ALiENS #7: MAYBE WE CAN BUiLD A FiRE, SiNG A COUPLE OF SONGS

24 December 2024 Phil Boyce Leave a comment

Of all the comics I’d expect to give us a Christmassy cover Aliens wouldn’t even have crossed my mind, yet here we are with an alien and their offspring getting into the icy festive feels. Chris Halls’ incredible artwork is so very 90s and, along with that funny caption it brings an eerie, gothic horror vibe to the season. Christmas is a perfect time for some scary stories and this tongue-in-cheek cover sums that up perfectly.

The editorial page has a Predator in the background, such is the importance of that franchise in the comic and I see Hive has only six pages this time around (the Predator back-up has 14). There’s an interesting tidbit about John Bolton’s images that I assumed were US covers and news of the next Dark Horse International release coming in the new year. Hmm, that one sounds good… Anyway, on to the rest of Aliens #7.

We kick off with Newt’s Tale: Part Six, the credits for it and all of this issue’s contents you can see in the image above. This chapter takes us from the room where the aliens come through the ceiling, up to the point when Ripley and Newt make a run for the elevator after torching the alien nest right in front of the queen.

There are some obvious differences here between the original film and the Special Edition this is based on, as well as moments that were still on the cutting room floor after the release of the longer version. These mainly involve company man Carter Burke. In the finished film (both versions) we see him escape the room and lock everyone in behind him, then he turns around and an alien snaps its inner mouth at him. Clearly, he died. But this wasn’t originally the case.

Here, he simply backs out of the room and we see a pair of aliens standing behind him and that’s it. I assumed we just weren’t going to see his death but several pages later (this chapter runs to 18) we see him alive in the nest and impregnated. Ripley can’t help him, it’s too late, but she gives him a grenade to end his suffering which he’s too cowardly to use.

Apparently this was filmed but cut out by James Cameron because he realised Burke should still have a facehugger attached to him at this point, so his exit from the previous scene was reedited. (While they didn’t reshoot a death scene, the shot of the alien made it clear.) I hadn’t known about this before. Moments like this and parts of the earliest chapters are what I expected from this story instead of what has been more or less a straight adaptation.

Newt also sees her mum when she awakens in the nest and then everything suddenly speeds up. Yes, things will be changed when adapting stories for different mediums; what works on screen may not necessarily work on the page. But still, while I don’t personally know how they could’ve conveyed the stillness and terror of the scene above from the movie, having it reduced to just over a page feels underwhelming.

Maybe even more so because I just watched the film three days ago. As I’ve said described before, the first time I saw Aliens was on my birthday back when I was a teen, watching it with my mum. In memory of my mum and I really enjoying the movie together I decided to watch it again on the night of my 47th birthday. I think it’ll be a birthday/Christmas tradition from now on. So, everything is fresh in my head as I’ve read this issue. Talking about going back in time, what did the news pages of Christmas 1993 have for us?

That Aliens comic story sounds terrible but then again I’m saying that with the hindsight of the subsequent movies. But ‘Xeno-zip’? And another red species more deadly than the ones on film? I don’t know if I’d have enjoyed it. Below that I have to correct the myth of the chest burster scene in the first film. Yes, director Ridley Scott used a lot more blood than he’d told the actors to expect, but that’s it.

Having now finally watched the first two films I have to say the pages involving the Predators definitely hit differently

Of course they knew what was going to happen. It was in the script. John Hurt had his head popping up through a hole in the table with a fake torso. There were cables and puppeteers everywhere. The first few seconds of the reaction is in response to the amount of fake blood, but then cut was called and the rest of the scene then acted out as normal. I hate these myths of directors “fooling” actors when in reality they’re just good actors!

As for the competition, given the terms and conditions mention “doctored photographs” I was surprised to find out the statement was in fact true! What is also true is Predator: Cold War is still my favourite strip in the comic seven months in. How’s that for a tenuous link, eh? Having now finally watched the first two films I have to say the pages involving the Predators definitely hit differently.

Quite a lot happens in the larger background of Mark Verheiden’s story this time too. The US president wants the mission terminated because a Moscow politician is on the way, so the Americans can’t be found there. General Phillips receives the message to clear all personnel out and “stop hostilities with the aliens” so that they leave before the Soviets get a hold of their weaponry. The audacity of the Americans to think they’re in control of the Predator situation is typical in this and the Alien franchises.

The Russian government knows exactly what’s going on and are escorting our Sheriff friend from previous issues to the site so he can extract his own friend, Detective Schaefer. Speaking of him, he and Lt. Ligachev find an unusually warm area where the ice is melting and discover the Predators’ ship. Striping off so they can bare some flesh while they fight (it was the 90s), they sneak on board.

You can see it goes well. Finding parts of Ligachev’s outpost used as patchwork repairs on the ship, Schaefer theorises they must’ve crashed; all of those people lost their lives so that the aliens could scavenge for parts. Ligachev ain’t happy. They fight valiantly and Schaefer is able to stab the alien that attacks them, but the screams summon its friends!

I’ve loved this story so far. What started out as a bit clichéd on the US side of things and interesting on the Soviet side has developed into a brilliant tale, with good characterisation and a genuine building of tension. Now, with the American government worried that Schaefer destroying the ship on Russian land and the Soviets knowing an American has stopped them from using its weaponry could start World War III, all the plot points are converging on what should be an engaging climax.

According to the Comics Checklist further below the next issue will contain the final chapter, so even this slightly awkward cliffhanger with Ligachev mid-sentence can’t ruin the anticipation. To be fair, this was probably the best place to leave it for a month. I actually think I’ll go back and read the whole story again just before settling down to next month’s issue, something I most likely won’t do for the two Aliens stories.

The Alien³ videogame gets a two-page review this month and it’s basically the same as you’d expect from all other licenced games back then. The vast majority were all platformers or driving games (sometimes a mix of both) until Goldeneye came along. Alien³ throws loads of weaponry and aliens at the player, two things the movie didn’t have. But hey, when did silly things like the actual movie get in the way of a movie videogame licence all those years ago? Since then, the first-person Alien: Isolation has shown us that you only need one alien for a great game, and to scare the bejesus out of me… I mean, the player!

(I still can’t play it on my Switch for more than an hour at a time!)

The penultimate part of Jerry Prosser’s Hive is only six pages and they’ve escaped the nest and made it back to the dropship to await rescue. Their creepy android loses an arm and Julian continues the trend of humans never learning in an Alien story when she fires upon one at close range, badly burning her face in the process with its acid blood. That’s pretty much it. While they wait for the aliens to come a-knockin’ Dr. Mayakovsky makes a random reference to Ancient Rome being the key to escape before the story abruptly stops. Just as with Jurassic Park, each story is of varying lengths each issue but this feels ridiculously short.

Even shorter, at two pages, but with much more going on in a much more enjoyable story, is the next part of the Aliens Vs Predator II strip. Our protagonist is still learning from the Predators (I wish I’d read the previous story to understand who she is), most notably that a rebuke is painful and you don’t try to save everyone. Seeing the alien Queen led off and her troops hanging back is foreboding and I find myself becoming more intrigued with each monthly snippet.

It’s painfully slow though. It’s like reading one of those old three-panels-a-day newspaper adventure strips, only with much bigger gaps. However, it’s good! Actually, it probably benefits from being told this way as I find myself clamouring for each tiny little morsel. Would it be as captivating if I’d simply read it all at once? I doubt it. It’s definitely won me over.

Here’s the Comics Checklist I mentioned above and as you can see Newt’s Tale is also coming to a close, so the rest of the movie is going to fly by just as quickly as this month’s chapter. However, it’s another comic appearing here for the first time that catches my eye. It’s completely right when it describes Bram Stoker’s Dracula as “stunning” and it’s a regular watch every Hallowe’en for me. Hmm… that gives me an idea…

That’s a lie, because if I was only getting the idea now to do a real time read through of DHI’s Dracula comic I’d need to have started collecting it months ago. You see, I actually had the idea last year but by the time I collected all ten issues it was too late to start the read through in 2024. So watch out for a special introduction to Bram Stoker’s Dracula on the blog on Thursday 16th January 2025, with the premiere issue just three days later! Happy New Year, eh?

I’ll finish with the only other mention of the festive season in the whole issue, in a response to a funny reader on the Bug Hunt letters page, below. Well I hope the images from this comic (especially that creepy cover) don’t stop you from drifting into a deep sleep tonight before Santa Claus visits your area. The first issue for 2025 will be here on Tuesday 21st January and we’ve a full year’s worth of xenomorph terror to look forward to.

iSSUE SiX < > iSSUE EiGHT

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CHRiSTMAS 2024

Comic Reviews, The Sleeze Brothers

THE SLEEZE BROTHERS #6: iNFLATED LAUGHS

23 December 2024 Phil Boyce Leave a comment

It’s been a very funny ride to say the least but here we are already at the final monthly issue of Marvel UK’s (under their Epic imprint) The Sleeze Brothers. Well, I say monthly but back in 1989 it had been two since the previous issue. I’m still not sure why there was such a delay but the Mighty Marvel Checklists in their other titles don’t lie and I’ve used them to determine the release dates. But enough of that, let’s see what they have in store for us.

D.O.R.I.S., the brothers’ very 80s computer receptionist introduces the story by giving us a little detail into The Rim Wars. Quite. Basically, it’s that old chestnut of war being very profitable, even when they’re on the edge of the known galaxy. Anybody can buy shares in any side of any part of the conflict, so the rich get twitchy when there’s talk of a ceasefire. The background story of the comic just got a helluva lot bigger in scope, didn’t it?

El’ Ape really doesn’t like dying aliens turning up unannounced (see also #3). Quarkvark’s story is actually rather good and if you take away the silly names and the fact it’s in this particular comic, it wouldn’t look out of place in an episode of Doctor Who. In fact, recent fantastic episode Boom had a similar background to its conflict. Anyway, this all reads brilliantly, despite El’ Ape’s protestations, and I could imagine the elderly, wise voice behind it all.

Then we turn the page to see what The Messiah had transferred his all-important message into. Where could this war-ending knowledge be found?

Well that brought us back down to Earth with a thud, didn’t it? This is The Sleeze Brothers after all, a comic created by John Carnell and Andy Lanning and written by John, so of course it was all a long set up for a daft gag! The fate of the universe rests on a boiled egg in a lunch box, but it still takes the alien to offer his solid gold medallion for El’ Ape to take any interest, and as he dies the detectives fail to notice they’re being watched from afar.

Cue some brilliant slapstick. Outside, with the egg secured underneath his hat, El’ Ape dodges a heat seeking bazooka shell when he notices his shoelace is undone and bends over to tie it. The resultant explosion sends a nearby lunch wagon skyrocketing into the air, which I’ve made sure to mention for a reason that’ll soon become clear. Taking off in their flying VW Beetle we get a scene which for me is the kind of humour we’d get from a Blues Brothers movie, which is rather apt.

I admit I laughed out loud at that reveal.

An action scene takes place over the next few pages with an ending that shocked even me, but in the best possible (not to mention funniest) way imaginable. The cars behind them start opening fire, all of them aiming for El’ Ape’s head. The fact they’re able to get away is more luck then anything, like when Deadbeat swerves around a building at the exact moment his brother opens fire, the wayward shot hitting a piece of rope holding a giant slab of steel over a building site, which then sways wildly and smashes right into one of their pursuers.

But the others have bigger weapons and soon a missile takes out the brothers’ rear engine and they find themselves careening towards a building called the Mondo Mart. With a huge ‘X’ on the large window and words like ‘Spank’ and ‘Bizarre’ lit up over the building you could guess what kind of place this is. But whatever your guess is it’ll fall short of what awaits the brothers as they crash through said window!

Indeed! See what I mean? And did you spot the guy from #1 amongst the chaos? On the top-left level regular readers should recognise him and his unique kink as the first person we ever saw the Sleeze Brothers investigate. The closer you look at this page the less is left to the imagination. And to think this was advertised in the pages of Marvel’s toy comics! The first issue was an eye-opener for me back then, I wonder what my 12-year-old eyes would’ve thought of this?

As their car descends they soon find themselves having to dodge the mass of partying people (and other beings), until El’ Ape screams, ‘Look out! Inflatey-Friends dead ahead!” Now… I know what you’re thinking. Inflatey-Friends? Yep. And as one of the brothers’ pursuers gains on them, they get to find out first hand what exactly an ‘Inflatey-Friend’ is…

Anyone else remembering Total Recall right about now? I thought this had to be a spoof reference to that scene in the Arnold Schwarzenegger flick, after all this comic has been so good at pastiching classic and contemporary pop culture. But nope, Total Recall wasn’t released until the following year, so this was actually an original creation from the minds of John and Andy.

I can’t help but wonder about the reactions of inker Stephen Baskerville, letterer Helen Stone and colourist Steve White when these pages landed at their desks. Or indeed editor Dan Abnett and what the script he read would’ve described. Then again, one look at this team and I think it’s safe to say they were a like-minded bunch, each as crazy as the next.

El’ Ape and Deadbeat will return, you can count on that

Eventually crashing into the ground outside, El’ Ape is flipped out of the car and lands in a heap, his body contorted into all sorts of weird angles. Deadbeat runs to his brother in panic! When we begin the page below we think we’re witnessing a rare tender moment between siblings, but one panel later we realise we should’ve known better. Oh, and that lunch wagon I made sure to mention earlier, remember that?

I roared as I read that already-classic Sleeze Brothers line, “Oldest trick in the book”. I was so happy they managed to squeeze that in one more time. Another gag paying off here is El’ Ape’s shoelaces coming undone, as he trips and drops the egg, smashing it all over the ground. But one rummage around the debris of the lunch wagon later and they’ve got a carton of them.

They pass one off as the egg containing the ability to end galaxy-spanning wars and make their escape, golden medallion safely pocketed. The egg is then presented to a mass crowd in an image that received an additional credit on the editorial page which read, “Emergency relief Cast of Thousands supplied by Anthony Williams”. Anthony (Super Naturals, The Real Ghostbusters, Sinister Dexter) doesn’t just provide a crowd, he truly has created a cast! Who can you spot?

Personally, I see an Alien (from the Alien film franchise), a Dalek, Judge Dredd, Slimer, Spock, possibly Batman and on the left John and Andy themselves! Although, my personal favourite moments after perusing this for long moments were discovering the back of Wile E. Coyote’s head and Zippy, George and Bungle from Rainbow! Go on, look closer – they’re there! Then, on the next page individual panels of the crowd contain no less than Looney Tunes’ Marvin the Martian and Gilbert the Alien, the snot-covered puppet from ITV’s Saturday morning show Get Fresh.

Talk about blasts from the past! Out of all the comics on the blog that I thought would whisk me back to childhood I didn’t think it would be the one containing Inflatey-Friends! Anyway, the story ends here as the one chosen to relay the message starts to cluck like a chicken and the crowd turns to violence. It is a dystopian future after all.

There’s no mention of this being the final issue, but from that first appearance in the Mighty Marvel Checklist we knew it was always planned to end here and I for one am gutted. Not that this is the very end, but there are no more monthly appointments with the detectives to look forward to. There’s a one-off special called Some Like It Fresh which, in keeping with the real time nature of the blog, will be joining us here on Tuesday 30th June… 2026. After that there’ll be three more reviews containing new misadventure for the duo, which you can spot in the photo below.

I’ve loved every moment of this read through. As I said at the start I’d only read the first issue before and now I see what I missed out on. Damn my attention span as a kid and my wish to buy as many different comics as possible! I should’ve placed an order for this the moment I saw that “oldest trick in the book” gag repeated for the first time in #1. El’ Ape and Deadbeat will return to the blog, you can count on that!

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Creating OiNK, OiNK Contributors

OiNK iNTERViEW SERiES: PART FOUR

21 December 2024 Phil Boyce 2 Comments

It’s my birthday today! I can’t think of anything I’d rather post today than the final part of what has been a really enjoyable series focussing on OiNK’s wonderful creative team and their memories of producing one of my very favourite things in my whole life. It’s been a wonderful experience to put this together and get to ask these questions to some of my childhood (and let’s face it, adulthood) heroes.

Despite what the critics thought of it from the outside looking in, in reality OiNK gave us many great messages along the way. From anti-smoking to anti-bigotry, from never judging someone by their looks to being proud of who we are no matter what, all packaged up in comedy gold of course. So to wrap things up I was curious what messages the team had for us.

QUESTION FOUR

Finally, if pig pals could take one thing away
from your work on OiNK, what would it be?

DAVEY JONES
Henry the Wonder Dog, Pop-Up Toaster of Doom,
Kingdom of Trump

“No idea how to answer this. There were a couple of strips in the later issues which I had to draw in a bit of a rush, and some of the drawing was very ropey. So if everyone would be kind enough to overlook the ropey drawings, it’d be much appreciated.”

DAVY FRANCIS
Cowpat County, Greedy Gorb,
Doctor Mad-Starkraving

“The friends I met, my fellow artists, the readers who are artists and writers themselves who say OiNK was such an influence on their work. I loved every minute I worked for OiNK, I would have done it for nothing!” (“What?!” – Uncle Pigg)

IAN JACKSON
Artist Mary Lighthouse, Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins,
OiNK Book 1988 covers

“It was great having fun with my mates on the project. Uncle Pigg was a tough bugger though.”

LEW STRINGER
Tom Thug, Pete and his Pimple, Pigswilla,
writer of Ham Dare

“I hope they enjoyed the irreverent style of fun and lunacy I tried to put into my work. We were allowed to be more edgy than other kids’ comics of the time. Little did we know how much children’s comics would be toned down in the years that followed.”

DAVID LEACH
Psycho Gran, Dudley DJ

“Don’t underestimate the elderly.”

GRAHAM EXTON
writer Fish Theatre, Herbert Bowes,
Murder in the Orient Express Dining Car

“Just that I was proud to be a part of such an influential team. The current Beano owes a lot to OiNK.”

ED McHENRY
Wally of the West, umpteen OiNK puzzle pages,
Igor and the Doctor

“If any of the readers liked my stuff in the way I enjoyed certain artists in all the comics I read as a lad that would be nice.”

KEV F SUTHERLAND
Meanwhile…, The Three Scientists,
March of the Killer Breakfasts

“I’m just honoured to have been a part of such a landmark comic, so when they’re writing about it, I hope I get remembered occasionally, alongside the real stars.”

PATRICK GALLAGHER
co-creator and co-editor of the whole shebang,
designer of the OiNK logos

“The joy and reward of working with Tony and Mark.”

STEVE GIBSON
artist Judge Pigg, countless GBH Madvertisements,
Ponsonby Claret

“I just want anyone who remembers OiNK (and I have met lots of fans who grew up reading it) to know that we had fun and I hope that a little bit of the cheeky anarchy that we intended stuck with all our readers to this day.”

JEREMY BANX
Burp, Mr. Big Nose, Jimmy ‘The Cleaver’ Smith

“Never trust your liver.”

I can’t thank everyone enough for taking part in this series! Everyone I reached out to couldn’t have been more helpful and it’s a testimony to how fondly OiNK is remembered by all that everyone was happy to take part and keen to reminisce. On a purely selfish basis it’s a brilliant birthday present to be able to present the now completed series of posts, too.

I hope pig pals have enjoyed this, and to everyone above I hope you’ve enjoyed reading what your fellow OiNKers (to quote Jeremy) have said too. I’ve waxed lyrical about how much OiNK has meant to me and the memories it’s brought back. It’s been a delight to see the same applies to those who worked so hard to entertain us for those few fantastic years.

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CHRiSTMAS 2024

Annuals, Buster, Christmas

BUSTER BOOK 1990: COMiC BOOK OR BOOK COMiC?

19 December 2024 Phil Boyce Leave a comment

This is the first Buster Book I’ve ever read and it’s surprised me straight away, but not in the way you may think. The Buster Book series has been added to the blog because of OiNK star Tom Thug. He continued in the pages of Buster weekly all the way to its end over a decade after OiNK’s cancellation. I thought buying the remaining annuals in the series from the moment Tom appeared would be a fun addition to the blog every Christmas. New Tom Thug is always a treat after all!

Knowing Weedy Willy and Pete and his Pimple were also in this edition I was looking forward to large multi-page strips or special stories of some sort, the likes of which we’d have seen in the OiNK books or the Beano and Dandy annuals every year. Surprisingly however, apart from a few exceptions this book feels more like several editions of the weekly wrapped in a cardboard cover.

The first and last 14 pages are of a lovely and smooth, higher quality paper stock, with some of the strips in full colour, but the rest of the 112 pages in total are the same matt paper as the Big Comic Books, mostly in black and white with the occasional two-colour strip. Also, apart from 2-page Buster, Ricky Rainbow and Chalky stories in those outer pages, and a 4-page BeastEnders inside, all the strips are the same length as they would be in the weekly comic.

Once you hit those inner matt pages it just doesn’t feel as special anymore. So yes, I was surprised when I compared it to its contemporaries but the main reason we’re here is for the OiNK strips (and perhaps a couple of other little treats too). The first of our piggy publication’s characters we bump into is Weedy Willy, as ever written by Mark Rodgers and drawn by Mike Green.

This wouldn’t feel out of place in OiNK itself. The simplest of tasks were always an epic struggle for Willy and going to see a slushy movie was no different, complete with the obligatory snow for the Christmas annual, albeit five snowflakes. It still counts. Surprisingly, it’s Pete and his Pimple who gets the full colour treatment on the deluxe paper rather than our next star.

The yearly annuals are written and drawn so far in advance of publication (and publication is a few months before Christmas, although they were always Christmas presents), Lew Stringer’s strips for this particular book – released in 1989 – would’ve been created soon after OiNK’s cancellation in 1988. While both characters were fan favourites, Pete was probably the more popular of the two in OiNK and Buster’s editor may have thought that would be the same in Buster.

You see? More snow and ice. Of course these books were for Christmas! I’d loved to have seen the impact into that tree, though. Maybe we would have in his original comic, but it’s still a fun strip. As the months rolled on Tom’s popularity soared in Buster while Willy was quickly dropped and poor Pete went the same way a few months later. In the years that followed Tom became one of the comic’s standout stars, getting full colour pages to himself and he even appeared on the cover. But for now, a single black and white page must suffice.

Pete, on the other hand, is in glorious full colour (coloured by John Michael Burns – thanks to Lew for the info). Alas, this doesn’t mean readers could be made even more squeamish with some technicolour pimple bursting. As I’ve mentioned before when the comics merged, given the younger audience it was decided the pus had to remain put. But that doesn’t mean the fun is kept bottled up. Here, that old OiNK classic of dressing up the pimple is taken to a hilariously Christmassy conclusion.

Unlike a lot of the Buster regulars, these three only get one strip each this time around and I did hunt down their pages within the book first for obvious reasons. It’s going to be an agonising wait for next Christmas before I can read any more from them (most likely just Tom), so I made the most of my purchase on eBay and read through the rest of the book for more highlights to show you.

The first comes courtesy of Ricky Rainbow and he’s on the final two pages of the book. When Pete crossed over into an issue of Buster to promote the then-weekly OiNK back in March 1988, it hadn’t been too long since Nipper comic had merged into it, bringing Ricky along. I’d particularly liked that strip, even though he only turned see-through in it. Usually he could change colour on a whim or based on his mood and I said at the time I’d like to see more of him. It had the potential to be really funny.

Drawn by James Hansen, here we see him unwittingly change colour because of his temperature for the most part, and it’s really enjoyable. It’s also made something of a theme out of very funny letterbox moments this Christmas on the blog. (See Kids’ Court in the Big Comic Book 1989 review.) It’s madcap fun, bouncing between different predicaments for Ricky with Bruiser always on his tail. I know Nipper was a comic aimed at a younger audience than Buster but Ricky Rainbow fits in perfectly here. He’s one of the best parts in this whole book.

OiNK boasted of Pete Dredge winning the Provincial Cartoonist of the Year award from the Cartoonists’ Club of Great Britain

Finally, another OiNK artist pops up with his Young Arfur strip, namely Pete Dredge. Pete contributed to a handful of OiNKs randomly throughout its run including strips like spoof movie anthology The Golden Trough Awards, Master T and Dimbo, his take on Sly Stallone’s 80s action hero. OiNK also boasted of Pete winning the Provincial Cartoonist of the Year award from the Cartoonists’ Club of Great Britain in #49.

Young Arfur started out in School Fun comic before making the transition to Buster in 1984. (School Fun was actually conceived by OiNK writer Graham Exton.) Arfur is basically a young version of Arthur Daley from the hit TV show Minder, a minor con man who used the gift of the gab to earn money through various dodgy schemes. Young Arfur has that same gift but instead uses it to get him and his pals out of doing anything they don’t want to do.

As you can see his reputation precedes him. Not that this knowledge helped the teacher any. You could see him as a more charming (albeit that’s part of the con) and chatty, streetwise version of the Roger the Dodger strips in Beano at the time. He’s a fun character and must’ve been enjoyed by Buster readers as he was part of the comic until 1987, five times longer than School Fun’s whole run.

With that, we round off our look at the first Buster Book to co-star some of our old OiNK pals. I don’t need any will power to not look at the next volume because I haven’t bought it yet, but if you have these yourself (or can remember them) don’t tell me what’s to come, I look forward to finding out for myself each Christmas. One final surprise is on the back cover. Instead of a repeat of the front cover image by Tom Paterson, or a funny reverse cover like OiNK’s books, it’s an advert. But it’s one I’m sure anyone around my age will remember (fondly or otherwise) from a lot of our comics back then.

It’s strange to see an advert in an annual but the Big Comic Book also had it this year, as did the OiNK Winter Special released in November 1989. Anyway, that’s enough waffle from me. Pete may have been given top billing out of our three pig pals here, but it’s Tom Thug who has a few more Christmassy mishaps to come, so I look forward to our next festive feast of new OiNK-type material in twelve months!

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Annuals, Christmas, Knight Rider

KNiGHT RiDER ANNUAL #3: NEW ART, OLD LOOK

17 December 2024 Phil Boyce Leave a comment

As I sit down to write this review it strikes me I’ve only watched one Knight Rider this year, and that was my mum’s favourite episode (‘Ring of Fire‘) as a tribute to her memory during the spring. There’ll be one more time with Michael Knight and K.I.T.T. in my yearly viewing of the show’s one Christmas episode (‘Silent Knight’) but first it’s time to get reacquainted with the duo on paper in the third Knight Rider Annual, published in 1985.

There’s a famous (and funny) episode of Babylon 5 in which Security Chief Michael Garibaldi spends a small sub-plot looking for someone to share his “Favourite Thing In The Universe” with, which ends up being an old Daffy Duck ‘Duck Dodgers’ cartoon. Every December I get to do the same and share a book all about my own Favourite Thing In The Universe with you lot. So now that this publication knows the pressure it’s under to deliver, does it?

The first thing I notice is that the legendary David Lloyd is no longer the artist. If this is the first Knight Rider Annual review you’re reading you need to check out the first two books (and the exclusive blog interview) to see his incredible painted work in those. The new artist for this year’s volume is Jim Eldridge (Roy of the Rovers, Bunty, TV Comic) who brings a more traditional comic style. His version of K.I.T.T.’s front end may be a lot more angular than the smooth, customised Trans-Am on the show but all the other little details are correct.

Speaking of which, the dashboard gives away just how far in advance these books were created. In America season four had started in the Autumn, just a month after this book would’ve went on sale over here, while on our UK TV screens season three was still being broadcast. However, the dashboard here is clearly that from seasons one and two, before K.I.T.T. had his big makeover. Clearly, Jim’s reference material wasn’t up-to-date.

The first story is called Crash Dive and while on a stakeout Michael and K.I.T.T. end up forced off a seaside cliff by the baddies, from where they catch sight of an underwater entry point to a secret compound and the answer to how a band of thieves’ were going undetected by police. It’s a distracting piece of fun, an excuse to get our heroes underwater and taking down a small submarine instead of yet another car. Not sure why K.I.T.T.’s scanner looks like monstrous teeth though. Maybe he was dressed as Christine for Halloween.

As ever, the prose stories have a bit more depth to their characterisations and a lot more humour between our two leads. Not too far removed from the previous book’s stories, Fire-Bug is another case of industrial espionage by an unknown arsonist. Well, I say unknown but the mystery isn’t very mysterious. But then again, the show dealt with industrial espionage via a company ‘insider’ on a few occasions too. At least here after the unsurprising reveal is made there’s one more piece of misdirection just when you think it’s all over.

The other text story is Rustlers, in which a cattle ranch owner is facing intimidation tactics from a wealthy landowner who wants her out. Again, if you’re a fan this might sound a lot like season one’s brilliant ‘Not A Drop To Drink‘ or season three’s iffy ‘The Rotten Apples‘, and you wouldn’t be wrong. I’d say inspiration has definitely been taken from the former. However, the story does go off on a tangent somewhat (dead cattle mysteriously found on the sides of mountains) and involves lots of stealthy teamwork from Michael and K.I.T.T..

It also ends with a climax I’d loved to have seen on the TV. On the show K.I.T.T. could often be found using his Microwave Jammer to stall a helicopter’s engines, forcing it to land. In Rustlers, he instead uses his grappling hook and the car’s sheer strength to physically pull one out of the sky. At ten pages this is the longest story in the book and with all of these good points it’s a shame the bad guy’s M.O. is essentially the same as the one in Fire-Bug.

While the banter between Michael and K.I.T.T. is funny, especially on the long stakeout where their personalities rub off on each other, their partnership doesn’t feel as developed as last year. Elsewhere in the book Michael and “Deven”’s (Devon’s name is still spelt incorrectly) relationship is quite confrontational, like it was at the beginning of season one when these two very different people were still getting to know each other.

Through certain stories these clashes softened and by the end of the season they were firm friends. This book’s writer seems to be working from earlier series notes compared to last year, leading me to believe it’s no longer Steve Moore from the first two books. Why would he take his characters backwards after all? K.I.T.T.’s abilities in the stories are also restricted to those from the earliest episodes. There are no credits in these annuals (other than Jim’s signature) so I can’t confirm anything but it must’ve been a complete change in editorial team and they haven’t considered these points. I probably wouldn’t cared as a child to be fair, I’d have been too excited about the book in the first place.

“Beneath the ramp is an air compressor. As I hit the ramp at speed, the air pushes the car upwards and provides much more lift than I’d normally be able to achieve.”
Jack Gill, Stunt Co-ordinator

The features this year include a few more interviews, this time with Stunt Coordinator Jack Gill, producer Gino Grimaldi and Patricia McPherson who had returned to her role as Bonnie Barstow in season three (which makes it all the more frustrating the stories don’t acknowledge the show was in its third year). Jack not only met his wife on Knight Rider, he also walked away with multiple injuries from making K.I.T.T. look so incredible on the screen.

Jack talks at one stage about lying on the floor with a hole in front of him so he could see where he was driving at high speeds. However, this was used only sparingly a few times (in one episode we clearly see him lying on the floor). For the vast majority of the high-speed stunts a hollowed out driver’s seat and a special stunt steering wheel were hidden from view. Famously, David Hasselhoff has talked about scenes where he’d have to jump into the self-driving K.I.T.T. and take over, he and “K.I.T.T.” often jokingly wrestling for control as they sped off!

Interestingly, Jack talks about how they made K.I.T.T. swim. In the show it’s a pretty (re: very) poor model but they actually did spend a lot of money on getting the real Trans Am on a floating platform and dragging it through the water. As you watch, when the camera is inside the car with David you can clearly see he’s actually on the water and there’s spray coming in through the open window. Apparently it never looked right, so they switched to models for the exteriors and wrote in April Curtis removing the ability from K.I.T.T. at the end of the episode.

Jack and his team were instrumental to the show’s success and in any interview I’ve read with him over the years he always comes across as a very likeable and modest chap. According to interviews with others that’s exactly the kind of person he was, despite the high stresses and dangers of his job. The interview with Gino is interesting too, covering everything from the writing and rewriting of scripts to how they scored the show and selected the perfect 80s pop songs for each scene.

Unfortunately the interview with Patricia is a very brief chat rather than the full interview Rebecca Holden had last year. In fact, it’s a bit of a fluff piece, which is a shame as it could’ve been a fantastic exclusive, not just given her role on the show and her much celebrated return, but also because of her activism and environmentalism in real life, something that wasn’t as prevalent in the 80s as it is now.

What would an 80s annual be without some pin ups to fill out the contents? I never knew of anyone who went to the bother of actually pinning up pages from any of our annuals, but publishers persisted. Other space fillers here aren’t as good as in previous books, in fact some of the puzzles seem to have been knocked together in minutes. For example, a simple maze page doesn’t even have any pictures of the characters, just a few lines of text asking the reader to help K.I.T.T. escape.

The book does have a second strip that’s fun though. Wise Guys sees Michael and K.I.T.T. stumble upon two bank-robbing rednecks in a souped-up car making light work of a police chase. There’s nothing original here, it could’ve been written straight after the pilot movie, but it’s light-hearted fun with K.I.T.T. at the centre of things saving the day. For the kids who could only see such things when the show was broadcast this would’ve been great fun and that’s who these book were for, after all.

Michael catches up with the bad guys in his car and one use of the oil slick later the men have careened off the road, their car damaged beyond repair. But they take a woman hostage in a nearby house and demand a clean getaway. Of course, they want the Pontiac Trans-Am that can outrun the police, and the rest writes itself. It’s the only colour strip and despite K.I.T.T.’s boxy configuration there’s a lovely retro Christmas Annual feel about the whole thing.

The following year, Marvel UK would release a special Transformers softcover book for Christmas which reprinted stories and features from the previous year’s annual and it appears Grandreams had the same idea. The year after this annual they’d strip it of the pin ups and the awful filler material and rerelease it as the Knight Rider Special, a 52-page softback with a glossy card cover (minus the annoying ‘Knight 2000’ branding superimposed on K.I.T.T.). Keeping all the best parts and getting rid of the rest it reads better than the annual itself, although it doesn’t have that hardback, childhood Christmassy feel to it.

Back to the book and with some tweaks this could’ve been the perfect third Knight Rider Annual. As it stands the stories are great fun, there’s some interesting behind-the-scenes nuggets and at a time when we couldn’t search the internet the photography from the show was always keenly perused over and over. It’s still a great nostalgia trip and, speaking of which, here’s an old photo I found last month from around the same time with a present from Santa that was my pride and joy!