Modern Toss distil the world to scratchy pics and swearing
Word
s by Kendall
Illustrations By Modern Toss www.moderntoss.com
Click here to WIN a limited edition print and DVD
One-liners in comedy are dying out. With the exception of Jimmy Carr and Tim Vine, most people have turned their back on them. Modern Toss, however, are masters of the economic wordplay. Many of their jokes have less than a dozen words in them, and at least one of those will be swearing.
Subtitled ‘The stink of excellence in a world gone tits up’, their comics have the brusque frustration that today’s world seems to encourage, quickly scratched onto the page with crude pencil drawings. Most famously Mr Tourette, ‘Master Signwriter’, refuses to listen to his customers, instead spelling out the most offensive signs possible, before demanding that he still wants paying. The hordes of people that they find queuing for Customer Services complain about everything from the kitchen they bought giving them manic depression to the DVD player they stole meaning they were sexually abused in prison. Although they’re quick-fire jokes, frequently based around being as offensive as possible, they are pinned down by a certain truth. Customer Services sees how quick people are to complain about anything these days, refusing to take responsibility for anything, while Mr Tourette refuses to bend to anyone and give them what they want. Are the makers like that in real life?
“I suppose so, yeah,” says the London half of the duo, Mick Bunnage. “I guess it is a bit like our real life. But I think it’s more how we’d like things to be.”
“Maybe Modern Toss is what we think everyone else is like,” adds Jon Link, who makes his contributions from his Brighton studio. “That what we think the world is like. In a world that’s gone tits up? Yeah, that’s our view on it all. It has though, hasn’t it? Not in a big way – it’s more the little things that have gone tits up.”
The pair first got together when they worked on Loaded which, it’s worth remembering, was an excellent, groundbreaking magazine when it first appeared over a decade ago. Journalist Mick – a jovial bloke who never seems to stop laughing – says that he was drawn to designer Jon as “he’s just a bit mental”.
“He really gets stuck into it,” he says of the Brighton dweller. “He takes the mentalness quite seriously. A lot of people come up with some stupid ideas and then forget about them but he’s the sort of person that insists on taking it to the next level.”
In Getting Away With It, his memoir of his time at the magazine, Loaded deputy editor Tim Southwell’s describes Jon as “suggester of unhinged ideas”, recalling a meeting where he “helpfully proposes we set fire to ourselves”. Mick meanwhile is compared to Lee Marvin on a tea break, with a world dogged by the absurd. Not much seems to have changed.
The clever use of language is a direct link to Loaded and their ‘Office Pest’ strip, but the mag was responsible for Modern Toss in another way. The comic came to fruition out of desperation.
“Our jobs were falling apart,” Jon says. “Loaded was a bit of a laugh until it got too serious.”
About four years ago they decided to bring a comic out. They’d been doing cartoons but no one had been able to publish them because there was just too much swearing in them.
“But that was what was making us laugh, so we thought we’d better publish them ourselves,” Jon explains.
Dave’s Comics took the first ever batch. They sold out that weekend.
Though both come up with the ideas and do the words and the drawing, the spread of work isn’t split between the different strands which draw on their personalities. While it’s tempting to think that the Guardian-syndicated Home Clubber is Mick staying in and scaring visitors, and the wantonly destructive Alan is a side of Jon, Mick says that’s not how it works.
“It’s not as clear-cut as that, we draw on anything really,” he says. “I suppose that Jon’s a bit like Mr Tourette sometimes. There’s strong elements of him. I think everyone has got a bit of a Drive-By Abuser in them. And that’s it – we just draw on what everybody feels.”
Jon’s frustration at work could have easily informed the new book collecting that strand though. Frequently based around meetings with the boss, aggressive employees get to put the boot in. ‘So did you have a nice Christmas?’ asks the manager in one. ‘Yeah, I just popped in to tell you to fuck your job’ is the swift response.
“I did throw a plant at someone at work once,” Jon recalls. “I was trying to work and someone flicked an elastic band at my head. It stopped it though. It’s a good tip – if you ever need get your colleagues under control get a big rubber plant in a bucket. Not too big that you can’t get it over the partition though.”
Things have moved on from comic to books, and now a TV show for Channel 4. Though the original set-up for the paper version was one liners – surely the most difficult way to fill up half an hour every week – the transition has been smooth.
“The ideas developed,” says Mick. “Tourette is just a bloke who likes to write insulting signs, so to write an episode you have to write a bit of a story for him. Our natural way is to knock out a joke and then forget about it so it is a bit of a challenge to write a story. But it means that you can get loads of jokes in instead of one. And you can get a bit more surreal too.”
You might think that the swearing would be a problem, but the pair claim that Channel 4 love it and actually tell them to put more in.
“I think that’s what they first picked up on,” reckons Mick, “I think that’s what everyone first picks up on.”
“Channel 4 have been fine about it,” confirms Jon. “The only rule is that we can only have one cunt per show, and it has to be signed off by the head of the channel. There’s a lot of paperwork to it so the rule is probably more about that than offending people.”
“On TV we have to ration ourselves with the cunt-o-meter,” adds Mick, “that’s the way we treat it. We make sure we always get one in though.”
There’s no such worry in the comic though, with the so-called c-word littered throughout. But that’s not to say that it’s not all considered. Mick’s background comes into play with every word counting.
“It’s all thought out,” he says, “especially with really small cartoons with only four words. It’s important whether you have a ‘fuck’ in there. As a journalist I’m really conscious of getting the maximum effect for the minimum words.”
As well as the TV series Jon is looking to get at a new project that is directly influenced by our city and its some of its free media.
“I like the funny little magazines in Brighton, he says. “You know those ones that have pictures from people at launches and stuff. I’m thinking about bringing out a little free magazine next year full of local celebrities drinking champagne. It’s going to be called Brighton’s Biggest Cunts.”
“Doing Modern Toss helps us, it calms us down,” concludes Mick. “Hopefully it calms everybody else down too.”
In a world that’s gone tits up, it probably does.
Work and the Modern Toss DVD are out now
To win a limited edition print and one of three copies of the DVD just answer this question:
Which magazine did the Modern Toss guys work on?
Email your answer, name, age (or 18s only) and phone number to: competitions@brightonsource.co.uk with the title ‘tosscomp’.
Competition closes on 29th February.
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