Merry Christmas everyone!

A few Christmases ago now I received a shoebox in the post in shiny wrapping paper with strict instructions not to open it until Christmas Day. It was from Helen Jones, partner of the late OiNK co-editor Mark Rodgers. I remember my mum was also eager to know what she’d sent me and when I finally got to open it she laughed while I grinned from ear-to-ear. After decades I was the owner of an OiNK mug once more!

Helen knew of how I’d accidentally left my own OiNK mug at a previous workplace in my late teens and that I’d been hunting for a replacement for years. She still had Mark’s mug in a display cabinet and very kindly sent me it for Christmas! That and the OiNK 45 record were the only pieces of piggy pink merchandise I owned as a kid and the latter was warped by the hot sun very soon after I got it. Thankfully I was able to buy a mint condition replacement for the latter on eBay a couple of years back and there’s a blog post in which you can listen to all three of its songs.

Reading the comics again as an adult I’m surprised I never had more of Uncle Pigg’s bits and pieces. If it were today I’d definitely be lapping up everything I could get my trotters on (and there’s an exciting Christmas update further below!), but perhaps having to go through parents curbed that somewhat and then OiNK’s cancellation put paid to any more collecting. But earlier on this year I got to thinking about other pig pals who had been luckier. What if they’d held on to it all?

I reached out to some OiNK fans through social media and asked them if they’d like to show off their merch on the blog. It was a silly question! Who wouldn’t like to boast about having some of this stuff? First to reply was Neil Clarke who has kept a wealth of OiNK pieces in mint condition for three decades. This could be down to the fact that he was a bit older than the rest of us careless kids.

“I got into OiNK as I was a big fan of The Fall and Marc Riley played with them,” Neil told me. “I was into punk music when I was 12 or 13 and OiNK came out when I was 20ish!” Not only that but his brother was a bit of a pig pal too. “My brother Ian won a drawing competition in OiNK and received this bag (like you, I’m jealous of it), so I got him rummaging up in his loft.”

To make you just as jealous as me, here are some photos of Neil’s collection including said bag, his Pig Pack membership club pack (including the letter from Uncle Pigg) and even a photo of the time he met the creator of Harry the Head, Marc himself.

Not only that, as you can see from his not-at-all-smug photo he’s wearing the one-and-only OiNK sweatshirt! That’s the holy grail of OiNK merch right there. Who can forget the “Get sweaty! Get shirty! Get this sweaty-shirty!” advert? Looking back, I really can’t fathom why I didn’t ask my parents (or Santa) for the t-shirt. I’d have loved that! I still would. Hence my daily email from eBay updating me on anything in their clothing selection with the word “oink” included these past several years.

Neil wasn’t the only person to show off the latter piece of pig apparel. When Jackie McCree got back in touch with me she told me she had the t-shirt but during recent renovations it had been put into storage… somewhere! Bless you for going to all the trouble Jackie. Saying that, you can just tell she’s got a huge grin behind this t-shirt, can’t you? Show off!

“I was a big supporter of OiNK,” Jackie told me as a way of curbing my jealousy. “Bought the merchandise, joined the pig pals, and bought extra comics to give to people and leave in doctor/dentist waiting rooms. If I remember correctly my friend Aly Fell submitted a comic strip to OiNK and they used it. I didn’t know Aly at the time but we’ve been friends for decades.” Might have to look into that!

It’s at this point I’ve got that special Christmas Day update!! Jackie very (very, very) kindly packaged up her never-worn OiNK t-shirt and offered to send it to me! I couldn’t believe it! It even came gift wrapped. Naturally, given how much I love both OiNK and this time of year, I didn’t open it until today.

As a kid we received our presents from Santa first thing in the morning but presents under the tree never got opened until after Christmas dinner, and that traditional carries on to this day. So it’s been a long wait but after three-and-a-half-decades a few hours more were nothing. I can’t believe I’ve finally got it! I never, ever thought this would happen so thank you so much Jackie and Merry Christmas to you!

Okay, so I can’t exactly wear it (it’s a child’s small) but I’ll be sourcing a frame and getting this up in my writing room after the holidays, that’s for sure!

Next up is camera shy Steve Finch who has the mug, the pig pack paraphernalia and also a rare piece of OiNK memorabilia in the shape of the promotional folder used by IPC Magazines around the time of the comic’s launch. In fact, it was Steve’s folder that he kindly let me use in one of several posts on the blog detailing the pre-pig days.

Steve also has an original copy of the piece of OiNK gear that’s received the most coverage on the blog to date. Still in its box is his OiNK computer game from CRL. It’s even for the best computer of the 80s, the Commodore 64! (Even though I didn’t get my C64 until 1991. I’ve apparently always been a retro head, even when I was retro.) Now for any young readers that thing sitting in front of the box is called a ‘cassette’.

If there’s one OiNK-themed item even trickier, nay impossible, to get our hands on today it must surely be the bubblegum. What? OiNK had bubblegum? It did indeed. It was only ever seen in one issue as a competition prize in #62, the final weekly before the big revamp. This was a sticky treat with a use by date so you’re not exactly going to see any on eBay, but that’s not to say there isn’t a remnant of this particular piece of comic history somewhere…

That somewhere is the house of OiNK co-editor Patrick Gallagher. Thanks so much for taking part Patrick, I just hope all of the actual gum is long gone and there isn’t anything too scary growing inside that thing. Bright pink (of course) bubblegum and only 2p each? I know I’ve turned 47 four days ago but now I feel old.

“I need to find my Weedy Willy hat.” That’s what pig pal Sue Hall told me when she was rooting around her house looking for her Pig Pack membership goodies and her old school folder covered in one or two OiNK stickers. Sue’s handiwork has appeared on the blog before, when she somehow built the impossible-to-build cut-out Street-Hogs Road-Hogg from #11!

Kevin Tuson is a man who not only has a large OiNK collection to show off, he’s a man who knows exactly how to show it off. I asked everyone if they could supply a photo of them with their merchandise and Kevin certainly agreed! I’m not saying there’s a smugness to his pose but, well, there’s a smugness to his pose. With the complete comics collection, the free gifts, the Pig Pack membership goodies and more, including several letter correspondence from OiNK (which we’ll take a look at some point in the future), I can’t blame him.

That last photo is of Kevin’s son, Sacha. Taken about ten years ago when Kevin quickly needed someone who would actually fit inside the child-sized t-shirt for a photo, I’m sure the now-22-years-of-age Sacha will be ecstatic that his dad sent in this photo for publication on the OiNK Blog.

To round things off we move from OiNKtown to Beanotown with Danny Pearson, current writer for the legendary comic who reached out to me a while back to tell me he’d found a piece of merchandise for OiNK’s spiritual sequel, something I’d been trawling the auction site for to no avail. Created by OiNK’s Mark Rodgers, Patrick Gallagher and Tony Husband, TV show Round the Bend also had a one-off comic special. This is like hen’s teeth on eBay today, so cue a bit of well-deserved smugness from Danny. (Love the background too, bonus points for that.)

That’s us, folks. I thought having a little look at some of these items with fellow pig pals would make for a nice Christmas Day treat, given how some of us may have received these as gifts when we were children (or after I turned 40 in my case). I’d like to thank everyone who took part for showing us their OiNK merchandise and thereby sharing their personal memories.

I hope everyone reading has been having (or have had) a lovely day so far, that you’ll go heavy on the turkey and roasties, polish off at least three bottles of Schloer and enjoy your afternoon nap before your turkey sandwiches for tea. Come back in a few days for more Christmas-like feels when I take a look at the toys and games (real ones) advertised in OiNK. More 80s fondness to come!

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CHRiSTMAS 2024