Comic Promos, Mighty Marvel Checklists

THE MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST: WEEK 44

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SATURDAY 27th MAY 1989

Marvel UK’s The Real Ghostbusters comic appeared to be celebrating a week late on Brian Williamson’s and Nick Abadzis’ colourful cover on this day back in 1989. Rather simpler in design but probably more eye-catching was Jeff Anderson’s rather shocking cover to Transformers and Action Force (yup, G.I. Joe were back).

The story that stood out the most to me in the former was Culture Shock. Its main set up was Ray inventing something instead of Egon, even though Ray had done so before. But the strip stood out for a couple of other bizarre reasons. The first was the fact the invention was a blatant Doctor Octopus (Spider-Man) rip-off and Ray fights a random terror dog, the beasts from the original movie, with no explanation as to why one just pops up out of nowhere. Odd to say the least.

The UK strip in Transformers is again drawn by Dan Reed and I just love how his art looks in black and white, and this was before he knew they wouldn’t be coloured; when he does the level of detail he produces is second-to-none. The Classic Cover calendar is for May even though the month was about to end, the June one having been printed in error last month. Never fear, Lew Stringer’s Combat Colin was on the case and you can read it at the link at the bottom of this post.

On to the checklist details and Action Force (G.I. Joe) was back in Transformers after we said goodbye to the Visionaries for the final time last week. The Joes would remain with the comic beyond #300. The opening line to The Real Ghostbusters’ description will have that song stuck in your head all day, but other than that it’s an unremarkable checklist, the other three comics being repeats of last week’s entries.

It’s here that I actually take issue with things. Has interest in doing the checklist waned? Was it being phoned in? I said last week how I was surprised the special 50th issue of The Real Ghostbusters wasn’t the ‘Don’t Miss’ title when Action Force Monthly (which had been given the top spot) would be here for four weeks and could’ve been awarded it another time. To add insult to injury, it’s been given the spot again so there was no excuse last time.

Anyway, on with the latest contemporary comics ad.

I never realised there was a Marvel UK Popeye comic, but then again I was never the biggest fan of the cartoons. As a kid I felt the humour was outdated so it just didn’t appeal to me. (OiNK has a lot to answer for.) This advert isn’t exactly the most elaborate they’ve produced, is it? It looks like it’s been thrown together in rather a hurry, in fact. The comic itself wasn’t that popular either, lasting for only eight issues and one winter special before disappearing.

Next week there’s another odd choice made on the checklist as a big event issue of one of their biggest titles doesn’t get the attention it deserves and one of Marvel UK’s top-sellers gets the horrible “another chance to read” treatment. There’s another ad though, and it’s one that I may not remember from my comics but it does take me back to my childhood nonetheless. See you in seven.

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Creating OiNK

THE MAKiNG OF A MAD MONK: DAVEY JONES

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The Mad Monk was a funny little three-panel strip from #28 of OiNK (the Fantastic Flying Issue), written by Graham Exton and drawn by Davey Jones. The character never appeared again, just another of those random little one-offs OiNK was so full of every issue. However, it may have been his last appearance but it actually wasn’t his first, as I’ve found out recently.

Regular readers of the blog will now know The Mad Monk first appeared in 1978 in Graham and OiNK co-editor Mark Rodgers’ university project, Germs where he was also drawn by Graham. All of Germs is now available to read on the blog and if you’ve done so already you’ll know there were a few precursors to OiNK strips and characters within its pages. This was one such instance.

However, not only do we get to see the origins of the strip in Germs as part of OiNK’s 40th anniversary celebrations, now we can get a little glimpse into how it also came to be in the pages of our favourite comic. “Just found an example of me making a pig’s ear out of an OiNK cartoon in early 1987,” related Davey when he found a note and pencil doodle of the strip and shared it on the OiNK Comic Facebook group a few years back.

“Script editor Mark Rodgers sent me the idea (by Graham Exton) and I drew it for OiNK #28 (May 1987),” he explained. “But why on earth did I give the mad monk those stupid little feathery angel’s wings, instead of the proper big wood and canvas constructions indicated in the rough, which would’ve been funnier and more ‘mad monk’-ish? In fact, the rough sketch is altogether better than my finished drawing. Sorry Graham, sob.”

Wanting to share this doodle and note from Mark with OiNK Blog readers, I asked Davey if he could tell us anything else about working on OiNK at this time.

OiNK Blog: Obviously The Mad Monk is a very short strip so I’m limited in what I can ask, but generally speaking how did you get involved with OiNK in the first place?

Davey Jones: When I was in sixth form at school I sent some samples of my cartoons to [Group Editor of Humour] Bob Paynter at Fleetway (or was it IPC then?) [it was IPC – Phil], who invited me to Kings Reach Tower for a chat and told me about OiNK, which was in the developmental stages. He sent my samples to Mark Rodgers, who wrote to tell me more about OiNK and suggested I send some ideas. So as soon as I finished my A-Levels I started bombarding them with scripts, and after a few weeks got something accepted. That was about it, really.

Henry the Wonder Dog was the first script of Davey’s accepted by OiNK, which he also drew. It was published to much giggles from readers in the first Halloween issue, #13.

OB: How did you find working with Graham, if you ever had any contact that is?

DJ: I didn’t have any direct contact with Graham until we connected years later through your OiNK page. I dealt pretty exclusively with Mark, although I did meet Tony [Husband] and Patrick [Gallagher] once or twice when I was living in Manchester, and would see Marc Riley when I’d drop into the OiNK office.

OB: I’ve spoken with other cartoonists like Lew Stringer who said he dealt pretty exclusively with Mark. How was he to work with?

DJ: Mark was great, always very encouraging and full of ideas and suggestions for how to improve a script. I’ll have a dig around and try and find some letters/scripts.

Watch out for more behind-the-scenes finds from Davey this Christmas (2026) on the blog, folks!

Thanks to Davey for taking the time to chat with me about The Mad Monk and OiNK in general. It’s always fun to peek behind the door of the sty!

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THE MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST: WEEK 43

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SATURDAY 20th MAY 1989

It was a very exciting Saturday for me 37 years ago! Andy Lanning, Stephen Baskerville and John Burns teamed up for an excellent celebratory The Real Ghostbusters cover spoofing the cinema poster for RoboCop. Then, as an adult, having finally read the earlier issues of Transformers from before I started buying them as a kid, the return of Skids on John Stokes’ cover was equally as exciting.

Ecto-X was Egon’s newest invention and just like modern day automation it tried to steal their jobs! But just like modern AI it was a bit pants and it all went horribly wrong. At least in this comic it was beautifully drawn (unlike AI) and very funny. Like the first weekly (#14) it’s all one big story this week and ties in with the other features and prose story too. The Design-a-Spook competition was also launched. I drew a possessed HQ firehouse but never sent it in. You’ll never guess what someone else drew and won with?! Grrr!

In Transformers and Visionaries, Skids hadn’t been seen for 100 issues, languishing in the void after being displaced by time-travelling Cybertronians (it makes sense in context). He’s being stalked by inky black creatures from void space and Dan Reed was the perfect artist to bring these nightmarish creatures to life, and they look even better in black and white! His nighttime scenes in this story are particularly atmospheric. It’s the beginning of the Survivors arc, a brilliant months-long series of tales focussing on characters on both sides left out in the cold after the recent Underbase and Time Wars sagas. Some truly memorable times ahead.

In the other Transformers story, the wonderfully written, strong female leader of the alien planet just has to go against her character and fall for the male lead, doesn’t she? (In this case, Cloudburst’s Pretender shell.) Why did male writers always have to undermine the strong women characters they’d created? It so infuriating. Visionaries comes to its end (for the final time) and why the 50th issue of The Real Ghostbusters isn’t the big comic of the week on the checklist I have no idea.

That honour goes to the 13th edition of Action Force Monthly, or G.I. Joe The European Missions as it was called when exported. As exciting as it may have been to have Cobra going berserk in London, the milestone issue for the Ghostbusters really was superb and deserved that spot, especially as how this issue of Action Force could’ve been given the slot anytime over the next three weeks. Sometimes, I just don’t understand the choices made in these checklists. Oh well, part of the fun is seeing which one of our faves would make the cut each time.

No comics ads this week. No new ones at least. Next week however, a very popular cartoon character can be seen in an ad for their own monthly comic that I never even knew existed at the time. Until then, Make Mine… um, the MiNK Mlog.

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Creating OiNK

ROGER & WiLLY: TRUE ORiGiNALS

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Weedy Willy and Roger Rental, He’s Completely Mental are two of my most fondly remembered OiNK characters. I’m sure I’m not alone in that. We’re all familiar with their strips and art styles; Mike Green for Willy and Ian Knox for Roger. But that wasn’t always the plan.

Graham Exton went to university with one of OiNK’s three creator/editors, Mark Rodgers and I’ve previously shown the Germs comic they produced as part of their course. Graham was very heavily involved in OiNK in the early days, helping create characters, strips and the overall sense of humour as the dummy issue was put together in 1984 for IPC Magazines, the contents of which would be used for the Preview Issue two years later. Graham would contribute heavily to the early issues of the regular comic before moving to live in the Bahamas, which reduced his comics work somewhat. (Hey, it was the 80s, before the internet so seamlessly brought us all together no matter how far apart we were to adore each other’s cats.)

Graham created The Plops amongst others, including the aforementioned Roger and Willy. Not only did he create these two icons of OiNK, he also drew their strips when cartoonists were still being assembled. Ultimately, he’d be one of the comic’s main writers when it launched, for these two characters and plenty more. For OiNK’s 40th anniversary Graham has given me his kind permission to show pig pals those early, unpublished strips from the days when OiNK was first being put together. Some are still in their unfinished pencilled state, while a few of the Willy strips are complete and inked.

You’ll notice quite a difference between these and the characters we were eventually introduced to. Weedy Willy looks more like a regular boy, it’s his words and actions that give us the information (and the gags) on how weak and cowardly he is. Roger isn’t even called Roger! Barmy Barney was the precursor to Mr. Rental. As Graham explained to me, “I think it was Mark’s decision to use Mike Green’s weedy, spindly style for Willy rather than my more Baxendale-ish one. Similarly, Ian’s wacky style seemed better suited to the character [of Roger].”

The name Stuart Fellows also pops up in one strip, a name unfamiliar to me. “Stuart is an old pal from the Leeds days,” says Graham. “I expect he chipped in for that story. Most of our mates contributed ideas and scripts. You’ll see Keith Forrest’s name on Roger Rental stories, for example.”

Some of these early ideas of Graham’s would make it into OiNK in his scripts for Mike. A strip about Mandy’s recently deceased cat would be reworked and included in the Preview Issue and the introduction of Flash the dog, who now looked like it wouldn’t be too long until he joined Mandy’s cat, was used in the first regular issue. “The dog was named after a friend’s (school friend Rob) mangy mutt. Mike’s version was certainly weedier than mine, which is sort of generic IPC/Baxendale style.“

This was followed up in #2 with a reworking of a photography story. You can see Graham’s original completed strip and the full page from OiNK below to compare.

Graham would continue to contribute to OiNK via fax but less often, ultimately stopping altogether. “I continued to write Sweeny [Toddler for Whizzer and Chips] in South Andros, but dropped all the others on account of teaching,” he says. “Gums was the last to go. (I loved writing Gums. Such a narcissist prat!)” On that we can agree, I love that stupid ol’ shark!

“I continued to write and draw and started Tatertown when I was between jobs in Freeport, Grand Bahamas,” Graham continues. “That really improved my art, and I learned how to use Photoshop to colour the strips. Now I’m teaching comics colouring in my computer classes! One of my tenth grade girls is completely into it and coloured one of my Sweeny newspaper strips that never got published.”

Thanks so much to Graham for all of the great information and of course these original scans. I’ve always said I’d love to see the Creating OiNK section of the blog expand now that the full real time read through is complete, so this insight into the creation of these characters and their misadventures is gratefully received. I hope you all enjoyed it too, may there by many more to come.

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OiNK Contributors

SHAKESPEARE COMiC: KEV F KiCKSTARTER CAMPAiGN

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Kev F Sutherland contributed so many great gags to the second half of OiNK’s run. Hugely prolific, he even had his name attached to ten pages of the final issue! His Meanwhile… series was a personal favourite of mine and, alongside such brilliant contributions as the pun-packed March of the Killer Breakfasts and the hilarious Three Scientists, OiNK kickstarted his comics career which has spanned titles as varied as Beano, Red Dwarf Smegazine and Ghost Rider 2099! Now, he’s kickstarting something else. (See what I did there?)

Kev has released five Shakespeare graphic novels in recent years and now he’s raising funds to publish the first ever Shakespeare Comic! This will contain a selection of strips from the graphic novels already out in the wild, as well as two brand new strips from upcoming books based on Twelfth Night and King Lear, the former changed into a monster movie called Twelfth Thing… you get the drift.

Those reprints aren’t just straight copies either. Any that were originally printed in black and white have now received a full coating of colour, and they’re resized. Kev explains this means each page of the comic will contain the same amount of strip as two from the books. Bargain. Seeing as how his books were mainly only available from him directly at cons, festivals and his school art masterclasses, this is a great way for fans far and wide to get hold of them.

The 32-page full-colour comic also comes with a large poster of Shakespeare’s Britain. Not only does this contain ol’ William’s characters in the places where their stories are set, Kev is also giving readers the chance to have their caricature drawn on the map where they live! Sounds good, doesn’t it?

£10 will bag you the comic itself, signed by Kev, and the poster. The next level up is the one where your face could be drawn (in a very Kev F way, obviously) on the map and that’ll cost £30. Finally, there’s a £60 option for anyone who’d like their company name and logo (or, again, their caricature) on the map poster.

Kev only needs £250 to reach his goal and at the time of writing this, just a few hours after it was launched, he’s already at £218. Oh, no, hang on, wait… £248! That’s me on the map, then. Obviously it’s going to reach its target (and then some) so it’s guaranteed to be published and I’ve a feeling you’ll want to bag a copy of this one for yourself. Whether you’re familiar with the works of Shakespeare or not, this is by one of OiNK’s most consistently funny cartoonists so you know it’ll be a great laugh either way!

Head on over to the Kickstarter campaign before 12:41 on the afternoon of Saturday 13th June 2026 to grab yourself a copy. I’ll be telling everyone all about it right here on the OiNK Blog when it arrives, so you won’t want to be left feeling you missed out!

WELL WOULD YOU LOOK AT THIS: I was just about to hit ‘Publish’ on this post and the Shakespeare Comic has hit its goal! Wonderful news!

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