It’s been a while since fan favourite OiNK cartoonist Lew Stringer released one of his excellent collections. At the time of writing the only one reviewed so far on the OiNK Blog since I relaunched this site in 2021 is Derek the Troll (definitely check that out). Beginning next year in a new series of posts I’ll be getting caught up with a myriad of releases from Lew and many other OiNK contributors, something I’m particularly looking forward to.
For now, back to Lew’s Fanzine Funnies. Between 1991 and 2006 Lew created a series of daft comic strips for Camera Obscura, a fanzine for a small branch of Two and Six, a fan society for the classic 60s TV show The Prisoner. Originally based around the eponymous white sphere from the series and later focussing on a fictional obsessed fan, in the opening editorial Lew hopes readers will still find them amusing even if they’re not familiar with the subject matter. Having finished this collection I can assure you this is most definitely the case.
The Prisoner may have only had 17 episodes but a devoted fanbase grew up around it and Patrick McGoohan’s Number Six character. It may also have been broadcast ten years before I was born but its signature phrase, “I am not a number! I am a free man!” was still being used in everything from comedy sketches to television commercials, as was Rover the huge white ball-like creature (apologies if that’s an erroneous description, I’ve never seen it and am writing from memory) who is first up in these strips.
Taking one of these ‘Rover’ sentries and redefining him as an out-of-work actor after the series ended is a genius idea and opened up a myriad of possibilities. These include ludicrous auditions for new roles, a rabid fan following for what is essentially a giant balloon, time travelling to 1992 to escape these people only to appear at a reunion for the fan society and getting his own Saturday morning cartoon show, Hanna-Barbera style.
Lew even ties The Prisoner in with his own ‘Lewniverse’ of characters in a way. Rover has an agent, and that agent’s name is Roy L.T. Check, who may be familiar to fans of Combat Colin from the pages of Transformers. Alongside all of this daftness are a range of special additions like a Prisoner clothing line, a Doctor Who page and even that old Lew staple, a board game.
“Coathangers are featured for precisely 8.57 seconds in the opening minutes. That’s almost 9 seconds… 6 upside down!”
Alistair Sadgitt
The fans in the society even have a bit of fun poked at them. For example, in the future they hold their meetings on the moon (because Portmeirion in Wales where the show was filmed has been moved there to protect it from pollution) and Rover is bluntly honest when he tells them what he really thought about the show. It’s all in good jest and shows the fans could have a giggle at themselves and not take things too seriously.
However, I’m sure we all know from our own personal acquaintances over the years or from social media those fans that do take things far too seriously; the intense fanboys that like to try and lord it over the rest of us and who are simply best ignored. The second half of this collection focuses on Lew’s version of one of these people and he’d give any of them a run for their money. Meet Alistair Sadgitt (sad git).
While there are plenty of Alistair strips I think this page perfectly sums up the character. The show ended with so many open-ended questions that fan theories and discussions have continued ever since, often picking out supposed clues and running themes from the episodes to try and explain the unsolved mysteries. However, as you can see Alistair takes this to the nth degree.
Complete with his Number Six-like jacket (not actually tailored, it has masking tape for its trimmings) his overly-obsessive ways are the funniest aspect of this collection. I may not be familiar with The Prisoner but I certainly am with the type of person Lew is taking the hand out of here. On a related note, it’s mentioned that he’s 42-years-old. I’m 45 at the time of writing! Either Alistair’s ways have aged him or I’m a lot older than I feel!
Towards the rear of the comic are a selection of strips and images taken from other publications or created for fan events, my favourite being one in which the main character of the show is retooled as a traditional humour comics character, called Number Six and his Unmutual Tricks! As a fan of OiNK, which turned traditional comics on their heads, this reads like as much of a spoof of those comics as it does The Prisoner.
Any fan of Lew’s (or indeed funny comics in general) should find plenty to enjoy here, and plenty to laugh along with. However, for fans of The Prisoner it’s an essential purchase. Presented in landscape format with 32 pages in total, all printed on top quality paper stock and a card cover it’s a high quality piece of self-publishing, just like all of Lew’s other collections. All of this for only £5 plus postage? Bargain.
To order your own copy just head on over to Lew’s eBay seller’s shop where you can also sometimes find original art and more for sale. Lew accepts all forms of payment and not just PayPal either. At the time of writing, Fanzine Funnies had only been released a couple of weeks ago and is already on its second printing. You could definitely do worse than bookmarking Lew’s eBay page and keeping a regular eye on it to see what else pops up, he sometimes reprints some of his sold out comics further down the line, and don’t forget his personal blog where new comics are obviously announced first.
Well here we are at the final issue already of Titan Magazine’s The Lost World Jurassic Park comic. In the States, just as with the original movie, Topps Comics released its adaptation as a four-part mini-series. When the original adaptation proved popular further stories were told as the first official sequel to the film, however in 1997 no further adventures after the sequel movie were forthcoming. In the UK, instead of simply having a one-off special consisting of all four chapters as had happened with other adaptations at the time Titan decided to also do a mini-series, with exclusive extras for UK readers of course.
Unfortunately #2 remains the only issue to feature one of the gorgeous animatronic animals from the movie on the front but I do like this final cover by original adaptation writerWalter Simonson and Richard Ory, complete with an exceptionally cute little baby Tyrannosaurus rex. It also gets across the exciting moment from the movie a lot better than the strip. Inside we go and we kick things off with our heroes arriving at the workers’ village in a suitably eerie scene.
Once again the narration sets the scene, most likely taken directly from the script and unlike in previous issues it doesn’t feel like it’s trying too hard, writer Don McGregor’s captions perfectly balanced with the more subdued art on these first pages from penciller Jeff Butler, inker Armando Gil, colourist (and editor) Renée Witterstaetter, alongside the lettering by Ken Lopez. Even the lack of detail in the buildings adds a feeling of things being shrouded in mystery and shadows, capturing the feeling of this moment in the movie really well.
Nick Van Owen arrives alongside the rest of the characters, Ian Malcom, Sarah Harding and Ian’s daughter Kelly and I’m fine with this change, it helps get the same story beats across in a shorter time frame, one of the better decisions made in this adaptation. Then on the very next page my hopes for a better comic book climax than the original movie received are dashed when another brilliant part of the movie is hacked down to an unrecognisable state.
So much happens here in the movie and it’s all just excised including, yet again, anything to do with Vanessa Lee Chester’s character, Kelly. In the original film’s comic adaptation Samuel L Jackson’s Ray Arnoldsuddenly disappeared without explanation. Now we also have this movie’s sole black character unceremoniously edited out of all of their scenes.
There’s an overall feeling of this chapter being rushed
Yes, Ian’s moments being chased around here are nowhere to be seen but at least he’s still front and centre elsewhere, whereas Kelly is basically ignored throughout all the chapters, and to have her most important moment not even referred to is criminal. I’m also personally unhappy they removed the moment that in the cinema made me jump out of my seat, which in turn made my friend jump, which in turn made me jump again! (The bit with the ‘raptor under the wooden wall.) But hey, that’s just me.
Almost as annoying as all of this is the fact Roland Tempo is somehow still alive and well without a single scratch just like in the film, even though we blatantly saw him get killed off two weeks ago, something I was happy the movie didn’t do. Did Don forget this had happened in his version? There’s an overall feeling of this chapter being rushed and the art suffers just as much as the script. There’s an overall lack of detail and finesse throughout. Here are some key examples.
That scene of the Velociraptors in the long grass would make no sense if you hadn’t seen the film, characters no longer look like their onscreen counterparts and the gloriously detailed dinosaurs from the first couple of chapters give way to cartoonish monsters. The final chapter of Jurassic Park’s adaptation suffered the same fate and it would seem no one learned any lessons from it in the three years since.
I know I’m coming across as very negative and usually I only include comics on the blog that I enjoy; I like to keep this as a positive reading experience. The original Jurassic Park comic was awesome, I loved it and it holds a special place in my heart. It’s the whole reason there’s a section for JP on the blog in the first place. This mini-series is very much an extra aside to that, I don’t think I would’ve included this on its own. It’s a crying shame because I love the movie so much.
Towards the end of the story 11 pages are given over to the San Diego scenes, albeit a bare bones version of them. The panel above of the S.S. Venture crashing into the docks is about as detailed a panel as you’ll find in this final chunk of story. You wouldn’t even know any of this was taking place in a city because the backgrounds just don’t exist beyond one panel. Other than there being a sporty car involved this could all be happening back on Isla Sorna.
Below you’ll see the one and only panel that shows some hurriedly drawn buildings and the word “cinema” visible behind the T-rex’s tail. Next to it is a panel I’ll use to sum up these eleven pages. Look at the panel with the car. There are no backgrounds, not even a road! Storywise, we get the ‘rex leaving the ship, discovering Ian and Sarah have his baby, then we’re back at the dock. That’s it.
Thinking back to when I first saw this film in the theatre, the moment we saw the InGen helicopter and the camera panned down to show it was flying over a city was a real shock to the system. It was so unexpected from a Jurassic Park film (I hadn’t watched any trailers before seeing it) and as surprise endings go it’s right up there for me. There was so much to enjoy about it which is why its treatment here is so underwhelming.
“This is a parent teaching its young to feed on its own”
Narrative caption, Don McGregor
Surprisingly Peter Ludlow’s final scene gets three pages to play out fully. One of the most satisfying endings for a villain character, it pretty much happens as it does in the movie, even if the backgrounds are still conspicuously absent. To anyone unfamiliar, this is back on the boat now, Ian and Sarah having lured the adult back into the cargo hold by placing the baby there and then jumping overboard themselves, before climbing back on from the other side of the ship, ready to close the bay doors when the T-rex enters.
From Ian and Kelly to the adult and baby Tyrannosaurs, the theme of The Lost World Jurassic Park movie was one of family and parental instincts. Sarah is even an expert on archeological parental behaviours just to hammer the point home. Personally, more than any other film in the series this one showed the dinosaurs as complex characters in their own right, a far cry from how they’d been described before this franchise. But anyway, Ludlow is about to get eaten.
I’m glad this moment wasn’t cut because it shows the adult teaching the baby and it’s a particularly chilling moment in the film, even if it elicits a dark grin from the audience. Given how much has been left out these past two months it might seem like an odd moment for anyone reading who hadn’t seen the film and all of its moments between the Tyrannosaur family members, but for those reading this as a way of filling the gap before the home video release it would bring back memories of that scene really well.
After all of my complaints about the lacklustre art in this final issue we finally get a moment that matches the potential those first couple of chapters had. As the InGen helicopter circles overhead trying to get a good shot to kill the ‘rex, Sarah shoots the tranquilliser dart first and we get this page with a particularly fantastic, expressive, dramatic panel when the dart strikes.
I look back at those first two chapters and the gloriously detailed scenes in the jungle with the Stegosaurus family and I can’t help but wonder what this series could’ve at least looked like, even if the script was still a shadow of the film. What if we’d had that early level of detail coupled with the dynamism of the page above? What an impact it could’ve made. The art team was definitely up to the task but it seems deadlines and a rushed story hindered them in the end.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the task of taming a beast of a movie script down to four comics was monumental and I found Don’s explanations in a previous issue fascinating but in the end I think he boiled it down too much to the maths. I’ll get back to that in a little bit further down this review but let’s finish things off with the final page of the strip. Happily, Richard Attenborough’s beautiful John Hammond speech remains mostly intact, as does that famous Jurassic Park line first uttered by Jeff Goldblum’s Ian.
As you can see detail in anything other than the few dinosaurs in the immediate foreground is minimal and when you contrast this with #1 the difference is stark. My final thoughts on the comic strip itself in just a moment. First up though are the extras editor John Freeman and his team assembled, some of which have definitely been the highlights in previous issues.
First up is a competition to win a mug with the logo of the film on it. Not the most exciting of prizes, you’d expect this to be a runner up prize, but then again the original comic gave away a large variety of swag, everything from a simple set of glow-in-the-dark stickers to actual Sega Mega CD systems. So if this had been an ongoing comic I’m sure the same would’ve applied to future competitions, and at the end of the day I’d still like that mug!
The competition itself is somewhat easy though, right? Upon first glance I thought it’d be a case of naming the dinosaurs, with the ones in silhouette form being the trickier ones, but actually it’s just a matter of matching them to the pictures in the next row. I remember competitions and quiz pages like that in my old Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends comics as a child and it seems very out of place for the target audience of a Jurassic Park title.
There are a wonderful couple of pages detailing a selection of the merchandise released to tie in with the hottest film of the summer of 1997. There are some action figures of the dinosaurs shown, including a T-rex apparently engaging in a spot of S&M and mention of a figure of Ian with a jet pack! Really? Sadly no pictures of that one. Of more interest to this retro gamer are screenshots of some of the videogame releases of that year.
My friends laughed as I jumped and slid about the seat in reaction to the dinosaurs
The first image shown is from the arcade game, where players would sit inside a mock jeep with tranquilliser guns and on the screen was a fast-moving on-rails shooter with graphics that were mind-blowing for the time. I’ve played this one. A local ten-pin bowling alley had it for a few years in the late 90s and early 00s, and I have distinct memories of my friends laughing as I jumped and slid about the seat in reaction to what was happening while another friend sat quietly shooting at the dinosaurs.
There are also screenshots from the platform game available on the Sega Mega Drive and the 3D game (that was a new thing at the time) for the Sega Saturn and the new Sony Playstation. Sadly there’s no mention of the Nintendo GameBoy Lost World game. I had a GameBoy in the 90s and adored the game of the first film which was also a competition prize in the original comic. (There just might be more about that on the blog later this year.)
The Script to Strip article from #2 gets a second part here, although it’s a lot smaller and features less information. It would also have been a lot more interesting if the correct page of the movie script had been used in the comparison on the left. It does give a decent insight into the ‘Roar’ page from #3 though. It even mentions in Don’s original pages how the characters were meant to react to the sound, but in the finished page they did not.
A quick personal note: That T-rex in the bottom-right is actually a version of the cover from my very first Jurassic Park comic as a teen.
This is the perfect point to reflect on the entire strip. I’ve said all along there have been moments of potential; the early art was fantastic and #2 was a vast improvement over #1 in terms of adapting the film to the medium. However, towards the end the art definitely suffered. I’m making an assumption here, I know, but it could’ve been due to tight deadlines towards the end to ensure it was released in America at the same time as the film. I also think Don’s articles have unintentionally summed up what went wrong, for me anyway.
Some lovely art and some fun extras have made this comic mini-series worth reading and the completist will definitely find those elements enjoyable
In part one of Script to Strip Don talked about the amount of pages David Koepp’s movie script had compared to how many the comic would have in total to tell the same story, and he explained how many pages of it he’d have to squeeze into each comic page. Now, after reading the whole story it feels like it was more about solving the problem by logic rather than creatively. The first chapter in particular of the original Jurassic Park adaptation showed how to include as much of the movie as possible while being very aware it’s a different medium, using imaginative ways to swap scenes or retell them in a new way. It felt like the film but it was different. A bit like adapting a novel into a movie you could say.
Towards the end though it felt like a checklist was being ticked off as it rushed from one scene to the next, paying lip service to moments the reader would remember from the film. With the sequel, in breaking everything down mathematically as Don did it’s felt like that throughout all four chapters, with some glimmers of the (that word again) potential here and there, which just made it all the more frustrating, knowing this team was capable of so much more.
So here we are at the final page of the final issue of The Lost World Jurassic Park which mentions a third novel by Michael Crichton. While there’s the occasional mention of such a thing on fan sites there’s nothing official anywhere to state he actually started it. Instead, Jurassic Park III and specifically Jurassic World would pull a lot from the two released novels. The rest of this page takes me back to all of the discussions at the time about DNA cloning and I can remember teenage me being very excited by documentaries and such on the subject.
So that’s us. Some lovely art in the earlier issues and some fun extras have made this mini-series worth reading and the completist will definitely find those elements enjoyable, just don’t expect anything ground breaking from yet another movie-to-comic adaptation. I do want to go and watch the movie again though! Remember, all 16 issues of the original comic, including the first official Jurassic Park sequel, have been reviewed and I’ll be returning to that series with the graphic novel collections of the rest of that story, which we never saw printed in the UK at the time, so I’ve never read them!
Definitely something to look forward to there. In the meantime, remember… “don’t go into the long grass”.
This has been the best monthly issue of OiNK yet and feels like it’s really beginning to hit its stride in its new form. Such a shame there are only two more issues to go! Let’s concentrate on the one right in front of me for now though because it’s a riot. Horace (Ugly-Face) Watkins gets cover status thanks to co-editor Tony Husband, although just like last month I can’t help but feel there should’ve been a different cover star. Horace takes up three pages in a brilliant strip inside but the return of Pigswilla has nine! We’ll get to him in a sec.
On the second page is another artist’s profile, seemingly left over from the recent Holiday Special which contained ten of them. Lew Stringer’s can be found in this issue for some reason and I’ve added it to the ‘Cartoonists’ Profiles’ post with the rest of them as it’s just too good to miss. This is definitely an issue fans of Lew’s won’t want to miss out on with his strips taking up 13 pages, over a quarter of the whole comic! I’ve included them all here as highlights because they’re hands down the very best this issue has to offer, beginning with the return of everyone’s favourite giant robotic pig.
According to Lew this particular Pigswilla strip was originally conceived as a weekly serial but, unlike The Street-Hogslast month, The Perils of Pigswilla had slight tweaks made to it (such as chapter length and the amount of comic violence) to help it work better as one complete strip for the new OiNK. I certainly agreed with Lew when he told me he was very pleased with how it turned out. Certainly, after previous strips of the character’s were double-page spreads, it’s great to see him get the kind of space his frame deserved.
It’s split into three parts of various lengths and kicks off with the British public in awe of their mechanical hero after his most recent victory against some banana people. So far, so normal. But the butchers of the world aren’t happy at all; sales of pork have plummeted in a world where pigs have been given equal footing in society as humans, a topical note that The Street-Hogs strip last issue kicked off with. They’ve only one option: to destroy the perception of Pigswilla in the public eye. How will this reverse the trends they’re unhappy with? Well, to answer this Lew takes a jab at something which is unfortunately still very much prevalent today.
Initially I thought the death of the professor may not have been in the original weekly serial version of this strip, what with that version of OiNK being aimed at a younger audience, but then I remembered Jeremy Banx’s Hieronymous Van Hellsong from those issues! Plus I remember this being very funny to the younger version of me as well. I love the chaos of the hypnotising panel, it reminds me of the Spirograph toy from the 80s. For the first time we also see the new OiNK logo depicted in one of the strips, confirming this was created for the monthlies.
It’s all hugely enjoyable and then I let out a roar of laughter when I saw the TV interviewee, his demeanour, appearance and especially his t-shirt. Showing how fickle the public can be and how easily they can be scaremongered by those with ulterior motives (the butchers in this case) we even see pigs’ homes being bricked to chants of “Sage and onion”. Yes it’s funny but it’s also making a point and very much poking deserved fun at people like that. It’s satire suitable for kids and I think I can say with certainty things like this (and Lew’s previous dig at bigots in a Pete and his Pimple strip) had a very positive impact on me at that age. It’s even funnier to me today of course.
Part one ends with this shocking moment of Pigswilla being blasted by the army and apparently taken offline. He’s got one friend though, his creator Professor Compton Codger’s lab technician Jenny Mercury (always loved the names Lew gave his characters). She climbs inside his giant noggin and begins to tape him back together, taking over the handy manual controls just as the butchers use their dark magical powers to create their own giant robot, formed from the spleens “of a thousand hogs” and scrap metal for yet another Pigswilla enemy.
The butcher robot goes from one pig owner’s house to another, collecting them to chop up later with us humans cheering it on(!) when, with Jenny’s help, the huge swine comes back to life, albeit with one key difference. Never passing up the chance to get some rhyming lyrics into a strip, Lew has made one of the after-effects of Pigswilla’s near complete shutdown a case of accidental rapping! Just when you thought it surely couldn’t be possible to add another level of absurdity to the proceedings. I also like how we can see out of Pigswilla’s eyes in the last panel of this chapter.
There’s come cracking (crackling?) dialogue as the fight continues and Pigswilla looks ever more defeated. Even a cow gets in on the act. Pigswilla and Jenny work together and eventually overcome his apparent death by tricking the butchers into taking a swing near an electricity pylon with obvious results. We then get a great big chunky written panel explaining how things were all okay in the end, finishing with Pigswilla dancing through the streets but thankfully without the rapping fixed.
That wordy panel is funny for another reason. Maybe I’m looking too deeply into it, but personally the absurdity of how simply things are reversed in the public’s opinion just highlights how absurd it was that they turned against him in the first place, again mirroring the real world. Even today people still fall for it every time! It’s all brilliant stuff and my very favourite strip from the monthlies. The only negative I can think of is the fact he didn’t get the cover to go along with this (although an intended weekly cover was used as the Next Issue promo).
One of the funniest OiNK strips ever and one I’ve been particularly looking forward to revisiting
We’ll come back to Lew in a moment but first let’s have a little interlude for what I described in the ‘Coming Up: OiNK! #66’ post as one of the funniest OiNK strips ever and one I’ve been particularly looking forward to revisiting. While it’s not from his Meanwhile… series it’s just as unique a strip from Kev F Sutherland as you’d expect. I love Kev’s art style, especially in this double-page spread with its great sense of place, the chaotic labs and superb use of shadow, and of course it’s hilarious.
The Three Scientists is one of those OiNK strips which has replayed itself in my head several times over the years, particularly when I’ve been watching Doctor Who and there’s been some neat twist in a plot involving time travel. This is always guaranteed to bring a smile to my face. Back in 1988 it had me creased up with laughter. Its elaborate set up all leading to a quick, simple, perfect gag is classic Kev. Enjoy this one.
Two quick highlights before we return to the Lewniverse and these may be two completely different entries in this issue of OiNK and by completely different contributors but they have a bit of a linked theme. First up is co-editor Tony Husband’s cover star, Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins. In pursuit of a regular, relaxing holiday with no football fans or weird occurrences, they’ve ended up meeting Dracula! Horace’s unique way of dispatching the vampire is just as funny today and leads nicely into the next highlight.
GBHDP is the new political party from OiNK’s in-house mail order gangsters and among the ridiculousness one particular section stood out to me. In recent years there’s been a clamouring among certain types of people, including readers of that aforementioned tabloid, for the return to older so-called ‘Victorian values’. This brilliant madvertisement from Simon Thorp shows this isn’t just a recent thing.
Horace Watkins by Tony Husband GBHDP by Simon Thorp
In fact, the GBHDP party goes so far as to end their madvert with the slogan, “GBHDP – Together we can make Britain GRATE again.” Even 32 years later that says it all, doesn’t it?
Moving on and it’s clear Tom Thug’s strips are being aimed at the slightly older target audience with what occurs here, although I don’t remember it flying over my head or being in any way less enjoyable when I was still a few months away from my 11th birthday. History is made right here folks, because we have a first for a children’s humour comics character when Tom actually leaves school and moves out into the adult world.
“I’m gonna sign me cross fer a pocketfulla dosh!”
Tom Thug
This would only be a temporary situation of course. When OiNK merges into Buster in a few months the strip turns back time for more misadventures in school, but for now we get to see him actually sign on and, as you’d expect of him, he thinks it’s a way of getting as much money as he wants for nothing. Well, he is a pillock after all. The last gag may have been lost on me as a child. It’s a topical gag, not something OiNK did much of until these later issues. I probably grinned and laughed at his predicament without realising its topicality.
So yes, we’ve a couple of issues to go to see how Tom fairs in the big, bad world and I’m sure he’ll be even less successful (if that’s possible) than he was when he thought he could lord it over the smaller kids in school. At the bottom is a rare writing credit for someone other than Lew, who told me, “I think Mark wanted Tom to get older and sign on and suggested the basic idea of that but everything else was up to me.” A shame we won’t get to see much of this part of Tom’s life but I look forward to it regardless.
Finishing off his hat trick for this issue, Lew’s Pete and his Pimple gets three pages when a reader suggests blasting Pete into space to save the rest of us from being covered in exploding pus. There are so many great gags straight out of the gate with this strip; the caption giving away why the tanks are drawn that way, XL5’s cameo, the life support and more. It’s not an exaggeration to say there’s a real good giggle to be found in every panel of the first page, and is that a familiar guest star from Pigswilla? As for the rest, it just gets better and better as Pete gets Lost in Space.
I love the design of the aliens and seeing the caricatures of the cast of the 60s show takes me back to childhood Sunday lunchtimes with repeats on Channel 4. The fact one of them is labelled ‘The Boring Macho One’ is spot on (no pun intended) because he’s actually the only one I can’t remember! With some fun digs at the simplicity of 60s sci-fi and the usual description of a UFO being taken literally this is one of Pete’s best. There’s also a censored panel here too!
Lew originally drew Pete urinating on the robot
If you look closely at the first panel on the third page of the strip you may see a shape beside the “old junk”, almost like a very faint silhouette. As it turns out that’s exactly what it is. Lew originally drew Pete urinating on the robot rather than hiding him behind it and you can just about make out how he was standing, looking down at little splashes. It’s been edited, but not very well.
According to Lew’s personal blog, “My original art was censored in one panel! I’d shown Pete (with his back to us) having a wee against the robot but that was too much for [Fleetway]. They stuck a piece of paper over him and changed the tail of the word balloon so it looked like Pete was hidden behind the robot… BUT the paste-over was opaque and with a bit of Photoshop enhancement you can see Pete’s silhouette…”. Here’s the image as Lew presented it to show what he meant. Thanks to Lew for letting me share this.
It wasn’t the first time one of Lew’s strips was edited, although in a previous Tom Thugthe edit made things worse!
There are just the five pages of reprints this time. One is the Johnny the Jet strip from #8 and the others are made up of the final two OiNK Superstar Posters, printed double-sided. Well, one ‘Megastar Poster’ and one simply named ‘Poster’. The latter was deemed a suitably bland title for Mary Lighthouse’s which was also taken from #8, while #6’s Uncle Pigg poster by Ian Jackson was renamed for a bit more grandeur. Naturally. This is actually the poster of him I’ve used in my home office since it meant I could use it without losing any strips on the back.
Without question this has been the best monthly issue so far and really feels like it’s hit its stride. The same thing happened with the weeklies and I get the impression that it could’ve really worked in this format if it hadn’t been cancelled. Of course, OiNK was still at its best in its 32-page fortnightly guise (first 44 issues) with its themes, all of its characters intact and aimed at the original target audience while still suitable (and read by) older fans too. But as a different, older version of the same comic this issue really works.
After all of the lengthy strips I just wanted to round things off with a couple of slices of miniature Ed McHenry nonsense. Ed’s Wally of the West debuted in OiNK much later in the run than I remember and now his mini-strips raise a laugh in every single issue. But Ed wasn’t content with just his regular characters, he’d also create lots of little random one-offs to be sprinkled throughout the 48 pages. Here are his best two from this issue.
With Ed rounding things off nicely for this month we’re back to waiting only four weeks until #67 of OiNK, the penultimate regular issue. We may be nearing the end but there’s still so much for this comic to give. This year really has flown in for me and I think part of the reason for that is OiNK. With those weeklies I flew through the winter and spring, and the summer has been one large Holiday Special after another. The next one will be reviewed here on Sunday 17th September 2023. September. Already!
The Next Issue promo page in OiNK #65 elicited a level of excitement I didn’t know was still possible by this daft, silly comic after 35 years since publication and over two years of this read through. But Lew Stringer had an announcement to make and, alongside Pete Throb and his brilliant takes on Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins and Uncle Pigg, Pigswilla was the star and he was returning in the next issue with a huge nine-page strip! Although, “raunchy”? (That part would’ve been added by co-editor Patrick Gallagher.)
According to Lew this image was originally intended as a cover but was used in this context instead. A shame, but at least we got to see it. The strip itself was definitely one of the biggest highlights of these six monthly OiNKs. In fact, all of Lew’s strips in #66 are reasons to splash out on this issue if you see it on eBay, with Pete and his Pimple getting Lost in Space and Tom Thug making children’s humour comics history! Plus, one of the funniest OiNK strips ever comes from Kev F Sutherland, one I’ve been particularly looking forward to seeing again. You can see these highlights and more in the full review from Sunday 20th August 2023.
Another sharp, exciting cover from Dragon’s Claws co-creator Geoff Senior welcomes us to #3 of Marvel UK’s comic which, judging by these first three issues at least, really deserved to find a bigger audience and last a lot longer than it did. The premiere issue basically dealt with Dragon himself in an 80s action flick-style story that set up the world we find ourselves in, the Greater Britain of the year 8162. Then last month we properly met the rest of the team and their nemeses The Evil Dead in what felt like part two of that movie.
So with the introductions out of the way it’s time to get into the meat of the next story and I’m glad to see Simon Furman‘s script isn’t going to be as episodic as I assumed a monthly from Marvel UK would be. This reads great in its own right while setting lots of things up for future issues, expanding the background plot the previous issues have hinted at and ending on not one, but two cliffhangers. The splash pages so far have been just as good as the covers, with colours by Steve White and letters by Annie Halfacree. I really do like the way editor Richard Starkings uses the Fastfax to introduce the stories within the setting itself rather than using a typical editorial style.
That’s The Pig, Dragon’s Claws’ ship, which feels rather suitable for this blog, doesn’t it? Even though they’ve only just been hired by N.U.R.S.E. (National Union of Retired Sports Experts) to bring in The Game teams still at large across the country who are abusing their positions of power, it seems some of the public are already turning on our heroes and viewing them as nothing more than government lackeys.
Their particular mission here is to head to Channel City, a huge metropolis that was built out over the English Channel to help with the overcrowding on the mainland, although it now overlooks nothing but a dried up seabed. No less than 20 teams have formed an army to protect someone called The High Father, an individual who the Claws were told had imprisoned hundreds of people in their own home. But now as they approach they’re under attack by those very civilians. Why? As the Claws discuss this and how they’re going to accomplish their mission without harming any innocents, unbeknownst to them a funny little moment plays out on the hull.
So why do these people not want rescued from this army and their apparent martial law? The strip does get to that by the end of the issue but first there are a few subplots thrown in for good measure. Kurran, brother of one of the Wildcats killed by Dragon as he protected his family, is out for revenge it would seem, at least in the interlude in the middle of the strip (more below). We also catch up with Tanya as she continues to try shielding their son Michael from Dragon’s violent TV coverage, but Michael wants his dad and it looks like she has no choice but to confront the situation and talk to his father.
I like these very human moments, although the most intriguing of the subplots this issue comes courtesy of N.U.R.S.E.’s Mister Stenson and Deller, the ex-Game player whose jealousy over Dragon leading the Claws almost ended with his death last month. It looks like they specifically need Dragon more than they’re letting on to him; having him as their poster child will mask their real intentions behind a cloak of heroism. But it’s the final couple of panels that interest me the most. Just who is giving these orders?
Any fan of Marvel UK’s Transformers comic will recognise the classic Geoff Senior pose there in panel three of page nine. So the main background plots thicken and I hope there’s enough time to give us a satisfying amount of development for these before the comic’s cancellation with #10. I’m particularly looking forward to seeing where the Kurran/Wildcats arc goes because on the final page of this issue he’s no longer concerned about Dragon. He’s smart enough to know that Dragon could easily have taken out the entire Wildcat team on his own (which he did do) so now he’s pursuing the reason behind the confrontation.
He knows his brother was stupid, but he wouldn’t have been stupid enough to go up against Dragon just because he hurt their pride. He beats up a woman at their hideout, wanting to know who paid them to do it and finds out it was Deller. Now that’s a cliffhanger. Even moreso than the main story’s, which we’ll lead up to now. With The Pig out of commission the Claws take to hover pads to make their way to Channel City and come up against a Game team hinted at in the pre-release marketing, The Vanishing Ladies.
There’s a particularly gigglesome moment when the strong and ever so macho Steel gets taken down a peg in the simplest of ways
First though, the mysterious Scavenger (already my favourite) breaks formation and takes off across the desolate landscape, disobeying Dragon’s direct orders. It’s such a sudden and dangerous move the reader instantly thinks something terrible is about to happen, that Scavenger has blasted away to stop it and save his teammates from whatever it is. The camaraderie between the members of this team is so tight it has to be something huge, right?
Well yes, as a matter of fact. I mean, an abandoned, starving animal is a big deal to this reader. It’s still funny of course. We now have our final member of the team. After all, this mutt was in those adverts for the comic too. He also gets named Lady Killer after what happens next. The Vanishing Ladies have special clothing that can bend beams of light (that old chestnut), essentially making them invisible. Cue lots of pictures of our team getting beaten up and using ingenuity to try to fight back.
There’s a particularly gigglesome moment when the strong and ever so macho Steel gets taken down a peg in the simplest of ways. Mercy isn’t so easily incapacitated and as she gets punched she deliberately rolls with the hit and is able to backflip and kick her attacker in the face without clapping eyes on her. Digit uses his computerised brain to accurately calculate probabilities for blocking attacks to find out where his attacker is. Dragon and Scavenger don’t have it quite so easy though.
Scavenger is getting strangled by one of the invisible foes and the only thing that stops him from being killed is his new dog who’s able to sense her and bite her on the leg, making her visible again. The newly named Lady Killer then helps Dragon and his reaction is another funny moment. I’m really looking forward to seeing this dynamic play out further in future episodes. The mightiest Game team ever now has a pet, one who is just as much a part of the team as the rest, whether they like it or not!
All of this is being televised across Greater Britain just as The Game was, N.U.R.S.E. adamant the people need to see Dragon’s Claws doing the government’s work in order to change public perceptions as they see fit. Then, as the team fight The High Father’s minions his voice panics Stenson. He recognises him, but he should be dead! He runs off to warn his superiors and stop the broadcast, and as Dragon’s Claws blast their way through into the area being protected by his army they come across a surprising scene, one of land cultivation and farmed animals!
As you can see there’s a moment when Dragon accuses The High Father of being just as bad as the government, that he’s creating his own privileged class. However, there’s a part of Dragon that doubts he’s really the bad guy in all of this. It’s when The High Father, unmasked as someone called Starick (to Stenson’s horror) explains further that we get our main cliffhanger. He says his former employers were good teachers, but they want him terminated now because they’ve found out how he’s actually looking after his people. The employers’ name is revealed when he tells Dragon he understands his surprise, “After all, you haven’t worked for N.U.R.S.E. for as long as I have!”
I love all this double-crossing, playing politics and subterfuge amongst the action. Add in the more human moments too and what we have here is a surprisingly deep action comic that manages to fit an awful lot into its 22-page strip without it ever feeling cramped or rushed. It’s quite ingenious really. Maybe a little too ingenious for the first letter writer on the new Dragon’s Nest page? Surprisingly, this first letter came from friend of the blog Andy Luke, whose podcast I previously appeared on to discuss OiNK for its 35th anniversary!
The first two chapters for Dragon’s Claws were highly entertaining and gave hints as to what the regular stories could be like. I could not have guessed the very next issue would’ve been so completely satisfying, that the comic would find its feet so quickly. I have a good feeling about the next seven months. The next one can’t come soon enough, but wait I shall for Sunday 10th September 2023. Join me then, won’t you?
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