Transformers

PHOTOGRAPHiNG TRANSFORMERS UK: MONTH ONE (SEPTEMBER 1984)

Leave a comment

Rounding these comics up on a calendar-monthly basis means we’ve only the one issue to launch the series with. As we continue through the next several years there’ll be more each month, especially after it goes weekly of course. In fact, there’ll be one month in particular with no less than nine comics to show off! For now, here’s how it all began on this day 42 years ago in newsagents across the UK, and then again ten years ago when I began reading it all in real time…

iSSUE ONE – 20th SEPTEMBER 1984

#1: So off we go, at the start of Marvel UK’s Transformers all over again (again). It begins with this absolutely fabulous (and now rather famous) Jerry Paris cover, which must’ve been exciting to see when it first appeared on shelves! Inside, launch editor Shiela Cranna welcomes readers and it all looks rather different to the comic we’d come to know and love later. Humble beginnings, you could say.

For its first year Transformers was 32 pages and each issue could contain some rather ‘unique’ features, as you’ll see as this series progresses over the next 12 months. For now, we start off with the first part of the imported American origin strip story, simply called The Transformers, . We get a look at regular life on Cybertron and our first glimpses at the war and the characters 80s children were about to become very familiar with. I love the imagination on show, it all feels so completely and utterly alien.

Several pages later and the crashed Ark inside Mount St. Hilary looks suitably creepy after four million years. It’s an original, exciting and intriguing start to what would ultimately be a truly epic comic. Elsewhere in the issue our first Hasbro advertisement heralded the arrival of the toys in the UK and here’s the final paragraph of the comic’s regular robot news feature, Robot Round Up. It was a far-fetched thought at the time but today, as I update this post in 2026, it’s a rather terrifying one.

The first back up strip was Jack Kirby’s Machine Man from the late 1970s. Transformers didn’t begin with Aaron Stack’s first story though. Instead, we got a round up of the character’s origins and part one of Byte of the Binary Bug from #11 of his own comic. The story included Senator Miles Brickman, who I remember from the Machine Man of 2020 strip that ran in the comic during its second year, which young me first read when it was reprinted in Transformers’ final months in late 1991. I must say though, he doesn’t look like the kind of man who’d chuck a brick at a bank robber! He does sound like certain modern day politicians though.

All-in-all, we’re off to a helluva good start!

Cover by Jerry Paris
The Transformers: Part One
plot by Bill Mantlo, script by Ralph Macchio,
pencils by Frank Springer, inks by Kim DeMulder,
lettering by Michael Higgins & Rick Parker, colours by Nel Yomtov
Machine Man – Byte of the Binary Bug: Part One
written by Marv Wolfman, art by Steve Ditko,
lettering by John Costanza, colours by Michelle Wolfman

That’s basically what you can expect for each issue from here on; a handful of photos taken while I was reading the comic in real time, with the captions from the original Instagram posts rewritten to suit the blog but essentially the same insights I had as a reader between 2016 and 2024, the first time I’d read the whole series. It was quite popular on socials and I’ve a feeling that bringing it here (with the audience the OiNK Blog has built up over the years) will see these classic comics celebrated in a bigger way.

Come back on Tuesday 20th October 2026 for #2 and #3, their absolutely gorgeous covers, introductions to the Autobots proper, lots of retro-futuristic 80s tech, more contemporary adverts, pin ups and even a guest appearances from a Time Lord. One month down, only another 88 to go.

BACK TO THE iNTRODUCTiON

PHOTOGRAPHiNG TRANSFORMERS UK MENU

MAiN TRANSFORMERS MENU

ALSO ON THE OiNK BLOG:
Kim DeMulder in Havoc
Rick Parker in G.I. Joe
Nel Yomtov in The Sleeze Brothers
John Costanza in Jurassic Park and Dracula

OiNK Contributors

COME DiNE WiTH DAViD LEACH

2 Comments

I’ve considered applying for Channel 4’s Come Dine With Me in the past. Who doesn’t want to hear narrator Dave Lamb’s take on their cooking? I’ve never had the guts to do so, but I’ve known three people who’ve taken part. One was a former work colleague, one an award-winning Belfast drag queen friend and one is a cartoonist who just so happens to have worked for a certain funny little publication called OiNK!

In 2013, Psycho Gran’s creator David Leach starred in one of the primetime editions of the series, the ones which show all four nights of the competition over the course of one hour rather than spread out over a week. I’d never seen his episode (I’d have remembered seeing the large framed picture of Psycho if I had) and I’ve always wondered what it’s like to take part in the show, so it felt like the perfect idea for a blog post.

David is the first host and any OiNK fan will be in awe of his home, with the dining room’s wall-to-wall comics and movies, Psycho Gran on the wall in the living room and, if you look closely, one of my favourite strips greeting visitors by the front door. Two of his guests, Joh and “funtime vicar” Levi poke fun to begin with and surprisingly it’s Noelle, who seemed a bit stuck-up in her intro, who comes to David’s defence while he’s off cooking. These were first impressions only and by the end of his night there’s a definite feeling of respect for his work, a love of his sense of humour, and my own opinion of Noelle had completely changed.

As for his cooking, sporting a fetching apron David served up three pun-labelled courses, beginning with quail eggs (ooh, fancy) on mushrooms and toast with ham and hollandaise, followed by a hearty lamb dish I’d pay anyone to cook for me, and a coconut pie for pudding that I’m definitely going to have to try for myself. Unfortunately, contrary to the narration, the recipes are no longer on the Channel 4 website “to add to your own online scrapbook”. (So I’ve pestered David for his recipes.)

He’s certainly got knife skills, I’ll give him that! While in the kitchen, his gloriously Leach-like puns are sometimes met with corny music and some funny Dave Lamb narration, as we’d all expect. The music choices elsewhere are often genius. David tells Levi he doesn’t believe in organised religion, only for Levi to then admit he’s a vicar. So cue Papa Don’t Preach for David entering Levi’s home a couple of nights later.

It’s on this particular night that I burst out laughing a few times. Watch out for David’s deadpan reaction to Levi’s Jesus painting, for example. He told me one of his own favourite moments also came from that night, when he heard the sound man in the next room laughing at his comment after Levi plays a song on the piano. I won’t ruin the moment for you. Or how about when David apologises for offending Levi, only to immediately take it back when Levi says he wasn’t.

There’s a bit of tension between the two but over the course of the week they embrace their differences and produce some genuinely funny moments together. You could say there’s a bit of a story arc between the pair that ultimately leads to a conclusion in the competition that couldn’t have been better planned if it had been scripted. Speaking of “scripted”, I asked David about the production itself. How real is this little slice of reality telly?

“The first time you meet the others is when they knock or ring on the door”, David told me. These bits sometimes look staged so I was surprised! “But their entrance is filmed three times.” Ah! “The show is very stop/start,” he continued. I suppose with limited space in people’s homes it’s not like they can have multiple cameras catching everything organically. “They’re stopping to recored reaction shots. The show is very carefully editorialised and controlled. I was surprised how long the days were, when you were hosting they were setting up at 8am, they didn’t leave my house until 1am and you’re doing it all again the next day.”

Sounds exhausting! So is any of it actually scripted? Are the conversations, which can sometimes lead to confrontations in other episodes, prompted with specific conversation starters by the crew?

“Not that I remember, although I don’t need them. There were topics we were told not to talk about, for example one of the contestant’s house was infested with mice, which we watched run along the work surfaces and floor but we weren’t allowed to talk about it because it wasn’t filmed. The director knew all our secrets and was steering the conversations. The conversations are stopped during the meals to get reaction shots of the five guests. It kills conversation. Also we were shepherded by an assistant and if we started having interesting conversations we were told to stop and save it.”

Overall it seems contestants do talk about what they would’ve discussed without the crew there, it’s just all done in a very (unfortunately necessary) unnatural way.

“Levi was told he had to tell us his secret (him being a vicar) and Joh had to reveal her ‘glasses secret’ (that she wears a fake pair to look smart – Phil). I was encouraged to do my party trick of fake vomiting (far too convincing, that! – Phil) and the show tried really hard to get me to dress up as a superhero, but I refused. I told them after I would have dressed as Godzilla. They know lots about us, so they steer conversations but it’s all us.”

Obviously it’s pure luck who we’d end up sharing the screen (and our dinners and homes) with if we applied, and in this case David seems to have lucked out and been given an enjoyable bunch to spend four very long days with. David’s own genuine character comes across and I get the impression from him that the same is true of the others.

“Of the three of them, I liked Joh and Noelle the most and for a while we’d go out for meals,” David says. Joh is endearingly ditzy and her mixing up the jobs of vicar and fishmonger is a classic moment. I also love how honest she is about cheating with shop-bought ingredients on a cookery show. Then there’s Dave Lamb’s comment, “that’s some party trick”, when Noelle claims the eggs she’s cooking “are my friend’s mother’s”!

Speaking of Mr Lamb. How was it being the subject of his famously cutting commentary?

“I knew going in that because of my personality if I wasn’t 100% honest I would be branded as the villain. I also knew of the four of us I was the most interesting (I’m not being big headed), so I approached it totally honest, no game play. Dave Lamb clearly took the piss out of me and also claimed my foaming hollandaise sauce had split but it hadn’t, and Levi claimed he was missing an egg, he wasn’t. So I don’t really mind about Lamb. I was the joker, I played jokes, I battled with Levi and I didn’t back down, so I was fair game.”

I won’t spoil the show if you haven’t seen it by giving away what position David finishes in, but I’m curious about what he thinks of the overall experience. With all of the things that come with the production of a TV show (and in your own home to boot), what did he make of starring in Come Dine With Me?

“For me, it gave both halves of my brain a chance to work together in unison; the creative side and the performing side. I could see my creative side writing gags for me and at one point I started laughing early because I read a joke I lined up too soon. Actually I loved… bloody loved it all”, he concludes.

Between the original series, the primetime version, the couples, the professionals, the celebrities and the Christmas specials there are nearly 2,000 episodes of Come Dine With Me available to watch on Channel 4, and it doesn’t help that they’re not split up into seasons. Just as well I’ve got a link for this episode then, isn’t it?

Eat beforehand though, or you’ll be starving by the end.

OiNK CONTRiBUTORS MENU

MAiN OiNK MENU

Comic Promos, Mighty Marvel Checklists

THE MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST: WEEK 60

Leave a comment
SATURDAY 16th SEPTEMBER 1989

Would John Marshall and Dave Harwood ever get time away from The Real Ghostbusters covers? Not that this week’s would’ve been particularly taxing with a huge gap designed to contain the free gift. Meanwhile, Lee Sullivan’s work for Transformers and Action Force told us more dark Deathbringer delights awaited us inside. 

Those Slime Slurps were bits of moulded plastic filled with a rubbery jelly sweet which I’d refill with a soft drink of my choice and freeze for future enjoyment. (Hey, it was nicer than the sweet!) There was an Egyptian mummy story this week but the title and creative team still didn’t match those erroneously written about in last week’s checklist. There was also the start of one of those multi-issue competitions both of these comics were keen on, although strangely with no indication of what the prize was.

Transformers felt different this week. Literally. The outer colour pages were of a really good paper grade and it felt terrific! Unfortunately this would only semi-regularly once in a while instead of every week. Artist Staz Johnson also debuted this issue with the second part of Deathbringer, following on from Geoff Senior last week. (No pressure for a newbie there!) Needless to say Staz did a great job and would become one of my favourite artists for the rest of the comic’s life. In fact, an Optimus Prime panel of his from this issue’s story had already been used six weeks ago in advert for the comic. Way to go to make an entrance, Staz.

A shame his incredible debut isn’t mentioned on the checklist, which gets the details of the UK strip completely wrong. There have been quite a few such errors recently on these lists, I must say. If this week’s issue of The Punisher was released in modern day Britain I’m sure we’d hear all about it from certain tabloids and politicians calling for it to be banned, don’t you think? Which would probably just increase sales with the rest of us.

This new look to the checklist led to them including more titles in the same space but for now it stuck to the usual four. The entry for Doctor Who Magazine squeezed an awful lot of information into a tiny space and the good ol’ Doc was also the star of this week’s new advert. DWM was celebrating its tenth anniversary with what appeared to have been a special issue, although there’s no indication of the celebratory nature of it on the checklist, strangely enough.

Why was Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor used? The series was by now starring its Seventh Doctor as played so wonderfully by Sylvester McCoy (that’s his series’ funky logo). Well, Tom’s Doctor was the star of the show and the magazine’s comic strips and news articles when it began back in 1979, that’s why. In this series of blog posts we’ve already seen an advert for the special edition focussing on the show’s 25th anniversary and a checklist entry for the magazine’s 150th issue. The show celebrated its 60th a few years ago now, the magazine is only three years away from its own 50th and the current issue on sale at the time of writing is #634. Talk about feeling as old as a Time Lord!

I think I need a lie down after that realisation. Next week’s adverts include the launch of a spin-off from one of the above comics, as well as the one and only advert for all of Marvel UK’s annuals for Christmas 1989. I’ll definitely see you in seven, then.

Join the checklists conversation here or on:
Bluesky
Instagram
Facebook

TRANSFORMERS 236 (Instagram)

BACK TO WEEK 59

MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST MENU

Comic Introductions, Transformers

PHOTOGRAPHiNG TRANSFORMERS UK: iN REAL TiME

Leave a comment

Starting ten years ago this month, continuing for over seven years and finishing in January 2024, I read every single issue of Marvel UK’s Transformers and photographed highlights to share on the blog’s Instagram in real time. Reading OiNK in real time was one thing, but here was an epic comic series with great character arcs, huge storylines and its fair share of cliffhangers, and I relished the challenge of using all of my will power to not jump ahead in what was a massive reading project! Now, it’s finally coming to the blog itself.

Our version of Transformers had a whopping 332 issues and (during its run) 19 specials, seven annuals and a variety of other books. The word “epic” can be overused in comics, but it’s the right one to use here and reading it one issue per week just confirmed that. It proved really popular on socials and I loved every minute of it, never sneaking a peak at what was to come, reliving it the way it was intended to be read. What I didn’t count on was social media companies’ ability to make their platforms exponentially worse as time goes on.

When my read through was over I realised the posts were becoming lost in the past and even if I shared a link to any one of them there was no longer any way for people to scroll to the next/previous issues. So I spent a week adding unique hashtags to all 375 posts, explaining them on the blog so that readers could also relive all of the issues in the correct order, or easily select any specific ones they wanted to see. However, now keywords have replaced these and when searching my hashtags my posts are behind several dozen others, despite the tags being unique to me!

There was only one solution, to preserve my content myself by reposting everything here on the blog where I’m not at the mercy of further enshitification. Are you ready for a new, very (very) lengthy real time series on the blog?

TRANSFORMERS UK ON THE OiNK BLOG

Before I started the read through I’d actually wanted to do something with the comic on the blog for a while, but two things had stopped me. Firstly, reviewing a weekly comic for seven years was too daunting at the time (I was just starting out) and secondly, the stories had already been covered in depth all over the internet. I decided upon a photographic journey instead, as a way for fans to relive treasured memories of owning these, and to show the physical comics to fans who’d read the stories in book form but had never seen the originals, their covers, back up strips and features, everything that made our version unique.

What had seemed like the perfect platform for such a project had turned out to be anything but, so I’m bringing everything over to the OiNK Blog on a monthly real time basis.

The first issue went on sale 20th September 1984 so on or around the 20th of each month (depending on other scheduled real time posts) I’ll show you all of the issues from that calendar month. It felt like the obvious way to begin and it also means each December you’ll see the Christmas issues at the right time (rather than my original idea of summing things up at the start of the following month). Altogether this series will last for a humongous 89 months in total! It begins in just seven days from the time of writing this, on Sunday 20th September 2026, with the final post scheduled for January 2034!

I won’t be taking any new photos because this is all about preserving the specific experience I had. It was the first time I’d ever read the first few years of the comic and the first time in decades for the ones I’d collected as a kid. The photos showed what had leapt out at me during the read through, the first time I’d ever read the entire saga from beginning to end. While I won’t be rewriting what I thought as I read them, I’ll be updating the writing in the posts so it better matches the style of the blog, improving their flow over the short-form captions of social media, and the early posts didn’t have credits so I’ll add them in too.

Also, don’t forget every Christmas we’re still celebrating the 40th anniversaries of the festive issues and annuals with full reviews of each when that time rolls around, and we’re already a couple of years into those at the time of publishing this post. Alongside the complete real time read through of Marvel US’ Transformers Generation 2, there should be plenty for fellow Transformers fans to read on the OiNK Blog for years to come.

PHOTOGRAPHiNG TRANSFORMERS UK MENU

MAiN TRANSFORMERS MENU

Mighty Marvel Checklists

THE MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST: WEEK 59

Leave a comment
SATURDAY 9th SEPTEMBER 1989

John Marshall and Dave Harwood laughed it up with their cover to the latest issue of Marvel UK’s The Real Ghostbusters, and Geoff Senior’s stunning cover to Transformers and Action Force shocked us all! Two great comics on sale today back in 1989.

It seems there was some degree of miscommunication going on within the walls of Marvel UK as far as The Real Ghostbusters was concerned. Last week the checklist told us we should be happy with two reprint strips but everything inside was brand new. This week, we’re promised a tale called Curse That Pharaoh and as a nut for Ancient Egypt I was disappointed to see no such strip inside, despite Spengler’s Spirit Guide (which usually tied in with at least one of the stories) being a very funny guide to Egyptian burial tombs.

After last week’s blip, the British Transformers story was not only back on form, it was brilliant. An alien discovered Optimus Prime’s long-lost body, which had been jettisoned into space about 130 issues ago! This was the beginning of the UK’s preludes to what would become the epic Matrix Quest in the US strips. Writing for both sides of the Atlantic, Simon Furman was perfectly placed to give UK readers exclusive prequel stories, extra character development, foreshadowing for future events and more that would make our comic even more epic. A hugely atmospheric beginning too.

There were no new contemporary comic adverts this week again so you’ll have to make do with this checklist all on its own. The monthly Sleeze Brothers entry from last week is repeated but the rest are for weeklies so are all new. I can’t help feeling more could’ve been made of the Deathbringer description though. Then again, little did us kids know just how fantastic the following years of Transformers were going to be, and that it had all begun right before our eyes.

For The Punisher entry we must firstly remember this was 1989. It was a very different time, although with hindsight that’s still no excuse for the clichéd way in which South America is described. It’s not as bad as last week’s incredibly sexist Transformers story but still, put that and this checklist together and it doesn’t exactly scream of people who have seen much of the world outside of their male-dominated office in England. I guess that’s part and parcel of looking back on 80s comics though, in that we’re reminded of just how far we’ve come since.

It’s all change next week with a brand new look to the checklist that’ll eventually allow for more comics to take centre stage. Take a gander at the title graphic of every one of these posts for a clue (or to jog your memory) of what’s to come. Also next week, one of Marvel UK’s regulars reaches a landmark 10th anniversary! See you in seven.

Join the checklists conversation here or on:
Bluesky
Instagram
Facebook

TRANSFORMERS 235 (Instagram)

THE SLEEZE BROTHERS 3

WEEK 58 < > WEEK 60

MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST MENU

Pig Pals

GRUNTS – 40 YEARS LATER: PART ONE

5 Comments

Welcome to the latest OiNK series on the blog, marking the 40th anniversary of the entire run with a quarterly look back at all of its reader contributions. Every three months between now and December 2028 I’ll corral all the Grunts together (and other pages as they appear) on the release date of the last issue from that quarter. These will include drawings, jokes, press clippings, celebrity spoofs and even birthday cakes! We kick off with issues four to ten from the summer of 1986.

The first readers popped up in #4 and they were all asking for Uncle Pigg’s advice. Given how Wildcat’s editor went to all of his neighbours’ kids asking for stuff to fill the first few issues with and Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends blatantly made up letters until real ones began appearing, I had to ask co-editor Patrick Gallagher about these early entries, especially as they were all of a similar type.

“We never made any of them up”, I was happy to hear from Patrick, who assembled the page every issue. “Once OiNK found its audience the mail started coming in thick and fast, so we didn’t need to invent anything. The first few issues were quiet, sure, but once readers realised they could write in the Pig Sick questions took off naturally.” That they did, with the first lot coming from David Tornambe in London, Gerald Richards in Birmingham and Edward Alcock in Norwich, the very first pig pals to see their names in OiNK!

The rest of the page was filled with examples of what the editors were looking for. In fact, Grunts was a part of the first issues before anything had arrived from readers, with Patrick, Tony Husband and Mark Rodgers drawing up some celebrity spoof characters and jokes for Nasty Laffs and Specs, all to inspire the children to put pen to paper. It was a joke for those two characters from reader Sam Mundy from Northamptonshire that welcomed us to #5, alongside a poem from Peter Galley from Shoeburyness.

This issue had a very loose theme with a bit more attention given to the fact they were beginning to see how popular the comic was becoming with kids. A couple of strips played up to this, there was also a photo story promoting reserving OiNK at the newsagent by making a joke of what regular readers of OiNK could look like, and of course we had the joke and poem on page three and a page of Grunts.

Well, okay, it was just Pig Sick and an additional celebrity spoof, with the rest of the page made up of those very familiar adverts and the coupon IPC/Fleetway comics always gave us to fill out when writing in. But hey, the ball was rolling. Michael Standley from Surrey was wise to the kind of silly letters the comic wanted, while James Rainbow of Powys and Andrew Williams from Croydon got the kind of cheeky response from Uncle Pigg we all wanted, let’s face it!

The Piggy Personality wasn’t drawn by J. Harris of Halesowen, rather it was suggested by them and drawn by the co-editors, but as OiNK continued more and more readers would draw their ideas and send them in. Some of those to come are simply superb and, of course, very funny. You can also see that the first winner of the Messy Bedroom Competition was coming up in #6, which caused a bit of consternation with some parents.

Tony once told me that in those early days when they ran this competition they found out some kids were deliberately messing up their rooms just for the chance to appear in OiNK! Whether this contributed to the competition not running for very long I don’t know. Simon Sarfas’ room in Tetbury certainly deserved whatever he received. I would’ve laughed at these at the time but as someone in their late 40s with his own home to take care of I shudder when I see these photos today!

Things were still being added to Grunts like the Ham Ewing drawing, although they weren’t really needed as the page was filling out nicely. Those free badge kits with #2 (and Steve McGarry’s famous ”I love my little Willy”) certainly inspired Michael of Charlton, Caroline Szyman of Glenford and James Burton of Kent, and the Nasty Laff credit went to Tammy Gibbs from Banbury in Uncle Pigg’s introduction. Adam McGhie of Kent got some great advice to sit on and think about, James Williams of Lincoln reminds me of an old school friend of mine during our ‘A’-levels (yes, I’m talking about you, Fergie!) and there was an apparently anonymous letter… hmm. 

The summer-themed #7 was next and alongside some funny advice from Doctor Mooney we had Sharon Storey of Bury sharing a gag all kids already knew. I certainly remember telling it (and being told it many times). Meanwhile, Michelle Bond from Cambridge, Mandy Dore of Kent and Uncle Lumpy (apparently) of Ashford showed the trend forming, that of pig pals wanting their hero editor to take the mickey out of them.

At the end of the issue he and all of his editorial team went off on their hols, leaving a skeleton crew in charge of #8. Of course, this being OiNK it was literally a crew of skeletons, with bone-themed replacements of most of the comic’s cartoonists and they were all completely inept. It made for a unique and very funny issue with everything going wrong, the Grunts page included.

Between ink spills and upside-down printing, County Claire’s Jennifer Tierney got an answer that made me think Boss Bones was going to do this part properly… which of course would be the wrong thing to do in OiNK! However, read the answer to the second letter from Paul Hunter of Glasgow and you’ll see what was really going on.

Sarah May Naylor of Pudsey, Joseph Taylor of Morecambe and Chris Collins from Stockport got similar treatment, a Royal Regiment got a shout-out and a reader was the one to make a mistake by not sending their details in with their joke! This was also the first time we saw the Pig Pack Lucky Numbers which each member of OiNK’s club received when they joined; a random one printed in every issue earned their reader a mystery piggy prize. I’m still at a loss as to why I never joined! 

The first thing that stood out to me upon reading #9’s page now was the person who sent in the newspaper clipping about cow pat bingo. It was none other than Cowpat County creator himself, Davy Francis (and yes, I’ve checked with him just in case it was a very unlikely coincidence), although Tony drew the cartoon of Giles. (Even OiNK’s cartoonists were club members!) Another clipping was also sent in and poor Emma Norwood of Stourport was forever immortalised as a Sun reader.

W. Skinner of Broadstairs would be happier being remembered as sending in a drawing I’m sure, Coventry’s C. Dobson shared a joke that would only work in this particular comic and Joanne Brown of Dartford definitely needed help. Colette Magee just down the road from me performed sheer sacrilege surely, and admitted it! Imagine doing that to your OiNKs! Then, Rory Rapple from just down the train line from me sounded like a man with a podcast decades before they were invented.

The Messy Bedroom competition continued with Rose Carter (and friend) of Southampton. It may just be the black and white printing of the colour photo making the details hard to make out, but I think I’ve seen worse. Perhaps in my own room around the late 80s. Finally for this issue, one more reader joke was squeezed in on page 30 and if you blinked you’d have missed Leicestershire’s E. Simpson’s rather morbid sense of humour.

Part of #10’s Grunts page may be familiar to you as UB40’s Ali Campbell was part of our Grunts Celebrity Special last Christmas, and Uncle Pigg was loving it, asking readers for proof of more celebrity readers! Matthew Bond of Edmonton missed out on using Humphrey HOGART, surely, while Zayed Al-Otailia wrote in all the way from the U.A.E., some clever dick used a pseudonym and got the response they deserved and finally for now S. Molloy from Dublin really got into the spirit of Nasty Laff and Specs.

The early OiNK adopters were off to a good start, but just you wait until you see what they came up with as this series continues! If you’ve seen your name above or if you were lucky enough to be included in an issue to come please do reach out, I’d love to find out what your piggy prize was! You can DM the OiNK Blog on Instagram or Facebook, myself on Bluesky or you can email the blog directly. Next time, I’ll be trawling through the next eight issues including the first Christmas edition. You’ll be able to check out the creativity of your fellow pig pals from Monday 28th December 2026.

GRUNTS MENU

‘MORE OiNK’ MENU

MAiN OiNK MENU

Mighty Marvel Checklists

THE MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST: WEEK 58

Leave a comment
SATURDAY 2nd SEPTEMBER 1989

There was no let-up from John Marshall and Dave Harwood’s lengthy series of covers for The Real Ghostbusters this week in 1989, while Geoff Senior’s superb drawing for Transformers and Action Force doesn’t make up for the mess within.

In the former, while Egon waxed lyrical about ghosts of long dead plants in his Spengler’s Spirit Guide, the checklist entry for The Real Ghostbusters promised readers “a chance to revisit” two strips. That was a dreaded phrase, one we all hated, as it singled reprints. Another chance to read? But we never threw out our issues so we could reread them anytime! As it turned out this was a rather big error on the part of the checklist because everything inside this issue was brand new. Whoopsie.

As a kid I always felt it cringeworthy that the one and only female Transformer had to suffer the indignity of having pink lipstick. Previous to this issue one reader had actually written in to complain about this and asked why there weren’t more women robots. The response? We had Arcee, that would do. This origin strip for poor Arcee is demeaning and incredibly patronising. An awful editorial to start the issue doesn’t help either and overall everything comes across as nothing more than sexist drivel. It’s a world away from modern Transformers comics I’m glad to say. Thankfully Action Force and a laugh-out-loud Combat Colin from Lew Stringer more than made up for these five pages of garbage.

Formatting and grammar mistakes aside, the checklist detailed winning comics to make up for the Marvel UK top-seller’s misstep. However, the ‘Don’t Miss…’ box had gone the way of the dodo for the remainder of the series, meaning the brand new issue of The Sleeze Brothers had to slum it with the rest of the comics. A shame, because every issue of that short series was an event when I read them for the first time a couple of years ago, so they each deserved all the hype the checklists could muster. I have to say though, I don’t envy the writer who had to summarise any of The Sleeze Brothers stories into one paragraph!

The sixth issue of The Punisher gets a rather grin-worthy summary of its own. Listing off such adult themes as just run-of-the-mill everyday occurrences definitely would’ve piqued interest in the younger readers. It certainly did for me but my reserve list was already full and there were just too many other comics to sample first issues of back in 1988 and 1989. It’s still possible The Punisher could make it to the blog to see what I missed out on, but then again I’ve also thought that for The Marvel Bumper Comic and Action Force and Spider-Man and Zoids and…

There’s a shocking cover for Transformers next week that really took me by surprise when I first saw it all those years ago. It accompanies the last checklist you’ll see in this format. Changes are afoot. See you in seven. 

Join the checklists conversation here or on:
Bluesky
Instagram
Facebook

TRANSFORMERS 234 (Instagram)

THE SLEEZE BROTHERS 3

WEEK 57 < > WEEK 59

MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST MENU

Comic Promos, Mighty Marvel Checklists

THE MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST: WEEK 57

Leave a comment
SATURDAY 26th AUGUST 1989

John Marshall and Dave Harwood (surprise, surprise) unwrapped another cover for The Real Ghostbusters, while this week’s Transformers and Action Force Jeff Anderson cover was one of those rare occasions when it didn’t relate to anything inside.

Instead, the focus was on the free gift, one of those temporary children’s tattoos where you’d place it on your arm, dampen it and then it should (operative word being “should”) peel off leaving the image on your skin. It was a neat idea but I can’t remember it working as well as the drawing! Storywise, the excitement at the inclusion of new toys of mine was dampened by some awful American colouring that rendered them unrecognisable. Ironically, the toys come across much better in the black and white UK strip which gave the Micromasters a proper backstory. They were created because of energy shortages. A neat idea.

The big news in the companion comic was the return of Zuul from the original Ghostbusters movie. Although, the creative team fudged their research and misnamed her Gozer. The story was a funny one though. Janine experienced everything from the famous Sigourney Weaver fridge scene, only for her to throw a wooden spoon which the hell hounds chased back inside the appliance while she gave Zuul/Gozer a kick up the bum and slammed the door on her. The grumpy online fanboys out there would probably say it belittled the film but it’s a funny comic and it’s a funny little strip so it’s a winner in my eyes.

Death’s Head was hanging on in there on the checklist, refusing to go quietly into the night with his final issue. With hindsight I have to say The Punisher could be a strange comic, what with its ‘For Mature Readers’ label on the cover while giving away badges and stickers. He nabbed another ‘Don’t Miss…’ after the yellow box disappeared for the previous couple of weeks. Any chance of our top-selling weeklies getting in on some of that action one of these days? Don’t bet on it, the box’s days were numbered.

There were no less than three new adverts for Marvel UK’s range this week. The Punisher’s previous half-page ad was basically expanded to full size with no further information. The Real Ghostbusters ad was also light on actual info, but then again did we really need anything other than to know it was available? The fans would’ve been all over it regardless. “What’s a TV Special?”, I don’t hear you cry. From what little I can recall they were back on TV screens, split into two parts every Saturday morning on ITV’s children’s magazine shows, so it was most likely to tie in with that instead of the usual changing of the seasons. Not that they needed an excuse.

Finally, the big news was the launch of Fantasy Zone, a magazine covering new fantasy and sci-fi movies, and the occasional TV show. It never took off and didn’t last long, although it did produce a couple of specials dedicated to new films such as Ghostbusters II. It was launched the same month as Visual Imagination’s similarly-titled TV Zone, “The Magazine for Cult Television”. I was a regular reader of TV Zone for several years with an order at my newsagent and it proved somewhat more successful, racking up 231 issues compared to Fantasy Zone’s measly little six.

Oh, I’ve come over all nostalgic for TV Zone now! I remember the main reason I bought it was for Babylon 5, although I was soon swept up in its Stargate SG-1 coverage (that’s how I discovered the show) and loved its occasional retrospectives of two favourites of mine, Knight Rider and War of the Worlds. Must. Stay. Away. From. EBay!

Right, I’m off to NOT look at a famous auction site and I’ll see you all back here in seven days for more checklist goodness.

Join the checklists conversation here or on:
Bluesky
Instagram
Facebook

TRANSFORMERS 233 (Instagram)

DEATH’S HEAD 10

WEEK 56 < > WEEK 58

MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST MENU

Comic Promos, Mighty Marvel Checklists

THE MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST: WEEK 56

Leave a comment
SATURDAY 19th AUGUST 1989

Frankenstein’s Monster makes an appearance on John Marshall’s and Dave Harwood’s cover for The Real Ghostbusters, surely two months early for such a classic horror staple? Meanwhile, there’s something missing from the Lee Sullivan cover of the latest Transformers.

Where’s Action Force? Perhaps this was when their new (canned) fortnightly comic was due and they’d have stopped appearing, and it was too late to put them back in (it was cancelled)? Or it’s something to do with timings for the Transformers strips, since the editor would be planning several months ahead. Who knows. Instead, alongside a continuing reprint were two new Transformers stories starring Micromasters. In this issue the plot involved the Decepticons’ difficulties in building microscopic components so they were trying to steal the Autobots’ secrets. The advantages of their tiny forms were really played up to and as a result they were so cocky. No wonder I loved them. The UK strips gave them proper personalities too, unlike the US ones.

It was rare for any ghosts to return in The Real Ghostbusters. Almost all of its stories were self-contained but on occasion we’d get a nice surprise and see a fan favourite once more. This happened this week. A giant gorilla movie monster returned from a previous prose story for a comic strip sequel, albeit much smaller and now working in Holywood. No prizes for guessing which role he was best suited for. Given the cover star for this week’s prose story this meant we basically had another themed issue. That’s three in a row! Could the comic make a home run next week?

The Punisher is the only other new release and that final issue of the superb Death’s Head is hanging on in there. The main story in the former certainly sounds exciting and it was such a shame that my reservation list at the newsagent was already maxed out. I didn’t want to cancel any of them to add The Punisher, so I missed out. The ‘Nam began its run as back up strip too, a series that sounded fascinating (especially the real time factor of its storytelling, at least initially) but which has escaped me thus far.

We’ve two adverts this week taken from the middle pages of Transformers so they’re both in black and white. A few weeks late, The Punisher finally gets promoted beyond the checklist with the famous quote that adorned the cover of the only issue I owned. Always found that funny! The other advert sees the very welcome return of the strip ads, this time for The Sleeze Brothers, a comic which was teased before release for longer than any child’s attention span. I’ve seen this advert in full colour in Death’s Head #5 (check it out in the brothers’ introduction post) but this is the only way it would appear in either of the comics I’m pulling these checklists from.

At the time of writing this post I’ve just recently reviewed Some Like It Fresh, the one-shot special released in 1991, two years after their mini-series was first released. It was a blast to read a new story featuring the dire detectives, so this advert is well timed right now and has brought a great big stupid grin to my face. Although, it’s been printed in Transformers two months after their series began and the comic was less than 32 pages, so I’m not sure how this slipped through at this stage. Oh well, who cares? It’s still fun.

I hope you enjoyed it too because that’s the last strip advert we’ll see in this series. Boooo! Oh well, next week we’ve three new ads for your perusal so don’t be missing out on them, as well as the latest checklist of course. See you in seven.

Join in the checklists conversation here or on:
Bluesky
Instagram
Facebook

TRANSFORMERS 232 (Instagram)

DEATH’S HEAD 10

WEEK 55 < > WEEK 57

MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST MENU

Mighty Marvel Checklists

THE MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST: WEEK 55

Leave a comment
SATURDAY 12th AUGUST 1989

You’ll have the beginning of a certain classic Surfaris song stuck in your head with that caption on John Marshall’s and Dave Harwood’s cover to The Real Ghostbusters. Meanwhile, a favourite storyline makes the cover of Transformers and Action Force again, courtesy of Lee Sullivan.

The ghost busting team seemed to be having a time of it in the summer of 1989. After their sojourn in England last week, now they were living it up in the sun of LA and once again the strips and prose stories were all linked by the theme. Even Ecto-1 could be seen with huge sand tyres thanks to the art of Anthony Larcombe inside. As usual when the comic ran a theme like this it wasn’t just the main stories either, features such as Spengler’s Spirit Guide, Dead True and humour strip Blimey It’s Slimer were all LA-centric, making it another special one.

The main event of my week back then was the second part of The Big Shutdown with the introduction of the new Big Bad, Thunderwing and the infectiously enthusiastic Nightbeat. It’d be a while before they’d appear in the US strips so we were being treated to a superb prelude and it really added a level of fear to the former before his main arc. Between the last issue and this one it’s been a particular delight rereading these, the first glimpses of what would eventually become the epic Matrix Quest and all of the storylines that came off the back of that, all the way to that fateful final #332 almost two-and-a-half years later. It was a truly phenomenal time to be a reader.

We make up for the lack of adverts with a bumper checklist. It didn’t take up any more space but it was chock full of Marvel UK goodness. The best story of the week barely got a mention in Transformers’ bit of the list and I always wondered if anyone who didn’t read The Real Ghostbusters actually believed the checklists when they described the stories this way (instead of realising they were comedy strips)? The final issue of Death’s Head kept that bit quiet, which is a shame since that would’ve made it an unmissable candidate for the ‘Don’t Miss…’ box. Not that there is one this week. Cheekily, and possibly to get people to buy it, the summary doesn’t mention which Iron Man he’s battling.

The Punisher’s new weekly saw the end of its first back up strip, the full movie adaptation of RoboCop done in only three issues. The next back up (The ‘Nam) would stay for the rest of its run, making it feel like ol’ Murphy was only there to help push the new comic out of the starting block. Finally, Doctor Who Magazine makes a welcome return to these posts and I’d love to read that feature about the early stunts, back when imaginations had to outdo the measly budget. Although, the competition prizes don’t seem as “fabulous” as they were made out to be. Two adverts next week, including (at long last) another in the form of a comic strip. Wonderful! See you in seven.

Come and join in the checklists conversation here or on:
Bluesky
Instagram
Facebook

TRANSFORMERS 231 (Instagram)

DEATH’S HEAD 10

WEEK 54 < > WEEK 56

MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST MENU

Classic Comics in Real Time