Brilliant prize to mark comic's 25th birthday

Viz magazine is celebrating its 25th birthday – and to celebrate we have a limited edition print of original cover artwork to give away.

The drawing, estimated to be worth £3,000, comes from the cover of the August 2004 and parodies Britain’s Olympic hopes. Click here for a bigger version.

Viz was set up by teenagers brothers Chris and Simon Donald and their friend Jim Brownlow from a Newcastle bedroom in 1979. But from such inauspicious beginnings – the first print run was just 150 copies – Viz became a publishing phenomenon.

Its combination of rude comic strips, appalling gags and liberal swearing appealed proved phenomenally successful, and characters like the Fat Slags, Roger Mellie and Sid the Sexist became comic icons.

Viz is still going strong, selling 138,000 copies a month – with the 25th anniversary issue - published by Dennis on October 28 - expected to boost that considerably.

Other events to mark the silver jubilee include a gala night of comedy to be broadcast on TV, an occasionally touring live show about the phenomena by Simon Donald and Alex Collier and a couple of books.

The glossiest of them, 25 Years Of Viz: Silver Plated Jubilee is a lavishly-illustrated collection of those rare early strips, as well as a detailed history of the magazine written by comedy journalist William Cook. Click here to buy it, at an £8 discount, from Amazon.co.uk

Here’s how you can win the limited edition artwork from the cover of issue 137 – the sort of piece that very rarely goes on sale.

In addition, we have 20 Viz mugs to give away as runners-up prizes.

To entert, just answer the following three questions by November 8, when we will select the winner from all the correct answers received.

Good luck!.

>> To go to the official Viz homepage

Published: 20 Oct 2004