Biff (cartoon)


Biff 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 The Guardian 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 Viz, fRoots and since 2001 in the magazine of the Rough Guides.
The cartoons are notable for their absurd, ironic, satirical and metafictional edge.

History

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 and Mick Kidd is responsible for the text. Kidd lives in London and Garratt in the Scilly Isles. They have created their strips and other artwork over the last 30 years by means of phone, post, email and occasional meetings.
In 2007 Chris Garratt introduced a retrospective of Biff work in these terms:
They are still working and contribute to BBC History magazines with ‘A Biff History of Exploration’ and ‘A Biff History of The Media’, People Management with ‘Human Resources’, Latest Art with ‘Biff Art’ and Rough News with ‘The 6 Ages of Travel’.

Books

  • The Essential Biff by Chris Garratt and Mick Kidd, Pavement Press, 1982
  • The Rainy Day Biff by Chris Garratt and Mick Kidd, Pavement Press, 1983
  • Desert Island Biff by Chris Garratt and Mick Kidd, Corgi, 1985
  • Sincerely Yours, Biff by Chris Garratt and Mick Kidd, Corgi, 1986
  • File Under Biff by Chris Garratt and Mick Kidd, Mandarin, 1988
  • Faxes From Biff by Chris Garratt and Mick Kidd, Mandarin, 1990
  • Best of Biff by Chris Garratt and Mick Kidd, Impact Books, 1990
  • Life on the Floor and Other Mattresses by Chris Garratt and Mick Kidd, Impact Books, 1993
  • How to be a Genius by Chris Garratt, Mick Kidd and David Stafford, Methuen Books, 1994
  • Biff: The Missing Years by Chris Garratt and Mick Kidd, Icon Books, 1996