page - £1.49 is extremely cheap for eight cans of lager. In the UK the cheapest cans of lager are about 50p each and some (such as Stella Artois) are more than £1.49 per can. How Eight Ace manages to purchase his beer for so little has never been explained.

Often Eight has actually succeeded in giving up the Ace, only to revert back to drinking it at the end of the strip. In one episode he turns to the local vicar for help, and soon he has overcome his urges. At the end of the strip, the vicar gives Eight £1.49 from the collection plate, which he goes and spends on the Ace, instantly transforming into his old inebriated self.