Student Grant | |
---|---|
Publication information | |
Publisher | Viz |
First appearance | 1992 |
Created by | Simon Thorp |
In-story information | |
Notable aliases | Grant Wankshaft |
Student Grant is a cartoon strip created by Simon Thorp for the British comic Viz . [1] Grant first appeared in 1992 and became popular, featuring regularly for the rest of the decade. The character is a university student named Grant Wankshaft, attending the fictional Spunkbridge University, one of the former polytechnics which became universities in 1992. Grant is pretentious, lazy, [2] smug and conceited, and peppers his speech with the word "actually". [3] He does little or no work for his degree.
Grant vainly thinks of himself as a world-wise liberal intellectual, but is frequently shown as bigoted, not especially bright, and reliant on his parents for support, with little idea about the world outside of campus. He spends money freely but begrudges paying full price for anything because, as he constantly notes "students are really feeling the pinch". He has a number of friends just like him, eager to express their individuality by wearing the same clothes, following invariably ridiculous fashions such as huge hats, bright yellow dungarees and T-shirts with slogans on them like Thunderbirds Are Go! and, in the late 1990s especially, Teletubbies Say 'Eh Oh'! . They are opinionated and talk loudly and ignorantly about various subjects, "proving" their intelligence by listing the grades they got in their A-levels. Several of Grant's collegiate friends have bizarre speech impediments, dental deformities or both. All the female students have the same forename (Hilary) and dress identically.
Grant boasts that he is in the "top 15-to-35 percent of the population", and likes to think of himself as in touch with the working classes but is utterly middle class and possesses a latent contempt for non-students in general, regarding himself and his friends as their superiors. This has resulted in a number of savage beatings over the years.
Viz is a British adult comic magazine founded in 1979 by Chris Donald. It parodies British comics of the post-war period, notably The Beano and The Dandy, but with extensive profanity, toilet humour, black comedy, surreal humour and generally sexual or violent storylines. It also sends up tabloid newspapers, with mockeries of articles and letters pages. It features parody competitions and advertisements for overpriced 'limited edition' tat, as well as obsessions with half-forgotten kitsch celebrities from the 1960s to the 1980s, such as Shakin' Stevens and Rodney Bewes. Occasionally, it satirises current affairs and politicians, but it has no particular political standpoint.
Dragon Ball is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Akira Toriyama. Originally serialized in Shueisha's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1984 to 1995, the 519 individual chapters were collected in 42 tankōbon volumes. Dragon Ball was inspired by the Chinese novel Journey to the West and Hong Kong martial arts films. It initially had a comedy focus but later became an action-packed fighting series. The story follows the adventures of Son Goku, from childhood to adulthood, as he trains in martial arts and explores the world in search of the Dragon Balls, seven magical orbs which summon a wish-granting dragon when gathered. Along his journey, Goku makes several friends and battles villains, many of whom also seek the Dragon Balls.
Sid the Sexist is a character from the British satirical comic Viz, first appearing in issue 9 in October 1982. The strip was created and mostly drawn by Simon Donald until he left the magazine in 2003, when Paul Palmer took over as artist.
Battle Royale is a Japanese dystopian horror novel by journalist Koushun Takami. Battle Royale is the first novel from Takami and was originally completed in 1996 but was not published until 1999. The story tells of junior high school students who are forced to fight each other to the death in a program run by a fictional, fascist, totalitarian Japanese government known as the Republic of Greater East Asia.
Christopher Joseph Isaak is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional actor. Noted for his reverb-laden rockabilly revivalist style and wide vocal range, he is popularly known for his breakthrough hit and signature song "Wicked Game"; as well as international hits such as "Blue Hotel", "Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing", and "Somebody's Crying".
John Bright was a British Radical and Liberal statesman, one of the greatest orators of his generation and a promoter of free trade policies.
David Linsay Willetts, Baron Willetts, is a British politician and life peer. From 1992 to 2015, he was the Member of Parliament representing the constituency of Havant in Hampshire. He served as Minister of State for Universities and Science from 2010 until July 2014 and became a member of the House of Lords in 2015. He was appointed chair of the UK Space Agency's board in April 2022. He is president of the Resolution Foundation.
Baby & Me is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Marimo Ragawa. It was published in Hakusensha's magazine Hana to Yume from 1991 to 1997. In North America, it was published by Viz Media. In 1995, Baby & Me received the 40th Shogakukan Manga Award in the shōjo category.
Napoleon Dynamite is a 2004 American independent coming-of-age teen comedy film produced by Jeremy Coon, Chris Wyatt, and Sean Covel, written by Jared and Jerusha Hess, and directed by Jared Hess. The film stars Jon Heder in the role of the titular character, a nerdy high-school student who deals with several dilemmas: befriending an immigrant who wants to be class president, awkwardly pursuing a romance with a fellow student, and living with his quirky family.
Chester William David Brown is a Canadian cartoonist. Brown has gone through several stylistic and thematic periods. He gained notice in alternative comics circles in the 1980s for the surreal, scatological Ed the Happy Clown serial. After bringing Ed to an abrupt end, he delved into confessional autobiographical comics in the early 1990s and was strongly associated with fellow Toronto-based cartoonists Joe Matt and Seth, and the autobiographical comics trend. Two graphic novels came from this period: The Playboy (1992) and I Never Liked You (1994). Surprise mainstream success in the 2000s came with Louis Riel (2003), a historical-biographical graphic novel about rebel Métis leader Louis Riel. Paying for It (2011) drew controversy as a polemic in support of decriminalizing prostitution, a theme he explored further with Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus (2016), a book of adaptations of stories from the Bible that Brown believes promote pro-prostitution attitudes among early Christians.
I"s is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masakazu Katsura. It follows Ichitaka Seto, a high school student who is in love with his classmate Iori Yoshizuki, but is too shy to tell her. Again and again he plans to tell her his true feelings, but each time something gets in the way. Things become even more complicated when Itsuki Akiba returns to Japan; she is a girl Ichitaka was friends with in their childhood before she moved to the United States, and who had a huge crush on him.
W Juliet is a shōjo romantic comedy manga series by Emura. It was published by Hakusensha in Hana to Yume between 1997 and 2002 and collected in 14 bound volumes. It is about the relationship between tomboy Ito Miura and the feminine Makoto Amano who share the common dream of becoming actors, as they work together to hide Makoto's secret identity as a boy. It is licensed in English by Viz Media. A sequel series, W Juliet II, is ongoing in The Hana to Yume, and collected in four volumes as of February 2015.
My Little Pony Tales is an American animated television series produced by Sunbow Productions and distributed by Graz Entertainment, with animation being produced by AKOM. The series, based on the My Little Pony toys by Hasbro, weekly aired for 26 episodes from August 2 to December 25, 1992 on The Disney Channel. The series was syndicated from 1993 to 1995. As of 2022, My Little Pony Tales has been released on DVD in Australia, Europe, and the United States.
Doubt!! is a Japanese shōjo manga series written and illustrated by Kaneyoshi Izumi. The story follows Ai Maekawa, a teenager who gives herself a total makeover during a school break in a bid to reinvent her image and become popular. It was serialized in Shogakukan's Bessatsu Shōjo Comic magazine from the March 2000 issue to the July 2002 issue. Shogakukan collected the individual chapters into six bound volumes under the Flower Comics imprint. Viz Media licensed the series for an English-language release in North America.
Beauty is the Beast is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tomo Matsumoto. It was serialized in Hakusensha's shōjo manga magazine LaLa from 2002 to 2004, with its chapters collected into five tankōbon volumes. Beauty is the Beast is licensed in English by Viz Media's Shojo Beat imprint.
Light Yagami is the main protagonist of the manga series Death Note, created by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. He is portrayed as a brilliant but bored genius who finds the Death Note, a supernatural notebook that allows the user to kill anyone by knowing their name and face, after it is dropped by the Shinigami Ryuk. Frustrated by the status quo and unfairness of the world, Light uses the Death Note to kill those whom he deems morally unworthy of life, masterminding a worldwide massacre as the vigilante Kira (キラ). Over the course of his efforts to create a world free of crime, wherein he would rule as a godlike figure, Light is pursued by law enforcement groups such as the NPA and a world-renowned detective named L.
The Gentlemen's Alliance Cross is a Japanese shōjo manga series written and illustrated by Arina Tanemura. The Gentlemen's Alliance Cross premiered in the September 2004 issue of Ribon, running until the June 2008 issue. The 47 chapters were collected and published in 11 tankōbon volumes by Shueisha. The series is licensed for English language release in North America by Viz Media which published the first volume on March 6, 2007. The eleventh and final volume was released in English in April 2010. In this fictional work, a 15-year-old student was sold by her father to another family.
Amnesia is a Japanese visual novel series by Idea Factory. It was first released in August 2011, for PlayStation Portable, and then a fan disc in Japan, Amnesia Later, was released in March 2012. Another sequel titled Amnesia Crowd was released in April 2013. They were later combined for a PlayStation Vita release titled "Amnesia Later x Crowd V Edition" in October 2014. A Nintendo Switch port of Amnesia: Memories and Amnesia: Later×Crowd was globally released on September 20, 2022. Due to its positive reception in Japan, it produced various related merchandise such as drama CDs, character music CDs and books. A 2013 anime television series has been produced by Brain's Base.
Bright Blue is an independent centre-right think tank and pressure group with a mission statement of defending and improving liberal society, based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 2014 by British thinker Ryan Shorthouse, Bright Blue aims to "defend and champion liberal, open, democratic and meritocratic values, institutions and policies." Bright Blue is a membership-based think tank, with membership open to anyone who identifies as a liberal conservative. It publishes political research, recommends and vets public policy, and hosts political events.
Abhi Subedi is a Nepali poet, playwright, columnist, translator and critic, who writes in Nepali and English.