Jack Black (Viz)
Encyclopedia
Jack Black is a character appearing in the adult Viz
comic. The cartoons in which he appears are currently drawn by Simon Ecob.
Jack is effectively a young amateur
detective
who along with his dog Silver seems to spend an eternal school holiday staying with his Aunt Meg in an ever changing idyllic middle England
location. The time period ranges from anywhere between the early 1930s/40s to the present day.
Both the drawn style of the strip as well as the character are a parody of the Boys' Own
style character who is wholesome but ultimately fascistic in beliefs and actions. There is more than a hint of Enid Blyton
in the Jack Black character and the strip parodies the alleged middle class snobbery and 'outraged' and sometimes hypocritical content of right wing British media such as the Daily Mail
and Express
. However, the strip also has occasional parodies of Asterix
and The Adventures of Tintin
in both name ('Jack Blacksterix' and 'Jacjac and his Dog Silvery'), plot, and drawing style. A recent Viz edition featured a Jack Black story in a manga
style, where Silver was renamed 'Silvachu' (a parody of the Pokémon
character Pikachu
) and the action was moved to Tokyo. This may have been a play on words inspired by John Osborne's "Look back in anger
", as the headline upon the front cover read "Look! Black in Manga!".
A typical strip begins with Jack visiting Aunt Meg in a new location and assisting her with her latest business or project, usually involving something illegal or immoral such as prostitutes or drug dealing. Someone causes trouble for them or annoys Jack in some way, leading him to investigate. The "villains" whom Jack investigates are occasionally genuine criminals, but more often well-meaning, inoffensive people who happen to have outraged his far right sense of propriety. Jack usually ends up finding out that what the suspect has done is technically not illegal, but still succeeds in getting the miscreants involved arrested on trivial charges and severely punished, often at the savage hands of the community - his exploits making a mockery of British Justice
. For instance, when someone tried to sell a tactical nuclear missile to the IRA
the village policeman pointed out that the man was a licensed arms dealer. Jack then had the arms dealer arrested for having an expired tax disc on the car he was carrying the missile in. In most cases the whole village is utterly corrupt and the 'villain' represents some form of rationality and normality to the reader.
Jack, however, is not always successful despite his best efforts. In the May 2008 issue, Jack discovered that a local shopkeeper had devised an elaborate scheme to steal all the townspeople's toilet paper. This forced them to wipe themselves on the cardboard roll, causing haemorrhoids which led them to buy vast amounts of rubber cushions from his shop. However, in a departure from the other comics, PC Brown tells Jack that technically the suspect has done nothing illegal, and has to let him go. He is then seen in a pub with Jack who is drowning his sorrows, but Brown points out that Jack can't win every time, and vows they will catch the man and "bust his ass" as soon as he slips up.
Other examples of Jack's adventures include:
Jack's Nazism has been referred to more than once. He has been seen in one episode to be working on a school homework project entitled 'The Myth of the Holocaust
'; whilst in another he is seen leading a sing song round a piano of the Nazism anthem 'Tomorrow Belongs to Me'. Indeed, in the Christmas 1994 issue (no69) he witnesses a Luftwaffe
plane crash and wants to cut out the dead pilot's teeth as souvenirs. However, the pilot survives and they take him back to his Aunt Meg's so she can hang him in the back garden. The two quickly bond and the pilot reads Mein Kampf
to Jack before bed which convinces him to turn on his Aunt and fly back to Germany
and dine with the Führer himself. The Christmas 2007 issue, in which Aunt Meg owns an impressive personal collection of Nazi memorabilia, suggests that she may share his political allegiance.
Viz (comic)
Viz is a popular British comic magazine which has been running since 1979.The comic's style parodies British comics of the post-war period, notably The Beano and The Dandy, but with incongruous language, crude toilet humour, black comedy, surreal humour and either sexual or violent storylines...
comic. The cartoons in which he appears are currently drawn by Simon Ecob.
Jack is effectively a young amateur
Amateur
An amateur is generally considered a person attached to a particular pursuit, study, or science, without pay and often without formal training....
detective
Detective
A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes"...
who along with his dog Silver seems to spend an eternal school holiday staying with his Aunt Meg in an ever changing idyllic middle England
Middle England
The phrase "Middle England" is a socio-political and geographical term which originally indicated the central region of England, now almost always referred to as the "Midlands"....
location. The time period ranges from anywhere between the early 1930s/40s to the present day.
Both the drawn style of the strip as well as the character are a parody of the Boys' Own
Boys' Own
Boys' Own or Boy's Own or Boys Own, is the title of a varying series of similarly titled magazines, story papers, and newsletters published at various times and by various publishers, in the UK and the U.S., from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century, for pre-teen and teenage...
style character who is wholesome but ultimately fascistic in beliefs and actions. There is more than a hint of Enid Blyton
Enid Blyton
Enid Blyton was an English children's writer also known as Mary Pollock.Noted for numerous series of books based on recurring characters and designed for different age groups,her books have enjoyed huge success in many parts of the world, and have sold over 600 million copies.One of Blyton's most...
in the Jack Black character and the strip parodies the alleged middle class snobbery and 'outraged' and sometimes hypocritical content of right wing British media such as the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
and Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
. However, the strip also has occasional parodies of Asterix
Asterix
Asterix or The Adventures of Asterix is a series of French comic books written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo . The series first appeared in French in the magazine Pilote on October 29, 1959...
and The Adventures of Tintin
The Adventures of Tintin
The Adventures of Tintin is a series of classic comic books created by Belgian artist , who wrote under the pen name of Hergé...
in both name ('Jack Blacksterix' and 'Jacjac and his Dog Silvery'), plot, and drawing style. A recent Viz edition featured a Jack Black story in a manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
style, where Silver was renamed 'Silvachu' (a parody of the Pokémon
Pokémon
is a media franchise published and owned by the video game company Nintendo and created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996. Originally released as a pair of interlinkable Game Boy role-playing video games developed by Game Freak, Pokémon has since become the second most successful and lucrative video...
character Pikachu
Pikachu
is one of the species of Pokémon creatures from the Pokémon media franchise—a collection of video games, anime, manga, books, trading cards, and other media created by Satoshi Tajiri. As do all Pokémon, Pikachu fight other Pokémon in battles central to the anime, manga, and games of the series...
) and the action was moved to Tokyo. This may have been a play on words inspired by John Osborne's "Look back in anger
Look Back in Anger
Look Back in Anger is a John Osborne play—made into films in 1959, 1980, and 1989 -- about a love triangle involving an intelligent but disaffected young man , his upper-middle-class, impassive wife , and her haughty best friend . Cliff, an amiable Welsh lodger, attempts to keep the peace...
", as the headline upon the front cover read "Look! Black in Manga!".
A typical strip begins with Jack visiting Aunt Meg in a new location and assisting her with her latest business or project, usually involving something illegal or immoral such as prostitutes or drug dealing. Someone causes trouble for them or annoys Jack in some way, leading him to investigate. The "villains" whom Jack investigates are occasionally genuine criminals, but more often well-meaning, inoffensive people who happen to have outraged his far right sense of propriety. Jack usually ends up finding out that what the suspect has done is technically not illegal, but still succeeds in getting the miscreants involved arrested on trivial charges and severely punished, often at the savage hands of the community - his exploits making a mockery of British Justice
Justice
Justice is a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics; justice is the act of being just and/or fair.-Concept of justice:...
. For instance, when someone tried to sell a tactical nuclear missile to the IRA
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...
the village policeman pointed out that the man was a licensed arms dealer. Jack then had the arms dealer arrested for having an expired tax disc on the car he was carrying the missile in. In most cases the whole village is utterly corrupt and the 'villain' represents some form of rationality and normality to the reader.
Jack, however, is not always successful despite his best efforts. In the May 2008 issue, Jack discovered that a local shopkeeper had devised an elaborate scheme to steal all the townspeople's toilet paper. This forced them to wipe themselves on the cardboard roll, causing haemorrhoids which led them to buy vast amounts of rubber cushions from his shop. However, in a departure from the other comics, PC Brown tells Jack that technically the suspect has done nothing illegal, and has to let him go. He is then seen in a pub with Jack who is drowning his sorrows, but Brown points out that Jack can't win every time, and vows they will catch the man and "bust his ass" as soon as he slips up.
Other examples of Jack's adventures include:
- Uncovering a milk hoarding scam involving asylum seekers.
- Exhuming a deceased man's corpse so that he can prove that his child was conceived out of wedlock. (This episode decries sex before marriage as sinful, and has the man's widow ostracised by her parish priest and community on Easter Sunday - in contradiction to other episodes, where prostitution or teenage sex are the basis of Aunt Meg's business.)
- Teaming up with a paedophile priest to frame a teacher as a paedophile, because the man is teaching safe sexSafe sexSafe sex is sexual activity engaged in by people who have taken precautions to protect themselves against sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS. It is also referred to as safer sex or protected sex, while unsafe or unprotected sex is sexual activity engaged in without precautions...
to teenagers and this is supposedly blasphemous. The teacher is lynched by a mob, and Jack then assists his Aunt in performing illegal abortionAbortionAbortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
s.
- Getting a charity worker arrested for holding a charity sale on a Sunday and having his guide dog destroyed.
- Capturing a downed GermanGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
fighter pilot and, disappointed at his Aunt's refusal to let him kick the German pilot "In the guts till his arse bleeds", defecting to become a Nazi supporter.
- Getting his own aunt arrested for letting himself and his dog sing while she was playing piano without holding an entertainment licence.
- Having a professor stripped naked, tarred and covered with old hair clippings before being paraded around in a cart for an hour while Jack and the community burn down the local museum because the professor believed in evolutionEvolutionEvolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
and not creationismCreationismCreationism is the religious beliefthat humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being, most often referring to the Abrahamic god. As science developed from the 18th century onwards, various views developed which aimed to reconcile science with the Genesis...
.
- Uncovering an Al-QaedaAl-QaedaAl-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
cell after finding out that their vegetarian leader reads The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
newspaper and not the Daily MailDaily MailThe Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
.
- Using an obscure tax law to have a soup kitchenSoup kitchenA soup kitchen, a bread line, or a meal center is a place where food is offered to the hungry for free or at a reasonably low price. Frequently located in lower-income neighborhoods, they are often staffed by volunteer organizations, such as church groups or community groups...
for the homeless closed down at ChristmasChristmasChristmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
as it is, in the words of the local vicar, 'rather ruining the Christmas atmos'.(sic)
- Discovering a working class council estate in his aunt's idyllic village, and inducing its inhabitants to "move on" by closing down the local Co-Op store (thus removing their supply of cheap lagerLagerLager is a type of beer made from malted barley that is brewed and stored at low temperatures. There are many types of lager; pale lager is the most widely-consumed and commercially available style of beer in the world; Pilsner, Bock, Dortmunder Export and Märzen are all styles of lager...
and cigarettes). Jack achieved this by tricking the store's owner into selling lotteryLotteryA lottery is a form of gambling which involves the drawing of lots for a prize.Lottery is outlawed by some governments, while others endorse it to the extent of organizing a national or state lottery. It is common to find some degree of regulation of lottery by governments...
tickets to underage minors.
- Having an impoverished war hero (who has been forced to sell all of his medals to pay the VATVatVat or VAT may refer to:* A type of container such as a barrel, storage tank, or tub, often constructed of welded sheet stainless steel, and used for holding, storing, and processing liquids such as milk, wine, and beer...
on his heating bills) arrested for copyright fraud (to wit, making photocopies of newspaper articles for his scrapbook).
- Discovering that the "chocolate cake" donated by an elderly lady to a church fayre contains less than the minimum chocolate content specified by EuropeEuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an law, and should therefore have been called a "chocolate flavoured cake". The old lady is put in a pilloryPilloryThe pillory was a device made of a wooden or metal framework erected on a post, with holes for securing the head and hands, formerly used for punishment by public humiliation and often further physical abuse, sometimes lethal...
and pelted with Jack's aunt's rock cakes (which she comments she had fortunately overcooked), while onlookers shout obscenities. The local vicar yells "Take that, you cheating bitch!" before hurling a cake at the poor old woman.
- Uncovering an elaborate plot to steal books from the public libraryPublic libraryA public library is a library that is accessible by the public and is generally funded from public sources and operated by civil servants. There are five fundamental characteristics shared by public libraries...
(by means of a tunnel drilled through several hundred feet of cliff) and sell them at a bookstall on the beach.
- Discovering that a "dancing bear" exhibited in a travelling carnival is really Adolf HitlerAdolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
in disguise. With the 'bear' gone, Jack then dressed the hapless Silver in a tutu and forced the dog to dance at the end of a whip.
- Framing the owner of the local video rental shop by planting home made hardcore pornographyPornographyPornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
amongst his stock after discovering that the shopkeeper was feeding Paula RadcliffePaula RadcliffePaula Jane Radcliffe, MBE is an English long-distance runner. She is the current women's world record holder in the marathon with her time of 2:15:25 hours...
laxatives and then sending her to defecate in the garden of his aunt's brothelBrothelBrothels are business establishments where patrons can engage in sexual activities with prostitutes. Brothels are known under a variety of names, including bordello, cathouse, knocking shop, whorehouse, strumpet house, sporting house, house of ill repute, house of prostitution, and bawdy house...
in order to drive her customers away from the brothel and ease their sexual frustrations by buying the softcore pornography he had to offer.
- Upon discovering that Pete DohertyPete DohertyPeter Doherty is an English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist. He is best known musically for being co-frontman of The Libertines, which he reformed with Carl Barât in 2010. His other musical project is indie band Babyshambles...
has moved into the area and then wondering why Meg's drug dealing business had not improved considerably, Jack and Silver investigate and find that the boat keeper in the local park is a rival dealer who is supplying Doherty's needs by way of an elaborate scheme involving the park pedal boats, a submarine and a fog machine. Jack and PC Brown then kill the rival dealer and beat up Doherty.
- Discovering that a carol singer, who has used his earnings to buy Christmas presents for a local orphanageOrphanageAn orphanage is a residential institution devoted to the care of orphans – children whose parents are deceased or otherwise unable or unwilling to care for them...
, has violated Sunday trading laws. (Both he and the orphans are arrested at gunpoint on Christmas morning, while Jack gets to keep all the presents himself.)
- Befriending an elderly lady whose only companion is a goldfishGoldfishThe goldfish is a freshwater fish in the family Cyprinidae of order Cypriniformes. It was one of the earliest fish to be domesticated, and is one of the most commonly kept aquarium fish....
, then having her thrown out of her retirement flat for keeping a pet without written permission. The goldfish is summararily executed by one of the local policemen stamping on him.
- On finding out Meg (who is a member of the local Council) will have to return a brand-new car and a large amount of money that she received as a backhander to allow a toxic waste dump to be built next to a school as the vote will not be unanimous, Jack breaks into the car of the only councillor who has voted against the proposed dump. He then promptly has the man arrested and thrown in prison for not declaring an interest in the issue; his daughter was a pupil at the school. Jack is too young to vote for the proposal, so Silver (who is three years old and therefore 21 in dog years) is appointed as a replacement council member instead to vote on Jack's behalf.
- Exposing a Japanese SumoSumois a competitive full-contact sport where a wrestler attempts to force another wrestler out of a circular ring or to touch the ground with anything other than the soles of the feet. The sport originated in Japan, the only country where it is practiced professionally...
wrestler of selling GeishaGeisha, Geiko or Geigi are traditional, female Japanese entertainers whose skills include performing various Japanese arts such as classical music and dance.-Terms:...
s to England for their skill in performing the tea ceremony.
- In an attempt to earn money to fund his new animal snaring hobby, Jack attempts to get work as a fruit picker with the local farmer, but upon learning that the wage is only 30p an hour, gets suspicious of a group of gentlemen who are more than happy with the measly wage. Convinced they are foreign, Jack arranges for a cricket match between the fruit pickers and the local police, noting that if they attempt to cheat they cannot possibly be British (more specifically English). During the game, one of the fruit pickers correctly questions a play with the umpire (Jack and PC Brown had purposely arranged this wrongful play) and Jack calls for the men to be arrested (he has rumbled them as no Englishman would ever question the decision of the umpire), to which the fruit pickers attempt to flee (for they are actually members of an East European acting troupe who recently vanished). As the East Europeans are taken away, the farmer points out that with no one to pick it, his fruit will rot. Jack happily responds that he would rather it rot than be picked by a foreigner. This story was purportedly "sponsored" by the Daily ExpressDaily ExpressThe Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
.
- Getting a butcher's store closed down because the butcher is having sex with his meat products. This is supposedly done by all butchers, but the one in question was risking cross contamination by having sex with raw meat and then cooked meat afterwards.
- Discovering that Hugh HefnerHugh HefnerHugh Marston "Hef" Hefner is an American magazine publisher, founder and Chief Creative Officer of Playboy Enterprises.-Early life:...
has been posing as the "Phantom of the Fens", a masked highwaymanHighwaymanA highwayman was a thief and brigand who preyed on travellers. This type of outlaw, usually, travelled and robbed by horse, as compared to a footpad who traveled and robbed on foot. Mounted robbers were widely considered to be socially superior to footpads...
who regularly holds up Aunt Meg in order to steal the supplies of laboratory rabbits that her farm provides for vivisectionVivisectionVivisection is defined as surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure...
purposes. Hefner has killed all the rabbits to use their ears and tails in the costumes for his army of Playboy BunnyPlayboy BunnyA Playboy Bunny is a waitress at the Playboy Club. The Playboy Clubs were originally open from 1960 to 1988. The Club re-opened in one location in The Palms Hotel in Las Vegas in 2006...
girls. He is arrested, while the "bunny girls" are sent off to a factory for experimentation because Meg has no more rabbits left.
- When Aunt Meg is not allowed to sell her Nazi memorabilia at the local market because all stallholders must be of German origin, Jack becomes increasingly suspicious of a kindly old toymaker who does not look physically perfect enough to belong to the "Master raceMaster raceMaster race was a phrase and concept originating in the slave-holding Southern US. The later phrase Herrenvolk , interpreted as 'master race', was a concept in Nazi ideology in which the Nordic peoples, one of the branches of what in the late-19th and early-20th century was called the Aryan race,...
". He discovers the man was born in OlbernhauOlbernhauOlbernhau is a town in the district Erzgebirgskreis, in the Free State of Saxony, Germany. It is situated in the Ore Mountains, 35 km southeast of Chemnitz, and 23 km north of Chomutov, Czech Republic.- History :...
, which did not actually come under German control until ratified under the Treaty of VersaillesTreaty of VersaillesThe Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
on June 19, 1919 - a day after the man was born on June 18, when Olbernhau was still part of the former Austria-HungaryAustria-HungaryAustria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
. The toymaker is deported and his German dachshundDachshundThe dachshund is a short-legged, long-bodied dog breed belonging to the hound family. The standard size dachshund was bred to scent, chase, and flush out badgers and other burrow-dwelling animals, while the miniature dachshund was developed to hunt smaller prey such as rabbits...
dog destroyed, and the townspeople celebrate by burning the toys that he had charitably given to local orphans.
- Exposing a greengrocer's plot to undercut the nearby supermarket's prices by way of a scheme involving electromagnetics and robot "children".
- Relocating the action to the Canadian RockiesCanadian RockiesThe Canadian Rockies comprise the Canadian segment of the North American Rocky Mountains range. They are the eastern part of the Canadian Cordillera, extending from the Interior Plains of Alberta to the Rocky Mountain Trench of British Columbia. The southern end borders Idaho and Montana of the USA...
, Jack and Aunt Meg are happily shooting defenseless animals in the forest and mounting their heads on the wall when Mountie Brown warns the two of a giant bear walking the woods that appears to be impervious to gunfire which caused him to foul himself, he was so scared. When Mountie Brown leaves to go to his grandmother's launderette to clean his soiled clothes, Jack and Aunt Meg go after the bear themselves. They find the bear which is also unharmed by their bullets and approaches the two causing them to shit themselves in fear before backing off. Going to the launderette, Jack and Aunt Meg find some washing machines out of order and a lot of demand for the machine from other hunters suffering the same humiliation as Jack and the others. Doing some investigating, Jack discovers that the bear is actually a robot run by Mountie Brown's grandma from the parts from the broken washing machines (the evidence being that the bear tracks led to a bingo hall, community centreCommunity centreCommunity centres or community centers or jumping recreation centers are public locations where members of a community tend to gather for group activities, social support, public information, and other purposes. They may sometimes be open for the whole community or for a specialised group within...
and a wool shop meaning an old woman had to be involved) who was using the scam to drum up business for her launderette. Mountie Brown is unable to arrest her due to her being 93, so instead he just shoots her and mounts her head on Jack's wall.
- In one adventure, Jack becomes determined to find out why a youth club leader has been turning over all the local drug dealers to the police. He discovers that this has led the kids at the youth club to fight over the available drugs, causing an increase in knife crime and more business for the village knife grinder (who is actually the youth club leader's wife in disguise.) The two escape on a motorbike but Jack throws a knife at them, which results in them crashing into a fuel depot and the depot exploding. Meg, the village magistrate, sentences their corpses to be posthumously locked up and pilloried in the village stocks.
- While performing an errand for Aunt Meg, Jack and Silver pass the mansion of Sir Fred Goodwin and they meet both Sir Fred and his cleaner who is paid only the minimum wage and yet is clearly overworked by him. Sir Fred complains to Jack about her performance at the job ("I know I oversaw the loss of 241 Billion, the biggest loss in UK Corporate history but she hasn't even cleaned under the wheel arches. I mean, come on!") and even took three days off sick with full pay. Jack helpfully suggests he sack her and hire someone else Sir Fred tells Jack he can't because he'd have to give her a redundancy package. Jack decides to investigate, and while bumping into her at the shops peeks inside her bag and then checks out her records at the local medical centre. The next day Jack arrives at Sir Fred's house along with an officer for the Inland RevenueInland RevenueThe Inland Revenue was, until April 2005, a department of the British Government responsible for the collection of direct taxation, including income tax, national insurance contributions, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, corporation tax, petroleum revenue tax and stamp duty...
. Jack reveals that the cleaner didn't actually take three days off as she was ill but actually took the days off to have a baby (which she has been hiding in her bag). As a result, she was only entitled to maternity pay instead of the sick pay and therefore defrauded Sir Fred of £40. Sir Fred is given the money back by Inland Revenue, the cleaner is arrested for serious benefit fraudBenefit fraudBenefit fraud is a form of welfare fraud as found within the system of government benefits paid to individuals by the UK welfare state.- What is benefit fraud? :...
and her baby is taken into care. That night, Sir Fred and Jack celebrate righting the wrong by having a night around the fire which is fuelled by wads of twenty pound notes.
- A spate of toilet paper thefts has been forcing the villagers, including Aunt Meg, to wipe their backsides with the cardboard tubes in the rolls, causing a mass outbreak of haemmorroids, and allowing the local mechanic to make a huge profit off inner tubes which he sells to the afflicted locals. Jack discovers that a famous surgeon has been using a surgical robot to enter people's houses via the sewers and drag all their toilet paper into the toilet bowl, thus rendering it useless, and has been sharing the profits with the mechanic. As per usual, the village policeman informs Jack that what they've done isn't actually illegal, since no-one would ever be prosecuted for stealing toilet paper and the surgeon wasn't guilty of breaking and entering. This time however, Jack can't find any minor crime to pin on the mechanic and the surgeon, meaning that they escape unpunished. Jack and the policeman then go to drown their sorrows at the local pub, vowing to bring them to justice some day.
Jack's Nazism has been referred to more than once. He has been seen in one episode to be working on a school homework project entitled 'The Myth of the Holocaust
Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...
'; whilst in another he is seen leading a sing song round a piano of the Nazism anthem 'Tomorrow Belongs to Me'. Indeed, in the Christmas 1994 issue (no69) he witnesses a Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
plane crash and wants to cut out the dead pilot's teeth as souvenirs. However, the pilot survives and they take him back to his Aunt Meg's so she can hang him in the back garden. The two quickly bond and the pilot reads Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...
to Jack before bed which convinces him to turn on his Aunt and fly back to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and dine with the Führer himself. The Christmas 2007 issue, in which Aunt Meg owns an impressive personal collection of Nazi memorabilia, suggests that she may share his political allegiance.