Brain Damage (comic)

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For other uses, see Brain Damage.


Brain Damage was a British adult comic that was published monthly by Galaxy Publications (later Tristar Publications) and edited by Bill Hampton from 1989 to 1992.

Brain Damage was one of many comics emulating the success of Viz; however whereas most of its peers were crude, low-quality Viz imitiations, Brain Damage attempted to capture the quality end of the market, with contributions from recognised cartoonists and satirists and a strong element of UK alternative politics. In this way, it seemed to aspire to be a modern-day Oz. Many issues contained a central theme around which strips were supposed to focus, and each covers featured an unamed mascot which vaguely resembled the 1980s children's TV puppet Gilbert the Alien.

Its sibling titles included the direct Viz clone Gas and reprint anthology Talking Turkey.

Brain Damage was published until volume 3, number 4 (issue 28), and was then replaced with Elephant Parts which abandoned the political aspects in favour of surreal nonsense. Elephant Parts supposedly incorporated "The Damage", but as it was printed on different paper stock and with a markedly changed editorial, was effectively a different magazine. Elephant Parts was printed for a few months.

Repeating strips included:

  • Andy The Anarchist by Anthony Smith - a stereotyped anarchist
  • Arseover Tit by Hunt Emerson- a two-headed creature called Alf (as in "half and half") and his adventures in society. Usually Alf would get mangled after failing to decide which way to jump from an oncoming attack due to having two heads
  • Cameraman by Stevie Best - a cynical day-to-day story of a paparazzi (tabloid photographer)
  • Hell's Rotarians by unknown - setting septgenarian Rotarians as hell's angels
  • Home Front by John Erasmus - a strip involving a mother and son, the mother being a cheerful psychopath who caused carnage each issue (and embarrassing her son).
  • Rymeword Scrubs by Doug Cameron and Ben Norris - a prison to house cartoon characters with rhyming names (e.g. David Fottom, with a talking bottom)
  • The Striker Wore Pink Knickers by Tony Husband and Ron Tiner- a pastiche of Roy of the Rovers type strips about a girl playing professional football posing as a man. The strip went out with a bang, with all main characters realising they were homosexual and being murdered by a skinhead
  • The Watchdogs by Tony Reeve - two cartoon dogs, based on Douglas Hurd and Mary Whitehouse, self-appointed moral guardians who were in fact hypocritical busybodies
  • Watch With Mutha by Doug Cameron and Ben Norris - one-off strips ridiculing children's television with adult themes
  • We Ran The World by Andy Oldfield and Mike Roberts - a lavish colour strip containing analysis of British culture and history from a left-wing (and often Marxist) pespective. Two recurring characters were a teenage skinhead indoctrinated by tabloid newspapers and his world-wise grandfather (who had fought aganst Oswald Mosely)
  • Wildtrouser Hall by Cluff- about an aristocratic family playing on the perception of arsitocrats as psychopathic nazi parasites
  • The Andy Oldfield Column - political rants accompanied by satire cartoons by Clive Wakfer