Modern Toss - The Worst People In Britain

You're probably familiar with the work of Jon Link and Mick Bunnage. Together as Modern Toss, they've mastered the art of drawing cynical cartoons that make people laugh and laugh and laugh. Some of their new work is currently showing at Ink_d Gallery in Brighton, so I used that as an excuse to call up Jon and ask him about the Modern Toss book that will never get published because it's called Britain's Biggest Cunts, as well as the £850 Swearing Jacket and his black dog, Peter.

VICE: Hey Jon, how are you? Are you still trying to get your massively libellous book published?
Jon: Yeah, I'm good thanks. I don't know if we are actually. We were trying to get it published as a whole book, but all the publishers got legal reports done on it and the lawyers told them it was unpublishable. The trouble is, there are so many people who could go in Britain's Biggest Cunts that's it hard to get the rules right. It's actually funnier, I think, just to have him on the cover and let people imagine what's inside.

Sorry, I haven't seen the cover – who's on it, at the moment?
Piers Morgan. He's like the leader of it, you know.

What has Piers done to be worthy of the cover?
It's probably his Life Stories show where he's really hammered it home.

Is that one where he asks people if they were abused as children in front of a live studio audience?
It's just the crying and stuff, you know. All the crying and that.

What would the book have looked like, if it had come to full fruition?
We'd have had pictures of cunts against shots of the British countryside – the Lake District, the Grampian Mountains, the Cotswolds. Beautiful country scenes. Maybe sunsets. And then pictures of them on those backgrounds, with quotes from them floating over their heads like clouds. It was quite majestic, actually. Some of those quotes were tweets, so they looked really nice when you put them in tweet-language with a really pompous font.

What was the criteria for entry?
They had to be proper, international cunts, that were spreading their language around the world.

Like ambassadors for a new cunt empire?
Yeah, I suppose so. But that made it quite difficult and it ruled out certain people who spend the vast majority of their time being cunts in Britain alone. A lot of people don't really travel well, do they? Especially if they're cunts. People like Chris Moyles, Chris Evans – they're not really in that proper "Nuclear Cunt" category. Mick wrote a really nice thing to go with the book, actually, on how these people are spreading a new form of Britishness around the world.

"21st Century Britain has an international reputation for producing world rank, self-obsessed tits and top level entrepreneurial bullshitters. This beautifully illustrated (but sadly unpublishable for legal reasons) concept coffee table book cover is a celebration of this proud cultural renaissance, featuring full colour photographs and inspirational words from the nation's higest-level shit spouters and alpha silverbacks as they spearhead Britain's export shit thrust." - Mick Bunnage, Modern Toss

Fucking hell, maybe we should do it. Put a call out asking for publishers.

IF YOU'RE A PUBLISHER AND YOU'D LIKE TO PUBLISH BRITAIN'S BIGGEST CUNTS, email kev.kharas@vice.com.

OK, will do. We're living in dark days, Jon. Dictators are bombing their own people. There's all this recession, and now 2012's looming...
2012, what's that? The next terrorist attack or something?

No, it's the apocalypse isn't it.
Is it? Oh what, I thought that was just a film?

No, it's real.
Oh it's real? OK. Brilliant.

So in this world of overwhelming negativity, is there anyone who makes you happy?
Umm... yeah, I think so. What, like animals and stuff?

Yeah, could be an animal if you want.
I've got a dog.

Anything else?
I think you've got to learn to like things like the cunts. That's what we're saying – that it's a good thing. You've gotta find things you like in the cuntworld. Yeah. They've got a certain outlook, haven't they? Where they're not bothered about what people are saying about them. They're just spewing it out.

Continued on page two.