September | 2024 | OiNK Blog

On this day back in 1992 Art Suydam‘s cover welcomed us to the final issue of Dark Horse International’s special Alien³ Movie Special mini-series. It’s another 48-pager but unfortunately there are a lot less of the fantastic features that made the first two editions so enjoyable. This is because the movie adaptation comic strip is a bumper final chapter, taking up 33 pages. Even with such an increase in page count it still rushes through and isn’t any better than previous instalments.

Steve Grant’s script (lettered by Clem Robins) continues to be a word-for-word reprint of the movie script, the only time it deviates is when it cuts down key dialogue, even giving some to different characters which makes what happens on the page even more confusing than it already was. I won’t go over all of the reasons why I’m not a fan of this strip again, I’m sure I bored you enough with that last time, but what I do love are penciller Christopher Taylor’s, inker Rick Magyar’s and colourist Matt Webb’s take on the alien itself.

This scene above is part of the moment when Ellen Ripley makes her way into the metaphorical basement of the complex (for some reason referred to here as the “attic” instead) to confront the alien and try to get it to kill her. The xenomorph in this movie was somewhat different to what we’d seen previously as we learned that they change depending on what organism they gestate inside, and I think the art team do a great job of bringing that difference to life on the page.

At some points the xenomorph even seems to be taking some delightful glee in the amount of killing it’s doing. That same amount of delight does not extend to the reader or the human characters, who once again are impossible to differentiate between. Even the settings are confusing, such as this depiction of the lead works below. In my head it doesn’t make sense when thinking about the architecture of the film or what it’ll be used for.

The most thrilling part of the film was always the chase sequence, when the inmates would act as bait to lure the alien down certain corridors before closing off doors, forcing it towards the lead works where they planned to trap it. The use of the alien’s point of view as it sprinted along floors, walls and ceilings at equal speed was incredible to watch the first time and it’s not something that could easily be adapted to a comic strip.

However, while this is one of my favourite sequences from the movie I’d have preferred it if the comic had just taken the essence of the chase and built something new, rewriting the script to tell this important part of the story in a way that made sense on the page. Unfortunately, what we end up with is a load of identical people running around in blind panic.

It’s not even explained well by Dillon and Ripley and in the end what everyone is doing makes no sense at all and it’s pure luck the alien ends up where it should. It’s really, really confusing. I can’t tell what’s going on and that’s coming from someone who has seen the film countless times over the years. In the end we all know how it ends, although there’s another change. Sticking with the theatrical version of seeing the alien Queen bursting from Ripley’s chest as she falls towards the molten lead, there’s an additional neck break thrown in too as Ellen somehow still has the ability to twist the creature and kill it, even though both are about to die anyway.

The art team’s depiction of the alien shows that Christopher, Rick and Matt deserved to have a chance to draw a regular Aliens strip together

I’ve covered a few comics adaptations on the blog by now and only the original Jurassic Park one showed a good deal of promise, but even it dropped the ball with its rushed final chapter. Now, having read the adaptations for it, its sequel and Transformers: The Movie (and remembering others from childhood), this one is sadly the worst yet and has done nothing to win me over to the genre. Comics can be adapted to celluloid but going in the other direction just doesn’t work.

This hasn’t been without its good moments though and the art team’s depiction of the alien shows that Christopher, Rick and Matt deserved to have a chance to draw a regular Aliens strip together. I can only imagine how enjoyable the Aliens Vs Predator II mini-strip could’ve been in their hands. As it stands, it remains a curiosity, written by Randy Stradley with art by Chris Warner.

What’s more curious is how they’ve messed up the order of the chapters, which I noticed upon seeing the ‘To Be Continued’ caption. I wondered if it was skipping Aliens #4, which hadn’t been released yet. I went back and checked Alien³ #2 and it’s caption said the next chapter was to be in Aliens #4, and in it (which I quickly checked) it was to continue back into this issue. So it seems editor Dick Hansom forgot Alien³ was being released every three weeks instead of monthly (or perhaps it was originally intended to be monthly) so this chapter and the one to come next week in Aliens #4 are in the wrong order.

I was wondering why all-of-a-sudden we’ve got named Predators. I thought perhaps they’d been named in the previous story (since this is a sequel) but it might just be because we’ve skipped forward a chapter. I’ll find out next week. In the meantime, it seems it’s shameful to be saved by another Predator in battle and the story is from the perspective of a female Predator. Can you imagine the backlash from horrible, sad little corners of the internet if this was released today?

Thanks to the extended main strip the only behind-the-scenes access we get in this final issue is a three-page feature showing off some of the storyboards used in the pre-production stage of Alien³. Comics artist Martin Asbury worked alongside David Fincher on creating these, which would be shared with all of the creative departments. Martin’s comics work has included Captain Scarlett (Countdown), The Six Million Dollar Man (Look-In) and the tabloid strip, Garth. In films he’s worked on several Bond films since GoldenEye, as well as the likes of Batman Begins and Children of Men. Quite the resumé.

Stan Nicholls‘ feature is more of a general introduction to the art of storyboards and their use in moviemaking, rather than going into any depth on Alien³’s particular sketches. You can see some examples though, of the climax and that aforementioned chase sequence, showing a much better depiction of the scenes in question than the finished comic strip.

To finish off with there was also a competition to win some Alien³ merch and this October comics checklist for Dark Horse International.

The Terminator was quite expensive for a fortnightly comic in 1992, however it seems to be as chock-full of strips and features (and a free cardboard cutout figure, no less) as Aliens. Not sure why it’s fortnightly, but seeing as how this is the first time it’s appeared in these checklists and is already at #14 I’m guessing it’s another comic Dark Horse took over publication of (since the American strips were theirs in the first place). A quick internet search and it turns out it was originally published by Trident too, although The Terminator wasn’t given a fresh new volume to enjoy like Aliens was, for some reason.

It could possibly be another one for the blog at some point in the future, who knows. But for now this issue ends with a double advert on the back page for the brand new Star Wars (which I spoke about in the review for Aliens #3) and #13 of The Terminator. The caption makes the latter sound like a brand new comic despite the issue number.

With that we come to the very end of this three issue run of the Alien³ Movie Special. I was able to pick them all up on eBay for a few quid in total and for that money I’d recommend them for fans of the movie. Not for the adaptation necessarily, rather for the contemporary features and incredible access the comic had to information on the making of the film. For those pages it’s worth the price of admission.

From now on though it’s pure Aliens action every month with the ongoing regular comic, the next issue of which (#4) will be reviewed right here on the OiNK Blog on Tuesday 24th September 2024. I’m sure future issues of it will continue to cover Alien³ in its features now and again so watch out for them as we go along. This is Philip Boyce, writer of the OiNK Blog, signing off.

ALiEN³ iSSUE 2 < > ALiENS iSSUE 4

ALiENS MENU

If there’s one name synonymous with the 80s humour comics a lot of readers of this blog grew up with, like OiNK, Buster, Whoopee etc., it’s Mark Rodgers, whose birthday it would’ve been today. To say Mark was a prolific comics writer is probably the largest understatement I could make. Working across a multitude of titles for the likes of IPC/Fleetway, he’d often write up to a dozen scripts a week.

These were for comics he’d eventually feel were a little outdated in their humour, but that’s not to say he didn’t love reading them. OiNK may have taken shots at Beano and The Dandy, but Mark was known to love both comics, even making sure there were copies of their annuals in the bathroom of his house for visitors to read while on the loo.

During a visit to a local Manchester library one day he spotted Patrick Gallagher writing scripts for the same comics Mark did and they immediately hit it off. Patrick had already met Tony Husband and together the three of them went on to create a new kind of children’s comic, an alternative to the old-fashioned jokes and traditional weeklies kids were becoming tired of in favour of television and computer games. Obviously, this was the beginning of OiNK.

When I began reading OiNK as a young child, thanks to there being no credits in comics at the time, I’d always assumed the cartoonist had written everything they’d drawn. While this was the case with some of OiNK’s contributors, there was one person who wrote so much of the comic for loads of different art styles. The volume of Mark’s work was phenomenal.

When you look through any issue you’ll see his name (or “MR”) on the majority of pages. My favourite creations of his were of course The Sekret Diary ov Hadrian Vile, brought to the page in all of its jaggedy-art glory by a young Ian Jackson, and Mark’s riff on Saturday morning cliffhanger television serials, The Street-Hogs, illustrated by J.T. Dogg. Highly original and unlike anything you’d have read elsewhere, Mark’s imagination was let loose, finally able to express his sense of humour without the restrictions he’d faced in other comics.

Where else could we be squeamish over Hadrian’s disgusting hobbies or laughing at the torture he put his long-suffering parents through one minute, then enjoying a heartwarming moment at the birth of his baby sister the next? Almost all of Uncle Pigg’s and Mary Lighthouse’s hilarious confrontations were written by Mark and any issues that contained a full-length strip of theirs have been favourites of mine (for both young me and young-at-heart me).

Mark wasn’t shy at starring on the pages of the comic either, sometimes alongside his fellow editors Patrick and Tony, sometimes with his partner Helen Jones. Whether it was as the captain of the Enterpies in Star Truck or as a terrifying alien invader alongside Ian while learning a lesson in love from their spaceship (really Mark and Helen’s boiler in their basement).

OiNK writer Graham Exton was a close friend of Mark and Helen’s and after he moved away to lived in the Bahamas the couple decided to visit, and while there they photographed a few pieces for OiNK. One was Castaway, a hilarious one-off written by Graham with the two of them in mind. That washed up body/dinner for Helen? That would be Mark. Mark wasn’t above writing in some funny little cameos for his other half too!

Mark’s productivity, his dedication to making kids laugh and his commitment to the comics medium can all be summed up in one bittersweet joke he wrote for a back page spread in the Time Travel edition of OiNK, drawn by Ed McHenry. You’ll notice that long before modern day A.I., Mark had predicted Uncle Pigg would be using a ‘Script Computer’ in the future to produce his comic. But upon closer inspection you can see who was still writing those scripts, long after he would have left us.

The bittersweet nature of this gag comes from the fact that we did indeed lose Mark to cancer in the 1990s. I know it’ll sound like a cliché to say it, but there really has been no one like him in children’s comics since. OiNK never spoke down to us, it’s three editors understood this and together they were an unbreakable team whose work brought so much joy and laughter to so many people before, during and after its run.

Apart from a few early strips Mark never drew for the comic and, until I started to notice the signatures and little initials beside so many of my favourites as a child, I’d no idea that Mark was so instrumental in moulding my young, developing sense of humour. Several years back, when I mentioned online how I’d lost my OiNK mug decades ago, Helen very kindly sent me a special Christmas present. I can’t begin to describe how happy I was when I unwrapped it and found out it had been Mark’s! I’ll always treasure this.

There are simply too many highlights of Mark’s for one post. In fact, there are literally too many highlights of Mark’s for this entire website! Believe me, I’ve tried. The man was a creative giant in the UK comics industry and when I spoke with Tony a couple of years ago he had possibly the nicest thing to say about his departed friend.

Tony often likened working on OiNK to being in a punk band and that kind of anarchic, rebellious sense of humour was at the forefront of everything they did. “Mark was the glue,” Tony said. “He was the drummer.”