'Yes,' says John Brown, chairman of John Brown Publishing, 'it was a very difficult decision.'

This is an understatement. Brown has just performed the publishing world's equivalent of selling the family pet. On Friday, his firm parted company with its most famous title, adult magazine Viz, the publishing institution responsible for such characters as the Fat Slags, Sid the Sexist and the quasi-piscine goalkeeper Billy the Fish. James ' Loaded ' Brown was the happy buyer. Along with Viz , his I Feel Good company picked up two other John Brown titles, Bizarre and the Fortean Times. In return, John Brown Publishing received £6.4 million.

The decision to sell was not easy, Brown concedes. ' Viz is a very, very special situation. It will be desperately hard to wave goodbye. It means a huge amount to me on many different levels.'

To the uninitiated this seems a curious thing to say about a magazine famous for its profanity and innuendo. But Brown sees it differently. ' Viz is a comedy that happens to be in magazine form, and like any comedy it has its peak. There's not many 20-year-old comedies around, so it's done pretty well really. And it is still being read by 800,000 people an issue, which is amazing.'

True. But at its peak Viz sold 1.2 million copies a month. These days it shifts about 200,000. While Brown doesn't believe Viz will ever see its circulation reach the million mark again, he believes his namesake will give the title a fillip.

'James has been a big, big fan of Viz, and the Fortean Times, for a long time. He'll bring fresh blood. It always helps when somebody takes on something with huge enthusiasm and energy. Not that it's ever lacked that, but I was worried that it might soon.'

It was a worry that had been gnawing at Brown for months. 'Although I never looked to sell these titles, when James Brown approached me it did answer a growing anxiety that those titles were going to stagnate because I wasn't concentrating on them.'

If I Feel Good hadn't come knocking, it is unlikely the titles would have been sold. Felix Dennis, chairman of I Feel Good, had talked with Brown about joint ventures, and one thing led to another.

Right until the sale, Brown wrestled with the dilemma of whether to sell. 'You know how it is when something is fundamentally OK, but then a large amount of you tries to argue yourself out of it.'

The clincher came in the form of a phone call to Chris Donald, Viz founder and former editor. 'He said it was the best thing for the magazine. If he'd said "it is the best thing for you", I would have felt terrible.'

The cash means John Brown Publishing can focus on building up its successful contract publishing arm. Clients include Ikea and Orange.

Not that Brown is leaving the consumer market. 'This will give us the money to launch a new title whenever I want to without getting in other shareholders and I'm just too old for more shareholders at the moment.'

So which Viz character will Brown miss most? 'Roger Melly. Hotly followed by Sid the Sexist.'