I’ve just completed an epic real time read through of a mammoth comic series over on the blog’s Instagram, so what’s next?
First, let me tell you a story from about 12 years ago. I discovered hit television show NCIS through a crossover episode between Hawaii Five-0 and NCIS: Los Angeles. I was immediately hooked and wanted to go back to the beginning, the very beginning of the show NCIS itself spun off from originally, Jag, about Navy lawyers. I remembered watching some of it with my parents in the 90s and, created by Airwolf’s Donald P. Bellisario I’d enjoyed it. So I started there.
One season of Jag ended with a helluva cliffhanger when a main character stood on a landmine and had their leg blown off! I had the next season on DVD already and immediately binged all 22 episodes in two weeks. In that fortnight the character had gone through physical and mental anguish, rehabilitation and was walking on a prosthetic. That was quick, I thought! It felt anti-climactic. But that wasn’t Jag’s fault, it was mine.
That storyline was meant to last about nine months, not half of one. I’d completely ruined the drama of this character’s arc. I swore I’d never binge to that level again. Several years later, having started the original OiNK blog site and already reading that comic in real time, I decided I wanted to do something with Marvel UK’s Transformers, a comic I’d binged all of in about six months around ten years previous (before the Jag incident). Knowing how that Jag arc had felt, how would reading Transformers in real time over seven-and-a-half years differ to bingeing?
Reading OiNK in real time is one thing, but here was a comic with great character arcs, epic storylines and its fair share of cliffhangers, and I relished the challenge of using all my will power to not jump ahead in what was a massive read through! The UK 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 heightened that to a completely new level. Every Thursday I became a kid again, eagerly anticipating the next issue.
Why did I do this on Instagram instead of the blog? When I began I thought the stories were so well known that I wouldn’t be bringing much new to the table. However, showing off every UK issue, including covers, back up stories, letters pages, Lew Stringer strips, features, adverts and more could be a unique angle not covered before, especially for international fans. Instagram was the perfect outlet for doing a photographic journey through my collection rather than in-depth reviews.
My decision proved successful and my Transformers posts became the blog’s most popular on Instagram for seven years, and you can now check it all out in whatever order you wish via a special blog post. But what’s next for the Cybertronians on the OiNK Blog? I’ve adored every single second of this read through and the thought of not covering them doesn’t bear thinking about. First up though is Transformers: Generation 2, the short sequel series also written by Simon Furman. I’ve never read it but recently completed the collection. This is the American original I’m talking about, a first for the blog.
In the UK it was actually Fleetway (OiNK’s second publisher) who acquired the rights for Generation 2 but their monthly only lasted five months. (For me at the time it only lasted one!) They’re very hard to come by for a decent price these days so I’m going to cover the full story in its original form first and do the UK version later. In the US it also began life in G.I. Joe so for this fan of the Joes it’s going to be exciting getting reacquainted with their original comic after it was unceremoniously dumped from later issues of the UK’s Transformers.
Watch out for that in a few months here on the blog, but what about Generation 1? I could say it’s been covered already and it’s time to move on, but a key design flaw with Instagram has me thinking otherwise. My original plan for this post had been to reminisce over the past seven years and give you links to key issues so you could work your way through it all if you so desired. But when I link to an individual Instagram post there isn’t any way to navigate beyond it, which is a strange thing indeed. So unless you wanted to scroll back over seven years’ worth of Instagram posts you’d only see the issues I linked to.
As a result, and given the nature of social media, in a few months anyone visiting the account wouldn’t even know I’d covered the comic! So yes, I do want to review the collection I’m most proud of in a more in-depth, permanent fashion here on the blog. But not yet. For two reasons. The first being that I’ve just finished it. I want to have a lengthy break again so that it feels fresh and it can surprise me once more; my ageing memory and the sheer amount of them will both help.
The other reason is it’ll require a huge amount of my time and over the next four or five years there are a range of other comics I wish to cover first. Yes, I do plan very far ahead! If I was to start many years’ worth of in-depth weekly Transformers reviews before then I’d have to cut back on the others. That’s not something I want to do just yet. But all is not lost. To bridge the gap between now and being able to dedicate the time needed to one of the greatest comics ever created, I’ll be doing something special every Christmas.
You all know I love my Christmas comics and the annuals we received from Santa Claus as kids, and Transformers did a particularly great job of both every year. From 2024 onwards each of these festive issues and hardback books will be celebrating their 40th anniversaries and it felt like a waste not to do something on the blog. So I’ll be celebrating those festive editions and books every holiday season for the next eight years! More on that much, much later in the year.
Plenty to come from the Robots in Disguise for the foreseeable future then (and hopefully beyond). I’m always receiving comments from people who are shocked when I reach the end of a read through, no matter its length, telling me the time has flown in, so be patient and you’ll not see the time go in either for more Transformers content. Yep, I’m promising much more OiNK Blog content for many years to come. As long as people keep reading it then it’s not going anywhere! I hope you’ll stick around too.
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