Welcome to part four of our look back at the real advertisements in OiNK (rather than the spoof Madvertisements), a series of posts taking us all back to life in the 1980s. After reminiscing about the toys we received for Christmas it’s now time to check out some new reading material, namely the other comics and books we’d while away the days with between issues.
Disney was a target for OiNK’s writers and cartoonists on several occasions, but right back near the beginning (#9) while the comic was still in the capable publishing hands of IPC Magazines, a division of its future publisher Fleetway advertised a set of Disney books to apparently help beat the boredom of school holidays! Did the person who came up with that tagline even remember their own childhood summers?
Around that time I wasn’t a huge fan of Disney. I much preferred Warner Bros cartoons and my shelves were filled with Railway Series/Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends books, so this advert wouldn’t have had any impact on me. It’s just as well they advertised this early though, once OiNK began its ‘Ron Dibney’ madverts and strips we may have been looking for the gag here.
In only my third issue of OiNK in December 1986 (the third comic I’d ever bought myself) another of IPC’s titles was celebrating a mammoth 500 issues! True be told I’d never even heard of it at this stage of my life but I’d become acquainted with it a few years later in high school when I’d meet friends who were obsessed. 2000AD’s fictional editor Tharg the Mighty is apparently surrounded (or rather, superimposed into) a group of beautiful 1960s or 70s women in a funny advert that poked fun at celebrity culture.
Is it any wonder I was so confused as a kid when OiNK ended after only 68 issues? Of course, little did we know celebrating 500 issues would end up feeling somewhat quaint, what with 2000AD still being published on a weekly basis all these years later and clocking up 2,427 regular issues at the time of writing! Much later in OiNK’s run 2000AD’s newsagent reservation coupon would replace OiNK’s own in the penultimate issue, a change we didn’t think anything of until a month later.
Two comics of friend-of-the-blog Barrie Tomlinson’s (Ring Raiders, Wildcat, Super Naturals) were also advertised at various points in OiNK’s lifetime, namely Battle and Eagle. After losing the Action Force licence to Marvel UK, Barrie created Storm Force, which was basically a toy line strip without the toy line. He’d later speak about it in depth in his Comic Book Hero book, a review of which you can also read on the blog.
Coincidentally enough, Battle’s announcement of the new Storm Force was advertised in OiNK’s war-themed issue (#20) and during the following year both it and Eagle were advertised together when they gave away a pair of those flimsy green and red 3D glasses. This was part of a promotion for the short-lived toy line and cartoon series StarCom about astronauts battling alien invasions. Just a few short months later, Battle would actually merge into Eagle.
Towards the end of OiNK’s time a new comic from Fleetway Publications hit shelves and I think I picked up an issue or two, although I can’t be completely sure. I have vague memories of a fortnightly comic full of detailed artwork and the occasional swear word, the latter of which was of great fascination to find in a comic for my friends and I at our tender young age. The character in the full-page advert below also feels familiar but I can’t tell if that’s because I read about her at the time or if I’m just recalling these adverts.
Overtly political (one issue was also produced in partnership with Amnesty International) and adult in tone, Crisis was initially fortnightly and later monthly, which will sound familiar to readers of this blog, I’m sure. In fact, Crisis almost lasted as many issues as OiNK, eventually being cancelled at #63 in 1991. It eschewed traditions in the UK comics industry such as free gifts and annuals, which is about as tenuous a link to our next adverts as I can muster.
Below are promos for Fleetway’s annuals in 1987 (for the 1988 volumes) and 1988 (for the 1989 volumes) and you can’t deny OiNK’s really stand out! Especially that first annual, The OiNK! Book 1988. The advert understates it somewhat by simply saying, “There’s never been an annual like it”. The cover image compared to the other more traditional titles already got that across the second readers glanced at this page.
The next year’s advert, pulled from the final regular issue of OiNK, used the original colours for the OiNK logo before the yellow and pink were reversed to stand out more on the shelves before publication of The OiNK! Book 1989. There’s quite the variety here, with everything from action and sport to comedy and nursery comics. We even see the return of Mickey Mouse from our first advert, who was still a sprightly 60-years-old that year.
I was surprised at how few comics adverts there were in total over OiNK’s run, especially when you compare them to Marvel UK which had promos for their other comics as a regular staple, alongside their fondly remembered checklists. In fact, the final such advert seems to have been literally squeezed into the OiNK Holiday Special ’89; a favourite childhood comic of mine is seemingly used to fill a gap on a page of both real and spoof ads.
We may not have seen much in the way of other comics inside the pages of OiNK, but over the course of its lifetime it was the subject of a blockbuster pull-out ad, crossover strips, free editions in comics and magazines, on top of regular adverts. Maybe Uncle Pigg just didn’t want to share the limelight.
We’ve still got two parts of this series to come that should jolt the old grey cells of original readers and the curiosity of you younger ones out there. Next up are the hip and chunky electronics of the 80s. It was a decade of technological revolution as the microchip introduced itself to every aspect of our lives. Watch out for those samples of another time when this occasional series returns this winter.
PART THREE < > PART FiVE
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