Jim Brownlow, who was one of the original Viz Magazine team alongside siblings Chris and Simon Donald, has died.

Co-founder Simon Donald tweeted: "Yesterday was an awful day for friends, family & fans of @vizcomic We lost Jim Brownlow, the enigma behind Paul Whicker the Tall Vicar, the man who gave us Rude Kid. Pivotal in the seminal years of Viz, this clever, funny and mysterious man will always be a part of what we are."

The magazine was founded in 1979 in Jesmond, Newcastle and soon became essential reading for anyone with a sense of humour and a fondness for fart jokes and cartoons about people with oversized testicles.

The magazine that started out as an irreverent D-I-Y affair became on the the UK's biggest and most loved periodicals. At one point in the 1990s issues had sales of 1.2 million.