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ramblings and psychobabble set in the deathly milieu of wicker furniture and avocado dips was a continuing fascination for new frontiers in astronomy, particle physics, psychology and the arts, deliberately colliding such “serious” endeavours with the loonier fringes of self improvement such as
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Biff quotes have a way of sticking in the mind. Is it ironical cultural commentary which pioneered a unique style of visual ‘sampling’ before the word had even been invented? Or is it Chris
Garratt and Mick Kidd, two mad old farts from
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with its artless articulation of image and text détournement, montaging comic strip and philosophy, angst-riddled soliloquies and cowboy drawls, featured prominently in the sprawling publications and smudged ink mags of the
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began to bite. They were downsized, monochromed, shrunk and eventually berlinered out of the paper altogether. But fear not for their work continues in other magazines - so as their homepage advises ‘Relax and float
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in 1985. Biff
Weekend ran there weekly for 20 years. The comic originated in a series of single-panel postcards before evolving into multi-panel comic strips. It has also been published in the magazine
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is a
British cartoon strip, created since the mid 1970s by Chris Garratt and Mick Kidd. The first Biff collection was published in 1982 The strip was first published in the newspaper
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Chris
Garratt and Mick Kidd met at grammar school in the 1950s and have collaborated on Biff since the mid-1970s. Chris Garratt creates the artwork (a mixture of
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Biff’s 20 year tenure in “The
Guardian” effectively charted the Rise and Fall of the not-so-angry young things as they shambled from
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of the
Guardian. They stayed on after Posy’s return for a further twenty years. Then, as foretold by the sudden appearance of the
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hits, Goldfish
Virgins of the dodgems, Intrepid Riders of the Waltzers, wags of youth club literati and pioneers of
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Holding up a cracked and peeling mirror to a cracked and peeling generation of new adults who exchanged
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with ‘Human
Resources’, Latest Art with ‘Biff Art’ and Rough News with ‘The 6 Ages of Travel’.
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History magazines with ‘A Biff
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The cartoons are notable for their absurd, ironic, satirical and metafictional edge.
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Gravett, Paul, "1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die", Universe, 2012, page 438.
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Gravett, Paul, "1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die", Universe, 2012, page 438.
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Gravett, Paul, "1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die", Universe, 2012, page 438.
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by Chris Garratt, Mick Kidd and David Stafford, Methuen Books, 1994
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cushion-bashing psychotherapy, astrology and sweat lodges.
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by Chris Garratt and Mick Kidd, Pavement Press, 1983
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by Chris Garratt and Mick Kidd, Pavement Press, 1982
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222:downstream’
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163:Hay-on-Wye
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219:Blairism
83:Joe Meek
209:on the
135:Habitat
103:Vietnam
87:skiffle
53:collage
47:History
228:, 2007
79:Sartre
57:London
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