Viz (comics) and Christina Martin. Many "Viz" characters have featured in long-running strips, becoming well-known in their own right, including spin-off cartoons. Characters often have rhyming or humorous taglines, such as Roger Mellie, the Man on the Telly; Nobby's Piles; Johnny Fartpants; Buster Gonad; Sid the Sexist; Sweary Mary or Finbarr Saunders and his Double Entendres. Others are based on stereotypes of British culture, mostly via working class characters, such as Biffa Bacon, Cockney Wanker and The Fat Slags. In addition to this, the comic also contains plenty of 'in jokes' referring to people and places in and around Newcastle upon Tyne.
Nero (comic book character) Nero is an anti hero. He is a complex character with many good character traits, but also many human fallities. He is sometimes stupid, lazy, naïve, egotistical and vain, but in other situations he proves himself to be clever, friendly, determined and melancholic. When Marc Sleen started a comic strip series in 1947 for "De Nieuwe Gids" Detective Van Zwam was originally the central character, therefore naming the series after him. In the very first story, "Het Geheim van Matsuoka" ("Matsuoka's Secret") (1947) Nero made his debut. Van Zwam meets him while trying to solve a case, yet Nero is