Posted in: Comics, Current News | Tagged: giles, viz comic

Viz Comic Do A "Giles" Christmas Calendar… Except It's "Piles"

Viz Comics have released their Christmas Calendar, which features a parody of the work of Giles, recreated as Piles.

Published Wed, 13 Nov 2024 06:57:09 -0600

Article Summary

Viz Comics parodies Giles with a Christmas Calendar featuring Nobby Piles and his haemorrhoids woes.
Carl Giles was a renowned British cartoonist famed for his social and political cartoons in the Daily Express.
Giles cartoon collections continue to be popular, with contributions from famous personalities.
Visit Viz #341 for more humor with classic characters like Drunken Bakers and Sid The Sexist.

Viz Comics has released its Christmas issue of the British social and political comic book anthology comic book magazine. And that includes their annual Christmas Calendar. This year features a parody of the work of Giles, recreated as Piles and mashed up with their character Nobby Piles, who is always under threat over his haemorrhoids.

Carl Giles, signing cartoons as Giles, worked for the British newspaper the Daily Express, and his social and political editorial cartoons featured the same British family reaching to the stories of the week. By 1966, he was paid $8000 for three cartoons a week, around £250,000 today. He worked there from 1945 to 1989, though he continued working for the Sunday Express until 1991, even after the amputation of his legs. He refused to sell any of his original artwork or creations, preferring instead to donate them to friends and to charitable organisations.

Viz Comic Do A "Giles" Christmas Calendar... Except It's "Piles" — Giles Annual #33 cover from 1979

Giles cartoons are still collected and published in annual Giles cartoon collections, with a new one just out, and have featured forwards from the likes of Margot Fonteyn, Adam Faith, Spike Milligan, Sir Malcolm Sargent, Jim Clark, Sean Connery, Frank Sinatra and Tommy Cooper.

In 2000, he was voted 'Britain's Favourite Cartoonist of the 20th Century' by visitors to The Cartoon Museum. A bronze statue depicting Giles's character Grandma was placed in Ipswich, in 1993. She stands looking up at the window of the office where Giles used to work. Giles was also the model for Red Sofia's mother in Dave Sim's Cerebus.

And now? Viz Comics… Viz #341 is in all good newsagents now, and probably a fair few bad ones as well. With Drunken Bakers, Mrs Brady Old Lady, Dickie, Mr Logic, Eight Ace, Fat Slags, The Male Online, The Real Ale Twats, The Broon Windsors, Sid The Sexist, Major Misunderstanding, Fru T Bunn, The Master Baker and more…