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Annuals, Big Comic Book, Christmas

BiG COMiC BOOK 1990: NOW WiTH ADDED iNGREDiENTS

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How can I be four books deep into this read through already? That’s over 1,000 pages and half of my collection. Fleetway’s Big Comic Book 1990 strode into a new decade by visiting the past once more with 256 pages of classic strips from the pages of classic IPC comics. The cover no longer carries the logos of Buster, Whizzer and Chips and Whoopee because just like its fortnightly counterpart the books now also contained reprints from Cor!!, Cheeky, Wow!, Jackpot, Monster Fun and Krazy.

Of course, these comics all merged into one another and eventually into Buster at some stage, so don’t be expecting a completely new cast. But still, there was a wider selection of strips to pull from. The book as a whole is probably the most enjoyable one yet, but I wonder if that’s more to do with how much I’m enjoying coming back to favourite characters year-on-year, so each one feels better than the last. The cover is the one that usually comes to mind when recollecting the series, that Frankie Stein panel in the middle standing out from the crowd.

Regular readers won’t be surprised to see the star of our first highlight. Again taking the Gums strips from his later John Geering era, I have to say I did let out a laugh when I saw the penultimate panel. There’s something very ‘Wile E Coyote‘ about the sheepish great white in that one. It perfectly sums up the character and why I love him so much and as such it’s the perfect introductory strip for new readers.

With John behind the pen I thought this would’ve been written by OiNK’s Graham Exton again but he’s confirmed it wasn’t. The real culprit is most likely Gums’ original writer Roy Davis who, after pulling back on Bluey and the other humans, introduced the more soap opera-like elements of the undersea cast I’m much more familiar with. We’ll have to assume it was Roy though because we can’t confirm. 

While gambling isn’t exactly something you’d expect to see in a children’s comic, Jack Pott’s compulsion to bet on anything and everything became so ludicrous, and the winner’s rewards so child-friendly, he might just be the only one to get away with it. Drawn by Jim Crocker, Jack originated in Cor!! before (fittingly) moving to Jackpot and then survived the inevitable merge into Buster where he stayed until 1988.

While this example doesn’t include any of his trademark gambling, I’ve chosen this particular strip because it reminds me of my dad. I don’t mean his father, I’m referring to Jack himself. I remember as a young boy my dad showing me how to do the household chores badly so as not to be asked to do them again! A perfect example of his sense of humour and reading this page made me chortle as I remembered times like that, so it’s a very personal choice.

Creepy Comix was surprisingly not a stablemate of Gums from Monster Fun but rather a later addition to the IPC lot in the short-lived Wow! which launched in 1982 and lasted just one year. Davey Doom owns all the editions of his favourite Creepy Comix, the large variety of characters in which can come to life to help their friend before disappearing back into their pages once more. Horror comics have frequently been frowned upon by the usual anti-comics brigade so it’s nice to see one of them get its own back in a way.

Drawn by Reg Partlett, the strip made the migration to Whoopee, then to Whizzer and Chips, then it joined the fun in (you guessed it) Buster, only succumbing in 1997 when Buster itself went all reprint material. Easily the most popular of all of Wow!’s strips, the page I’ve photographed for you spoke to many of the young readers I’m sure. It certainly would’ve raised a smile with me after years of horrible school uniform shopping.

The Winners is one of those strip series that’s stayed in the deep recesses of my ever decreasing memory all these years. The second I saw the faces of the characters in the title banner I could remember enjoying them in the pages of either these books or the fortnightly comic, so they must’ve been a highlight for me back then. Judging by this example I can see why. Of course, Mike Lacey’s always-funny collection of facial expressions could be a key reason.

This lucky family won every competition they ever entered. You’d think that’d make us dislike them if they got everything handed to them on a platter, right? Nope, not at all. For example, there could be a ton of fun to be had watching them practicing something they weren’t good at for their next competition. However, the best stories were always the ones when, despite all their preparations, they’d win only via some accident or mistake, such as here. Continuing with new strips all the way to the mid-90s in Buster, The Winners was by far the longest-running Jackpot strip of all.

Big Comic never had much in the way of small, quick gags. Unlike the variety in OiNK, the comics these books pulled from were all pretty stringent in their strip sizes. So when a page of Silent Funnies popped up it drew the attention when initially flicking through the book. Drawn by Jim Crocker I’ve no idea which comic it was pulled from although my sources (that’s Lew Stringer to you and me) suggested it could’ve been a good fit for Krazy.

As a kid I loved to draw. I drew all the time and on any thing. I was always bought drawing pads and yet the school books that had to be returned at the end of the year would still end up covered in tiny diagrams of things I loved from cartoons, comics and movies. I saw it as a service. I was cheering up the next poor soul who had to wade their way through them. Naturally then, Chalky always spoke to me when I collected Big Comic Fortnightly, even if the idea of using huge chalks already felt outdated to me. Although what else could he have used here?

Chalky first appeared three years before I was even born (and at my age I take that as a small win) in the pages of Cor!! in 1971 before transferring to Buster three years later. Some erroneous information online has Terry Bave credited as creating Chalky although “more regularly drawn by Dick Millington or Gordon Hill“. He was actually first drawn by Arthur Martin and, while we can’t be completely certain about this particular page, it was most likely drawn by Gordon.

The S.O.S Squad were a four man elite anti-terrorist task force originally comprised of Captain John West (don’t laugh), Sgt Thomas Mackenzie, Corporal Danny Lloyd and Henry ‘Fingers’ Malone, and later by the icy lady officer Captain J. W. Ironstead… oh hang on, wait. No, that’d be the Eagle strip of the same name from the second volume of that legendary comic. Instead, our S.O.S Squad is led by a kid in a box called Zed and stars others with such names as Skypole, Baby Boffin and the delightfully named Effel.

Drawn by Jimmy Hensen this spread is a perfect example of the high octane chaos that runs through all of their strips. So I was surprised to find out they didn’t last very long in the pages of Buster, just over a year as a matter of fact right at the beginning of the 1980s. There’s no accounting for taste, I guess. It’s a shame though, as their entries in this book are among the best this volume contains.

When I was young I was always encouraged to read. This began by collecting The Railway Series which my favourite early childhood TV show was based on. Then my parents bought me the Story Teller magazine and cassette partwork for two years. Soon, I discovered comics via OiNK and in later life my mum admitted she liked the fact I always asked for comics instead of sweets in the shop because they encouraged me to read more and improved my school work as a result. In contrast, our next character’s parents constantly wanted him to ditch the books in favour of what they saw as more “boyish” hobbies, which never made sense to me.

It wasn’t just me. All of my friends loved to read. So yes, it was always confusing why Bookworm was mocked by some of his peers for reading. Anyway, this particular favourite first appeared in Whoopee in 1978 and made the move to Whizzer and Chips in 1986. A bibliophile, Book Worm always has a book under his arm, normally one which just so happens to give him the right knowledge for whatever situation he finds himself in.

Here though, in this story drawn by Sid Burgon his peers appreciate his obsession and it’s also an example of how some strips could be edited for Big Comic’s audience. The year of the annuals has been changed, you can see a title has been erased from the one he’s holding in the shop and ‘Cor!!’ has been unceremoniously scribbled out in the last panel. I don’t think this was necessary, we all knew these were reprints, but I can understand why they did it.

What can I say? I couldn’t decide between two of John Geering’s Gums strips so I went with them both. There are more but this one stood out. Now we know where Bruce in Jaws learned his trick that took Brody and Quint by surprise! With our shark friend high and dry it’s time to close over another massive tome in the Big Comic Book series for another whole year. Next Christmas you can expect double the amount of classic humour strips.

That’s because in 2026 alongside The Big Comic Book 1991 we’ll also have our first annual for its companion title, Funny Fortnightly. Does that mean even more Gums? We’ll find out in a year. In the meantime, there are plenty more annuals to enjoy this season and of particular interest to fans of these characters and creative teams will be the Buster Book 1991. You can read all about it from Monday 8th December 2025. It’s certainly a Big Christmas this year!

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Annuals, Christmas, Comic Promos

YULETiDE YEARNiNGS: ADVERTiSiNG ANNUALS

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Around September time back in the 80s my local newsagent would bring out a huge table to began displaying that year’s annuals. I remember this being really exciting and I’d flick through the ones I’d already asked Santa for, impatiently waiting to get my hands on them on the morning of 25th December. For those three months I’d drool over that table (figuratively speaking only, don’t worry) and we couldn’t escape them at home either, with a plethora of adverts appearing in our comics. The Christmas hype had begun. With the Annuals section of the blog well under way now, I’ve decided to take a look at all of the adverts relating to them I could find in my collection.

1984

As a kid I only started buying comics toward the end of 1986, so any adverts before then are from my now complete Transformers Marvel UK collection and I’m surprised to see only one amongst the issues from 1984. The heading may be awkwardly placed but it’s a wide range from the publisher, including everything from Culture Club (“Karma, karma, karma, karma, Karma chameleon”) to The Fall Guy (“It’s only hay, A-hey-hey!”) via the BMX craze, the short-lived Manimal and, erm, the S.A.S.?

I do remember watching Fraggle Rock early Saturday mornings and my vocal impression of Roland Rat was always awful but that never stopped me from annoying people with it. For blog readers the obvious point of interest here is the Knight Rider Annual, the second in a series of five. It was reviewed a couple of years back and I’ve even interviewed its artist, David ‘V for Vendetta‘ Lloyd on the blog too. In fact, the fourth edition will be here a fortnight from today, on Friday 19th December.

1985

Speaking of coming up on the blog this year, in 1985 the first Transformers Annual appeared in shops exactly one year after the debut of the comic. Strangely, this momentous occasion wasn’t marked by any adverts at all, just one brief mention in #37 on 23rd November. It doesn’t say much either, however it does mention the first story to feature the Insecticons, which would’ve been enough for young fans to get frothing at the mouth.

The Transformers at Christmas 40th anniversary posts return this year for their second outing and in fact that’s the very reason for the post you’re reading now. Marvel UK’s Transformers had seven annuals altogether and they’re very fondly remembered. They’ll be taking prime position on Christmas Day every year with a full review. This post marks the occasion of these books joining us, they feature predominantly and many of these ads have been taken from the pages of said comic.

1986

Moving on to 1986 and Marvel finally began to take the importance of advertising these books to their young readers seriously. With other successful comics to plunder for the Christmas market the Transformers weren’t alone anymore,  joined as they were with legendary Marvel stalward Spider-Man, his co-stars the Zoids (Spider-Man and Zoids was the oddest combination comic yet somehow it worked) and newest hot toy and cartoon franchise, those Thundercats.

These ads were also broken up into half-pagers to be squeezed in wherever they could across the publisher’s range. It was a huge step up from previous years. Although, I must admit when I was reading Transformers for the blog’s real time Instagram read through and I came across this advert I did a bit of a double-take and had to check if this was the right image, it’s not that much different than the previous year’s Transformers Annual.

1987

All Transformers Annuals after that would have very different, stand out covers but surely no annual stood out as much during 1987’s final months as OiNK’s first book. I can remember the teases of that fantastic image all summer during 1987 and the final reveal was hilarious, never mind seeing it in its shiny glory in the shop for the first time. There’ll be a special post on Thursday 8th December featuring that cover, when I’ll be speaking with photographer Ian Tilton about the original back cover and what happened when he went to get the photos developed.

On the Fleetway Publications side there was nothing of comparison cover-wise, although the Big Comic Book’s shear size made up for that. More impressive were the covers for Marvel’s lot, with Action Force (G.I. Joe) joining Thundercats and their top-seller, Transformers. However, it’s only now I realise they were quite a bit more expensive (for the time) than the Fleetway books, despite having fewer pages (Fleetway’s had 112 pages, with 84 for OiNK and 256 for BCB, Marvel’s had 64). Well, they were licenced I suppose, and as kids we never felt short-changed with the amount of stuff crammed into them.

1988

This was the biggie. 1988 was a huge year for comics in the UK, even if a lot of the new titles released didn’t last that long. Nevertheless, it still meant a bumper crop of annuals were produced for that holiday season and the vast array of advertisements, particularly across Marvel UK’s range, reflected this. But we’ll begin with Fleetway again and the second (and sadly final) OiNK Book. A fantastic J.T. Dogg cover almost made up for the reduction in pages to 64, which was all the more disappointing when the comic had 48 pages in every monthly issue by that time.

Their group advertisement from the back page of the last OiNK is a rather different mix of books compared to the previous year’s. Buster is conspicuous by its absence and then there’s the addition of annuals you’d assume would’ve been more Marvel UK’s bag (such as SuperTed and Maple Town).

This was the year Marvel really went to town on their promotions. In 1988 group advertisements were accompanied with full-page promos for individual annuals and I’ll begin with the two that bring back the most memories for me, The Transformers and The Real Ghostbusters. Having only just started collecting the former with its Christmassy Winter Special in mid-November this was my very first Transformers Annual, and as for Dr. Venkmen etc. 1988 was the year they arrived in the UK and I had been swept up in it all.

I have so many fond memories of that Real Ghostbusters Annual. You ever own something that just takes you right back to your childhood when you see it in front of you? I was obsessed with the cartoon, comic and toys for a few years and I remember this book surprising me with just how fantastic it was. Would it live up to that now or is it best to reminisce? We’ll find out on Thursday 4th December when The Real Ghostbusters join us for an annual read through for four Christmases. I’ll admit I’m excited at the prospect of this one!

Another book that brings back plenty of childhood memories is the Visionaries Annual. The comic had already been cancelled by this stage so it didn’t get its own advert but it was a part of a group ad and a special page in The Transformers, featuring the annuals relating to it and the two comics that had merged into it at different points. The main strip in the Visionaries book may have been a reprint but as I hadn’t known there’d been a comic it was all new to me and a huge surprise to receive that Christmas (and the next, because my newsagent also sold it the following year and my parents bought me it again thinking it was a new book).

The Real Ghostbusters were grouped in with the lighter-hearted annuals such as Count Duckula. The Marvel Super Heroes didn’t have their own comic in the UK but there were always various  Spider-Man and Hulk comics now and again. Finally, The Flintstones comic must’ve been more popular than I gave it credit for because its annual got its own promo too.

1989

In contrast, the following year Marvel only ran one advert for their entire range, which is a shame because that Transformers book was superb and there are some fantastic covers here that should’ve been shown much bigger (although the Indiana Jones cover seems to be phoning it in). I never knew there was a Dino-Riders annual! I only had one or two of the toys but I did see some episodes of the cartoon (I think one was packaged with a toy?) and enjoyed it. They joined a league of potential obsessions for me that never played out because they weren’t around for long.

1990

In 1990 a whopping 22 annuals graced the shelves from Marvel UK, featuring a mix of ongoing comics, cancelled titles, original nursery books, licences and a few characters who appeared in anthology comics given room to breathe in their own publications. It was also the first time G.I. Joe’s annual was given the proper international name after Hasbro’s relaunch of the brand, and a few years after their TV show was cancelled I was surprised to see Hannibal, Face, B.A. and  Murdock make a reappearance.

Spider-Man fans were in for a treat too with his usual appearance in the Marvel Super Heroes Annual and his own book. Over the next year or two he’d also get his own UK comic again after a lengthy hiatus. Transformers and G.I. Joe also got their own joint ad which had a good idea behind it but not exactly the most exciting of executions. Oh well, at least they got something this year I suppose.

1991

We move into our final year. Not necessarily the last for annual adverts but it’s the last for those in my comics collection (after this year it’s all Dark Horse International comics on my shelves who didn’t publish annuals) and Marvel UK came up with an overall look for a handful of adverts of various sizes. With a few ads to fill they could’ve made each genre-specific but decided not to. The first one is fine and G.I.Joe got to enjoy some space with annuals its readers could also have been interested in. I can’t say the same for Transformers, The Real Ghostbusters and Thundercats though, who seem to have been given something of a raw deal.

Perhaps the person responsible for the adverts weren’t au fait with the titles they were being asked to market? These were the last annuals for some of these licences (definitely for those covered on the blog) so it’s a bit of an ignominious end for a few, but for those already reading the comics these ads were always going to be exciting; we easily ignored the books we weren’t interested in and concentrated on those Dinobots!

There we go, a trip down not one but eight Christmas memory lanes all in one post. I’m so glad I decided to do these yearly (re: slow) read throughs and these adverts have me hyped for the years to come. There’s more love for comics annuals/books on the blog this Christmas too, with no less than six up for review, including on Christmas Day and Boxing Day! Keep an eye on the Annuals menu, the Christmas 2025 introduction, or the blog’s socials for updates on when they’re published. 

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BUSTER BOOK 1990: COMiC BOOK OR BOOK COMiC?

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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

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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!

Michael and K.I.T.T. (and me) will be back next year.

(Special thanks to my friend Vicki who gave me the Super Pursuit Mode K.I.T.T. featured in the book photos in my Christmas stocking last year!)

ANNUAL 2 < > ANNUAL 4

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Annuals, Big Comic Book, Christmas

BiG COMiC BOOK 1989: REPRiNTiNG LiKE A BOSS

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As is traditional on the blog the first festive post after the Christmas introduction is the next volume in the Big Comic Book series from Fleetway, collecting together more classic strips from their flagship title Buster, as well as Whizzer and Chips and Whoopee, the latter of which had already ceased publication by the time this series began. This hardback 256-page whopper pretty much keeps to the same formula as before, which is no bad thing.

With all eight books on the shelf behind me as I read, it feels like a real event to finally be able to crack open another and see what’s been included this time. Of course, I grin from ear-to-ear as I flick through it and spot a certain toothless great white shark on several pages, once again drawn by John Geering from the pages of Buster. He may not have been the original artist but for me he was the first whose undersea world I saw and this strip is written by OiNK’s very own Graham Exton.

I just laugh so hard at how expressive John’s version of the character is. Despite a shark being somewhat limited in details, John’s expert way with Gums’ eyes can convey everything from sadistic humour to intrigued, self-importance or even fear! I adore his drawing of the white whale too. As for what appears to be some kind of distant, abandoned underwater city and a briefcase or petrol can in the first panel, I’ve no idea. I’ve even asked some experts and we’re none the wiser. It just seems too specifically drawn to be some random background detail. Perhaps it refers to something from a previous Gums strip.

This isn’t the last you’ll hear of Gums or the only highlight of his you’ll see this Christmas. If you’re a fan of the Jaws wannabe you’ll want to come back here on Wednesday 4th December 2024 to read a full review of Rebellion’s first Gums book! It collects together all of the original Monster Fun strips and I’m hoping it’ll prove to be one of the highlights of the holiday season on the blog this year (I haven’t read it yet).

This is the first I’ve seen Boy Boss., written by OiNK co-editor Mark Rodgers. According to Graham, “His experience of Big Business were working in a betting ship in Whitby, tending bar at his dad’s British Legion in Redcar, and packing tampons for the Christmas rush at Lewis’s department store in Leeds. So he was very much winging it.” (Thanks for commenting on the post with this, Graham!)

Originating in Wow! and merging into Whoopee, Boy Boss is the owner of a huge multi-national corporation but he’d rather be out playing with his mates. That’s the basic premise. He also has a put-upon assistant by the name of Jasper who tries to keep him on the straight and narrow and ultimately boring life that would serve the company’s bottom line the best. While there are funny moments, I can’t help but notice two of his strips make jokes of things we rightly scorn today, namely getting employees to work through the breaks and insisting they’re reachable on days off or even on holiday (which at the time of writing is a hot topic on social media).

I’m not for one moment suggesting artist Frank Diarmid (Roger the Dodger, Kid Kong, Frankie Stein) would’ve supported such things, it’s just a silly comic strip and they’re genuinely funny, especially the endings of both where Boy Boss is actually on the receiving end of his own ideas. I’m just making the point that these are examples of some the contents of these books showing their age a bit.

They were already classic strips from older editions of the three weeklies when this was published in 1988, never mind now. However, having read three of these mammoth books so far it’s comforting that they still read so well decades later. Although, there may be one character who could be seen as somewhat problematic today, who I’ll get to further on.

Just how big does a VCR need to be?!

I had to check on the artists for the next two strips with those friends of the blog, Lew Stringer and John Freeman. For (deep breath) Ivor Lott and Tony Broke with Milly O’Naire and Penny Less (phew!) I was quick to assume it was Sid Burgon but there’s no signature. While it was rare for cartoonists to be allowed to do so back then (OiNK very much broke that mould), Sid always did and his strips elsewhere in this book have his name written on them.

Originally appearing in Cor!, the original strip with just the two boys continued all the way through to Buster’s final issue. The girls had been stars of Jackpot and when it too merged with Buster they came along and the strips also joined together, although the girls’ names were dropped from 1985 despite continuing to appear.

[Speaking about a friend of mine], the similarities to Benny Bones couldn’t be ignored

Every week Ivor and Milly would boast about some material possessions they owned, usually things that were bigger and grander than those owned or coveted by Tony and Penny. Inevitably, in the end their boastful ways would land them in trouble and the two “poor” characters would have the last laugh. There’s a not-very-subtle lesson in there for us all, and I enjoyed seeing the imaginative ways the strip would lead to its predictable conclusion. Although, just how big does a VCR need to be?! Surely more expensive technology is meant to be smaller and sleeker, even in the 70s and 80s?

I haven’t forgotten about the issue of the artist responsible and below is the other strip I wanted to bring up. Whizzer and Chips star, Benny Bones was the ultimate in lazy children and would often put more mental effort into how to get out of doing something than it would take to do it, often falling asleep in the process.

On the day I read this strip my friend Vicki and I were watching the same TV show in our two separate houses. Over a text she asked me what time it was over at and I told her she could just press the button on her remote to find out. Her response was that she was watching it in bed and was too lazy to do that… despite the effort it took to ask me via text! The similarities to Benny couldn’t be ignored, but the fact this very strip contains a similar moment was such a coincidence it had to be included in this review!

So anyway, I found out Colin Whittock drew Lazy Bones until 1986 but there’s no information on who took over. This strip is likely to have been drawn before then but it’s somewhat looser in style than normal. As for Ivor et all, the same conclusion was drawn by the experts. Perhaps Sid was on holiday, for example, and someone had to ghost his style. We’ve no way of finding out so for now I’ll say they’re most likely by Sid and Colin respectively, but there’s a chance some unknown cartoonists were responsible.

Originally in Cheeky Weekly then Whoopee, the Paddywack mini-strips by Jack Clayton were basically about an idiot who made stupid mistakes. While it was never confirmed, there was an assumption he was Irish, back at a time when Irish people could be the butt of jokes in the playground. In these more enlightened times we simply wouldn’t do that anymore. Name aside, there’s nothing in any of the strips of his I’ve read that I’d have a problem with, and I live in Belfast.

I do remember as a teenager telling one of those Englishman, Irishman and Scotsman jokes to an English friend who had told many of them to us. But of course we changed it so the Englishman was the butt of the joke. He was greatly offended! He completely missed the point we were trying to make and continued telling us there was nothing wrong with the way he told those jokes, but ours was wrong. Take from that what you will.

Drawn by the always brilliant Mike Lacey, Kids’ Court only ran for a few years in Whoopee in the 1970s, but it was so memorable when I originally read it in these books and Big Comic Fortnightly. At its core it’s a basic role reversal strip but it’s done so brilliantly and so chaotically it feels highly original. In this world the kids are the cops, the judges and the juries punishing misbehaving adults. I particularly like the way the captured park warden is still in the letterbox when he gets his court date! That made me laugh.

On the very next page from Kids’ Court comes one of the double-page spreads for Jim Watson’s Store Wars, a strip of two halves for me. Originally in Whizzer and Chips, it was basically another version of Ivor Lott and Tony Broke, with Mr. Superstore and his mega-store constantly trying to put the tiny, local Bloggs and Son shop out of business but constantly failing to do so, often spending huge amounts of cash in the attempt.

Having deleted my Amazon account last year I’m enjoying using smaller businesses online and across Belfast so this strip felt particularly relevant upon reading it, if in a highly exaggerated way of course. Why is it a strip of two halves? Because in every example in this book there’s a very funny outcome but there’s always a somewhat patronising statement from Mr. Superstore explaining the joke. They’d be much funnier without these.

Every year I’m trying to show you different strips than those I’ve shown you in previous Big Comic Books (apart from Gums, of course) and lastly for this year is a character I have no recollection of whatsoever from childhood, which is a shame because his pages are great. I did enjoy his inclusion in The Tom Paterson Collection though. From the pages of Whizzer and Chips and drawn by the hilarious Tom, here’s Guy Gorilla.

Transforming into a giant gorilla whenever he eats peanuts, he retains a modicum of awareness of who he is and doesn’t cause any real harm, just a lot of panic and mess. I think it’s a really fun set up and the more episodes I read in this book the funnier it got that no one knows it’s him! Everyone is very aware that there’s a random gorilla hanging around somewhere and Guy’s excuses about why he’s never there at the same time can be so silly, but they take his word for it every time. A great little strip that unfortunately only ran for about a year in total.

And that’s us for another year, folks! As you can see below there’s still a ways to go. With five more Big Comic Books (and two Funny Fortnightly/Monthly volumes) you can expect more classic highlights from some of the most renowned UK cartoonists of all time up until Christmas 2029 at least! That’s if you don’t all get bored of me in the meantime.

This year you can also expect reviews of Rebellion’s Gums collection on Wednesday 4th December and the Buster Book 1990 (released in 1989), the first to feature fan favourite OiNK characters after the merge, which you can check out from Thursday 19th December. It’s already shaping up to be the best Christmas on the OiNK Blog yet!

1988 BOOK < > 1990 BOOK

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