Category Archives: Christmas

Christmas, Creating OiNK

iAN TiLTON CHAT: A TAiL TO TELL

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We all remember this cover. We all remember the back cover. But do you know about the original back cover? It’s time to, ahem, reveal all!

Back when I wrote the review for the fantastic OiNK Book 1988 during Christmas 2022 I credited Ian Jackson with the plasticine model. Not only had Ian produced model work for the first Holiday Special, this looked like his version of Uncle Pigg and, most of all, I’d been told by OiNK’s co-editors Patrick Gallagher and Tony Husband it was his handiwork! Fast forward to earlier this year and I asked Ian if he still had the model or at least any photos of the infamous original rear. I was surprised to be told by the man himself that he didn’t create it!

Unfortunately, despite months of research the artist responsible for this iconic cover remains unknown, however the person responsible for photographing it is another matter altogether. Meet Ian Tilton, OiNK’s resident photographer. He first met Patrick, Tony and Mark Rodgers when he was hired to photograph the OiNK launch party in a local Manchester pub. The idea was to get a portrait print of the comic’s three editors but this proved more difficult than expected thanks to the amount of booze flowing that night.

Ian told me that once he got a few photos the three of them instantly disappeared back into the crowd and to this day Patrick still can’t remember a thing about the party! Ian has been gracious enough to chat with me on the phone at length about working on OiNK and to send me photos of his original work. Yes, including the original version of this back cover to the first annual. I remember showing off this final published version with great delight to any family friends who visited us that Christmas season.

Ian told me how in October 1986 (well in advance) he was asked to photograph the roughly A4-sized model while leaving enough space for the title etc. He never met the artist and is also unaware of who created it. It was sent to him by the editorial team and the back cover arrived before the face. So he photographed the rear model on its own and took the pictures to the processing lab in Manchester where they knew him well. He left it there and told them he’d be back in a few hours.

The thing is, this original model was different in one way to what you saw on the book. When Ian returned to the reception he could see all the staff in the back looking out at him, which he thought was “a little bit strange”. Terry was the name of the man who did the actual processing and told Ian about the photo, “We’ve been handing these around, so everybody’s seen them… but what is it?” The thing is, Ian hadn’t told them anything and without knowing it was a plasticine model it looked like skin!

So here you go, pig pals, that original rear end that caused all the fuss!

Once he explained it, they were apparently very relieved it wasn’t a real growth on someone’s bum! “Don’t worry, it’s just plasticine!” shouted Terry to the rest of his team from reception. They’d been used to Ian bringing in photos of rock bands, so no wonder there was concern among them! The comic’s team loved it but IPC’s Bob Paynter got straight back to them and, while laughing, told them they’d never get away with it! So in the end the tail was moved to cover up the offending element.

The story is even funnier when you know Ian is a renowned rock photographer. One of his photographs of Kurt Cobain was hailed by Q Magazine as one of the six best rock photographs of all time, another of Ian Brown of The Stone Roses has gone down in history. On the phone he regaled me with tales of Iggy Pop, Nirvana, The Cure and Guns’n’Roses. I’ve said it before, OiNK had the greatest team behind it. This wasn’t Ian’s only OiNK cover either.

Fittingly for the timing of this post Ian also photographed the funny cover to the comic’s first Christmas issue and its iconic imagery of the Queen preparing to cook up a corgi. Ian has kindly shared some of the transparencies with me of the various poses that ultimately weren’t used. These were all taken in Ian’s own kitchen and behind the royal mask was his own personal friend, Sally.

Also above you can see a model that we know was definitely created by Ian Jackson, the one used for the first Holiday Special of a plasticine Uncle Pigg being fanned by a cardboard Mary Lighthouse (critic) on a tropical desert isle. You can clearly see the blue drape used as the background and the simple crumpled up material posing as the sea. It’s fascinating seeing how such an iconic cover was originally created using such cheap but ultimately creative methods. These photos were taken in December the year before the special’s release.

Sally wasn’t the only one of Ian’s friends to appear in OiNK. In fact, they were all enthusiastic to appear and that included Ian’s housemate, Alan Shaw. He appeared as PC Porker in Swindler Sid’s Great Lolly Folly in #7. The photo has been hand-coloured after the fact, although the strip was printed in black and white. Another of the photo stories Ian captured was printed in colour though, and luckily he still has the original.

Starring Marc Riley as Snatcher Sam, Ian hand-coloured the strip using photographic dyes. He’d shown the OiNK editors some record covers and promotional band pictures of The Membranes from the early 80s, thinking the style would be a good fit. He would go on to use the technique on a lot of music magazine covers from 1987 onwards and one such image could take a day-and-a-half to colour. It was a difficult task but I’m so happy he took the time to add some of it to OiNK’s pages. Apparently the OiNK team randomly named his work ‘Glechnicolour’, as opposed to Technicolour.

Finally, here’s a photo Ian took during #30’s OiNK Awards shoot of the late Tony Husband with the Spitting Image Workshop. Ian has kept all of his diaries over the decades and he was able to share the details for this one. It was taken on 18th March 1987 and he’d travelled to London in Tony’s white Ford Capri to meet with Spitting Image, then over to BBC Broadcasting House to photograph John Peel and Steve Wright for the same spread.

What started out as a quick query about the OiNK Book 1988’s cover artist resulted in so much more. It was a wonderfully funny conversation which also included some non-OiNK stories I just can’t share! So thank you so much to Ian for being so open and such great craic. It’s clear from our chat that his enthusiasm for his OiNK work continues to this day and I hope this has been a festive treat for all you pig pals out there.

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Annuals, Buster, Christmas

BUSTER BOOK 1991: PiGGiNG OUT?

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Buster is back on the OiNK Blog. It makes a change seeing this comic’s characters guest star in something OiNK-related rather than the other way around. Just like last year this is another hardback volume of 112 pages, made up of a mix between regular matte and higher quality stock, this time alternating between the two. It means we’ve a bit more colour but only a bit, a lot of these pages are still black and white or two-tone and there’s no change to the length of the strips.

It still feels like several issues bound together but at least more of them have been printed on better paper. Our first OiNK star (of which we’re now down to two) is Lew Stringer’s Pete Throb in the shorter-titled Pete’s Pimple. Pete had already said goodbye to regular Buster readers by the time this annual was released so it’s strange to see it’s more of an introductory strip than anything. In fact some elements are very similar to his first Buster strip.

These annuals could be brought by Santa for kids who weren’t regular readers so it wasn’t unusual for some strips to read this way. There’s a nice little cameo from Tom too but I can’t help feel a little underwhelmed by him in the last panel. I’m so used to these characters in OiNK, Tom should be covered in pus and discombobulated on the floor, not mildly upset in the corner of the panel. Regular blog readers will be familiar with the reasons behind this though when I covered the initial merge. Lew also informs me the colouring job was done in-house by someone at Fleetway, hence the somewhat subdued colours in comparison to his previous OiNK work.

Weedy Willy is no longer with us. He just didn’t click with the readers of Buster and so Mark Rodgers’ and Mike Green’s strip didn’t last long. However, the stand out star was back. A huge hit with Buster fans, Lew’s Tom Thug would sometimes even get a colour page in the weekly, which was at a premium in Buster as opposed to OiNK. However, while his Skooldayz strip may be on one of the higher quality pages like Pete’s, he remains in black and white here.

Did you ever play conkers as a child? I could never get on with it. For someone who loves their videogames today I must’ve had rubbish hand-eye coordination back then and I could never hit anything… apart from the occasional friend’s hand. Kids in comics always seemed crazy for them and those in Tom’s class were no exception. Maybe if this had been an OiNK strip we’d have seen Tom inflict the cricket ball on himself after trying to harm someone else, but the strip still raises a smile.

These aren’t all from Lew in this annual. In fact, OiNK’s co-editor Mark Rodgers created and initially wrote the following characters. Unfortunately, by this stage his illness precluded him from doing so anymore. Lew then took over sole responsibility for The Vampire Brats. First appearing in June 1989 they enjoyed nearly two-and-a-half years in Buster and from comments on social media and Lew’s blog they’re very fondly remembered. I’ve read the occasional strip on Lew’s blog before now but this is the first time I’ve owned anything with them in it.

They were Vampires of the same age as the readers, so despite being undead they still had to learn. In their own unique way, of course. While they may not have a strip in the annual, they do get pride of place with their version of a school’s ‘ABC’ wall chart as the double-page spread that rounds off the entire book. It’s a fun and imaginative entry and in particular I laughed at U, V and W and really any that follow on from the previous letter. With this little sampling I do hope I can get to read some of their actual strips next year.

Next up is another character who (much like Gums) continued on in the pages of the Buster Books long after they’d disappeared from the weekly. Despite winning a Cartoonist Club of Great Britain award, Wonder Wellies only lasted two years in the long-running comic, ending in 1985. According to Lew and John Freeman, these Fleetway annuals could sometimes use reprints to fill out their pages so there’s always the possibility that’s the case here but I can’t confirm. Written by Roy Davis this stood out to me because it was drawn by OiNK cartoonist Dave Follows.

Accidentally created by Professor Krankpot, the wellies belong to Willie (of course) and they’ve called themselves Lefty and Righty, names which could probably mean something rather different today. They were stubborn and had the power to walk by themselves, morph and fly, sometimes taking Willie along with them without his say-so, with enough autonomy that they’d not always do as he wanted or come to his rescue.

Young Arfur is back and seeing as he’s drawn by fellow OiNK cartoonist Pete Dredge I had to include him again. UPDATE: Not only that but OiNK co-editor Patrick Gallagher helpfully left a comment (below) on this post to let us know he wrote it! It was a hard choice between his strips but this one just pips the others with its neat twist on the usual formula; instead of talking his way out of something he gets his teacher to do it for him. Arfur disappeared from the pages of Buster in 1987 so either he continued with new yearly strips for fans or this could be another reprint. My money is on the former because he has pride of place on the higher quality pages in the book.

He’s a lovable rogue, a phrase which could be used to describe certain brothers in a BBC sitcom that starred David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst, characters that were definitely not inspiration for the next strip. Nope, not at all. Actually, I think the word “inspiration” is being rather kind and that’s why it stood out. A Buster original drawn by Gordon Hill, Rodney and Dez lasted only one year in the comic around the time of this annual’s release.

Perhaps it was too on-the-nose even for the young ‘uns!

They bring this year’s look at the Buster Book 1991 to a close. Chances are there’ll be no Pete and his Pimple… sorry, Pete’s Pimple next year so fingers crossed Tom Thug’s superstardom has kicked in with the readers and he’s afforded more space next time. Until then, this annual can sit proudly on my shelf with last year’s while I await the Buster Book 1992 and continue to stretch out the OiNK love just that little bit more.

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Beano, Christmas, Comic Reviews

BEANO CHRiSTMAS SPECiAL 2025: TiME FOR FUN

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Dare I say it but could this year’s Beano Christmas Special actually top last year’s? One glance at the supposed author name along the bottom of the cover almost had me convinced before I even opened it! Inside, the lack of more funny gift tags is disappointing but that’s really the only negative I have in all honesty.

Dennis is lumbered with reading a bedtime story to his little sister, Bea as Christmas Eve draws to a close and his mum hands him A Christmas Carol. But of course Dennis is never going to have the attention span to read a whole book so he leaves bits out, retells existing bits and adds completely new parts to liven it all up.

Just like last year, the special is one long story told over various strips starring a collection of the comic’s fan favourites. Dennis, for example, is not only Dennis Scratchit in his retelling but also the first of the ghosts. He’s the narrator and in charge, and it’s Dennis, so of course he’d do this and it’s hilariously brushed aside in the story. Although for me the real star of the piece isn’t Dennis or even Mayor Brown as Scrooge, it has to be Rubi.

Rubi’s Screwtop Science pops up several times across the issue thanks to her dad’s time machine invention. Oh, and her dad is H.G. Wells so you can guess what the machine looks like (and it comes complete with a certain Doctor Who sound effect). You see, the ghosts are all a bit useless and need Rubi’s help in order to carry out their plan to make Scrooge learn the error of his ways and the true meaning of Christmas. But this is the modern day Beano and it all goes completely nuts and utterly chaotic very quickly!

If you thought last year’s tale didn’t let up you haven’t seen anything yet. The team have really outdone themselves. What a team, too! The complete list of writers and artists for this special reads like this: Danny Pearson (who featured in a previous festive OiNK post), Andy Fanton, Nigel Auchterlounie, Laura Howell, Emily McGorman-Bruce, Nigel Parkinson, Barrie Appleby, Steve Beckett, Shannon Gallant, George Cant, Ned Hartley, Mel Prats, Hugh Raine, Alan Ryan, Leslie Stannage, The Sharp Bros. and Wayne Thompson. Phew! Talk about a who’s who of comics talent.

Don’t be expecting this to follow the classic tale that closely. There are moments when it pays its respects but then you’ll turn the page and find the Ghost of Christmas Present has brought Scrooge to the present day of the reader instead of Scrooge’s own timeline, or another has taken him to witness the Bash Street school of the far sci-fi future for no apparent reason, or Bananaman trying to infiltrate a prison before it’s built! Why? That would ruin the surprise. 

Every instance of time jumping sees us back in Rubi’s lab and every time this happens she gets more and more frustrated at the ineptitude of the ghosts. Her thunder is almost stolen by the wonderful Dangerous Dan strip and its completely random ending, there are also some lovely nods back to classic Beano years for the older readers, and a delightfully timey-wimey head-spinning Angel Face Investigates. But Rubi easily manages to hold the crown as her pages made me roar every time she appeared.

It should be clear how much I’ve enjoyed this and I’m not even the target audience. Alongside the whopping 48 pages given over to the story there are also a multitude of quality puzzles, games and activities for the kids, all festively wrapped up in a 76-page special (even bigger than last year’s) printed on exceedingly good quality paper with a card cover. There’s no need to balk at the £7.99 price tag either, by the time you’ve absorbed the amount of gags in here and your kids have laughed and drawn and pranked their way through it all you’ll see it for the bargain it is.

It should be readily available in your local shops and supermarkets. I ordered mine from DC Thomson directly through the Beano’s website shop. It’s available there as a single issue or as part of various bundles with the Beano Annual, Dandy Annual and the traditional special Dandy/Beano book. Also, if your child would like to join the Beano fan club they’ll receive this, the summer special and the annual as part of the club! I’ll say it again: bargain.

Grab a couple of slices of boozy fruit cake and a big glass of your favourite festive tipple but be ready to spurt them out several times while you read this. In other words, you should buy it. The only way it could be improved upon is if they’d included more of those tags! Yes, I’ll die on this hill. Hey Beano, maybe next year? Or put them up on your shop. I wouldn’t be alone in buying them, I’m sure. In the meantime folks, grab yourself a copy of the Beano Christmas Special 2025 and you’ll feel like a big kid even more than usual this holiday season. Guaranteed.

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BEANO CHRiSTMAS SPECiAL 2024: A DASHiNG GOOD READ

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This review was originally written for and published on Down the Tubes. As I’m now going to cover these yearly specials on the OiNK Blog I decided to copy this post over too.

As I write this the Christmas issue of Beano (No.4266) is out, however every year publisher DC Thomson also releases a separate festive special in advance of the season. Printed on high quality paper and coming in at an impressive 68 pages, it’s almost like another Beano Annual. No one can accuse the team of not going large for the holidays!

All the usual characters are in place from a plethora of top talent, my personal favourites being Andy Fanton, Nigel Parkinson, Nigel Auchterlounie, Laura Howell and friend of the OiNK Blog, Danny Pearson. Initially looking like a bigger regular issue, as you read you soon realise all the strips are part of one story from different perspectives, without ever sacrificing the quality of the individual strips.

Upon opening you’re met with a page of gift labels. Aimed at kids rather than the present-buyers, that doesn’t mean older readers can’t enjoy them, as you can tell from my photos. The one featuring Harsha from Bash Street Kids was particularly well suited to that gift!

So, Santa has been kidnapped and for once the Beanotown kids aren’t to blame. (This is the first Christmas Special I’ve read but it’s clear there’s a history here). When Mrs. Claus asks why he still delivers there when they kidnap him every year, Santa explains, “It’s only most years, and twice it was more of a misunderstanding.”

However, the kids are blamed throughout in some very funny moments, including by Santa’s reindeer, who immediately pin it on Minnie! I just have to mention Dasher at this point. The personality given to him is just perfect for his name and I laughed aloud when I read this scene in the stables. It’s such an obvious gag now that I’m surprised I haven’t read something similar before.

The big bad behind it all is revealed early on as Mayor Brown, who bears a striking resemblance to Richard Osman and whose voice I read his lines in for the rest of the comic. This is a world away from the Beano I read as a kid and that’s a good thing; it has to move on and evolve for today’s kids after all. As a result, the humour moves at a much faster pace, with more quips and banter between characters and some enjoyable breaking of the fourth wall. It’s a lot more chaotic and anarchic. As an OiNK fan, I love it!

I don’t want to ruin what happens because the joy is in not knowing what’s next; something this definitely isn’t is predictable! Bond villain Brown takes Bash Street school as his lair with his robotic snowmen to ruin Christmas, a scenario perfectly set up by spy strip, Dangerous Dan. From here, everyone gets a crack at teaming up with other characters from different creators and it’s fun to see the various artists’ takes on each other’s creations.

I may have had several laugh-out-loud moments but I’m not the target audience, despite how young I felt reading this. However, my friend’s son is. Father and son subscribe to Beano and read it together, and they’ve a set of criteria upon which they judge each and every issue. I know you’re thinking this’ll be a list of favourite characters but it’s a bit more… comprehensive than that. Kids can have very particular tastes.

They want lots of Angel Face and Minnie the Minx for a start. They weren’t disappointed here, especially with the amount of Minnie content. (On a side note, as a fan of Andy Fanton’s work it’s great to see his Minnie is so treasured.) Next, Yeti and Cousin Agnes should feature beyond their own strip and for a special Christmas treat it’s actually Minnie they mingle with here. Dennis also breaks the fourth wall as wanted and, while Rubi’s latest invention isn’t as ‘Heath Robinson’ as they’d like (no, really) it plays a pivotal role and her mistakes bring plenty of smiles.

Always important to get the target audience’s view, right?

There are also several activity pages such as mazes, board games, pranks etc. They may sound clichéd but each is finished to such a high quality you could never call them fillers. I focussed solely on the comic strip (and the free stickers) but there’s plenty for younger readers to do to get more value out of your money.

Whether you’ve kids of your own or just want to read a new funny comic this holiday season, the Beano Christmas Special 2024 is exactly what you need. It even has snow on the logo, so you know it must be good.

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Annuals, Christmas, The Real Ghostbusters

THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS ANNUAL #1: PHUNNY PHANTOMS

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While many comics of the 80s such as The Transformers and our very own OiNK would have to wait until their second year for their first annual, with The Real Ghostbusters Marvel UK went all-in and produced a book for its very first Christmas season, meaning work had to have started on it before the comic itself was even released. For me, holding this cover by Anthony Williams (Transformers, PJ Maybe, Fate) and John Burns (Judge Dredd, Look-in, Eagle) in my hands again brings back so many fond festive memories.

Sticking with the usual 64-page hardback format of Marvel’s yearly offerings and edited by Richard Starkings (Death’s Head, The Sleeze Brothers, Dragon’s Claws), inside is chock full of content making for a meaty, very funny read for the younger readers, and one that holds up well today. This has been great fun to relive. I’ve had a ball! Things kick off with an HQ page very much like the weekly’s and you can see the amount of stories and features they’ve crammed in here.

Then there’s Marvel UK’s one-page strip advert introducing Peter Venkman, Winston Zeddmore, Egon Spengler and Ray Stanz that had been running in other comics that year and which took its wording directly from the movie. This was written by Richard (under a pseudonym), drawn by Brian Williamson (Hook Jaw, Doctor Who, Warhammer) and Tim Perkins (Transformers, Chopper, Thor Losers), lettered by Richard and coloured by Chris Matthews (Thundercats, Action Force, Mugshots).

Ian Rimmer’s (editor on Scream, Doctor Who Magazine and Transformers) Sarah Sangster’s Spectre is the perfect scene setter for the book. An attractive young woman has called the team to catch the ghost of a little old lady haunting the halls of her home and straight away Peter is smitten. In the end, she’s the spook who has tried to trick the guys into killing the wee pensioner! Dark? Not at all, it’s all played for laughs and the plot is exposed by Peter’s selfie. 

The artists here are regular Ghostbusters contributors Andy Lanning (The Punisher: Year One, Judge Anderson, co-creator of The Sleeze Brothers) and Dave Harwood (Action Force, Swift Sure, 2000AD) with colours by Helen Stone (Knights of Pendragon, Dark Angel, Sleeze Brothers). Probably more than anything else in here, this strip takes me right back to reading (and rereading) this book over the holidays in 1988, wrapped up in bed late at night during that enjoyable Void Week between Christmas and New Year.

The comic never did multi-issue stories from the UK team. Later, lengthy imported strips would get serialised but the closest our homegrown stories got would be those split in two across one issue. This happens here with The Spook from Outer Space, again written by Ian, with art by Phil Gascoine (Battle Action, Commando, Knight Rider in Look-in) and Dave Hine (Death’s Head, Azrael, Dark Angel), with colours by Stuart Place (Captain Britain, Transformers, Action Force).

The Ghostbusters are watching a UFO being excavated from disused land in New York on telly when suddenly the excavation equipment starts floating in mid-air. They deduce the alien must’ve died upon crashing and has been haunting the UFO ever since. So off they go to bust it but as normal the case is not all it seems. The alien is hugely powerful, feeding off their proton packs instead of being contained by them, and of course the military are on hand to fire more weapons at it while ignoring the warnings.

In the end we find out the alien has been psychically moving all of the heavy machinery in order to spell out a message on the ground that it just wants to be sent home, so the Ghostbusters commandeer one of the army’s rockets, trap the alien (with their permission) and fire it off into space. It’s a fun tale that includes a good bit of witty banter between the four men and would end up being one of a few strips from this annual we’d “get another chance to read” in the weekly a couple of years later.

Moving on to our prose stories and Jaws of the Beast is written by artist Nick Abadzis (Death’s Head, Vector 13, The Big Book of Death) and colourist/editor Steve White (Xenozoic Tales in the UK’s Jurassic Park, The Sleeze Brothers, Dragon’s Claws).It’s a tale about a small winged beast who invades a boy’s wishes. This particular boy wished he could see a real Tyrannosaurus rex, so obviously this leads to the team eventually being chased by said dinosaur through the streets of New York.

“It’s a loony lady who says her nephew has raised a dinosaur from the dead. You wanna speak to her?”

Janine Melnitz

What’s great about the story is the dynamic of the team. The prose stories allow the writers to explore the characters that little bit more and in particular we’re treated to some hilarious scenes between Peter and Egon in the firehouse, and later when Peter is used as bait for the beast. At this juncture Peter’s inner thoughts are punctuated by radio communications from Egon, making for great dialogue and genuinely laugh out loud moments.

The best story of the whole book is written by friend of the blog John Freeman (editor of Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine), who brings back the iconic Stay Puft Marshmallow Man for a story set in London. The art is pencilled by Mike Collins (Transformers, Doctor Who, Tharg’s Future Shocks) and inked by OiNK’s very own Lew Stringer (Tom Thug, Combat Colin, Sonic the Comic). Lew and Mike are good friends and started in the business around the same time but this remains the only time they’ve ever worked together on the same story.

A mist has descended over London and it’s feeding on the fears of the citizens, sending everyone running for their lives and leaving the city with no one for the mist to scare. Growing weaker, the Ghostbusters start to look for the source in order to eliminate it, but all it takes is for Egon to explain that in order to keep the mist at bay they have to think of nice things. Cue Ray! If you’ve seen the original movie you’ll know what this is in reference to and it makes for some great back and forth between the four.

There’s one more text story called Ghostbusters Busted! about a so-called rival team and towards the end of the annual the uncredited Who, What, When & Why? which acts like a catch-up for new readers. It explains how the Ghostbusters were formed, why they’ve got a pet ghost and takes a closer look at their HQ and all those gadgets they use in their day-to-day job. Also included are reprints of the fact-files from the weekly for Peter, Egon, Winston, Ray and Janine Melnitz. Oh, and Slimer of course!

In case you’re wondering how that whole “Ghostbusters body” thing worked out, Peter would be the mouth, Egon the brains, Ray the hands, Winston the heart, Janine the central nervous system and Slimer would naturally be the stomach. As I’ve mentioned before in the retrospective for #1 of the comic, I remember drawing this Frankenstein-esque combination of all the characters with the intention of sending it in but never did.

Not all of the main characters feature in every story in the comic and the same applies here. Given their short length the writers would often concentrate on pairing up different characters with each other for interesting dynamics. For example, three of the guys starred in our first strip, then the missing ‘buster, Egon appeared with Janine in another. The final strip of the annual brings everyone together though, including Miss Melnitz and the green one.

Written by John Freeman, drawn by Anthony Williams and Dave Harwood and coloured by Helen Stone, Spooked Out! sees the team battling against a gaggle of ghouls and try as they might they can’t help but get more and more overwhelmed by them. It seems this could be the first failed job but when Peter chases after Slimer to bust him you know something’s up.

Sure enough, it’s just a training exercise. Needing to keep themselves in fine form Slimer has recruited a bunch of his good ghost pals, with payment being everything they can eat at a local diner if they win. Given how they’re all good friends with Slimer (and we know what his appetite is like) this is a particularly funny ending to not only this short strip but the book as a whole.

I found Ghostbusters Answer the Call’s sense of humour reminded me a lot of both The Real Ghostbusters cartoon and the UK comic, so if you’re a fan of that movie like I am you’ll want to snap up some issues and this first annual is the perfect jumping on point. Our annuals were always that little bit more special than the regular comic and upon finishing this it really did feel like all the stops were pulled out to produce a fantastic debut book that’s genuinely very funny.

Andy Lanning’s, Dave Harwood’s and John Burns’ inner cover spread rounds off what has been a great slice of Marvel UK history from a comic that set itself apart from the rest of their titles from the get-go. Sometimes certain things from our childhood hold a special place in our hearts that we’ve completely forgotten about until we experience them again. In that regard, the 1988 annual for The Real Ghostbusters has felt like a very personal trip down memory lane and I can’t wait to see if subsequent volumes have the same effect. Roll on Christmas 2026!

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THE BiG CHRiSTMAS COMPETiTiON: OiNK BLOG DOUBLES COMPETiTiON

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If last month’s competition is anything to go by then this Christmas compo should be really rather popular. First though, the lucky winner of six random issues of Marvel UK’s hilarious The Real Ghostbusters was Steve Wareing of Preston. I’m sure you’ll enjoy them Steve, it was one of my very favourite comics and it holds up extremely well today. Those Spengler’s Spirit Guides alone will be worth your entry!

For the festive season I took a look at the doubles I’ve acquired and realised the prize really couldn’t be anything other than annuals, could it? With one double for the Ghostbusters and no less than three for The Greatest TV Show Ever, are you ready for the ultimate trip back to the 80s?

The Real Ghostbusters Annual is the third in its series and contains the usual mixture of funny strips and hilarious text stories and even a ‘Phantomime’ for the season. The Knight Rider Annuals are the first three yearly treats for Michael and K.I.T.T. fans and include strips and art by none other than David Lloyd (yes, that David Lloyd), background information on F.L.A.G., interviews with cast and crew, special behind the scenes features about the show, its stunts and its stars of both the human and the automotive variety. The prose stories in particular are truly excellent and a real highlight of each volume. They could easily have been adapted into episodes.

The winner will receive their annuals gift wrapped and in time for placing them under their tree in time for The Big Day. All you have to do is answer this very simple question:

Q – Alongside the two above, which other two 80s TV shows have had annuals reviewed on the blog to date?

When (you think) you’ve got the answer you can either email it to me at oink.blog@icloud.com (all emails will be deleted after the winner has been selected, I’m not fancy enough to have a newsletter or stuff like that), or use the contact form you can find on the right-hand side of your desktop screen or under this post on mobile. Your entry must be with me by midnight on Sunday 14th December 2025.

UPDATE: Congratulations to long-time blog reader Dan Whitehead of Cheshire who correctly identified Airwolf and No.73 as the other two annuals. Hope you enjoy the books Dan and they take you back to Christmases in the 80s!

After this date I’ll contact the lucky winner to ask for their address. Unfortunately, due to rising postage costs the competition is only open to UK and Ireland readers.

Apart from a name written on the inside of the Ghostbusters book and some light wear to the inside back cover of the third Knight Rider annual these are in excellent condition. If you’re planning on giving these as a gift for more than one person just let me know and I can gift wrap them separately or grouped as you wish. Good luck everyone, I hope these will make for a great Christmas present for someone out there!

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CHRiSTMAS 2025

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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Beano, Christmas, Comic Reviews

BEANO #272: A BiRTHDAY BALL

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Welcome back to our irregular real time read through of the eight celebratory editions of Beano from DC Thomson’s 80th anniversary box set. Next up is the first issue to have sold one million copies! That’s an incredible achievement on its own, never mind the fact it was back in 1945, not long after World War II and at a time when paper shortages were still in effect. As such, Reg Carter’s Big Eggo fronted a comic of only 12 pages, the smallest it would ever be.

The Beano was also fortnightly at the time, released on alternative weeks to The Dandy so kids still had the opportunity to read some desperately needed funnies every week. I’ve always found this period in the comic’s history fascinating ever since I found out about it in the 50th anniversary Dandy/Beano Fifty Golden Years book I received for Christmas 1987, which you’ll see an overview of this year on Boxing Day on the blog. For now though, let’s open up #272 of The Beano, which celebrates its own 80th anniversary today.

What a selection of names and taglines! Talk about being “of their time”. Researching Cocky Dick meant very careful internet searches but I did eventually find out it was originally drawn by Allan Morley and ran in the comic from 1939 to 1947. There’s an air of Dennis about the strip thanks to the cheeky nature of the main character and the colour scheme of his feathers. Nice of the local council to label their water wells too, otherwise how’d we know what it was.

After an absence of three years Good King Coke (surely a 90s movie drug lord name) had returned for another year-long run, drawn by Eric Roberts, and The Magic Lollipops (“Suck ‘em and see”?!) was also drawn by Allen and ran for ten years between 1941 and 1951, with a one year gap in the middle. I don’t think any other page in either #1 or this edition has been such a clear window into a completely different time.

A Christmas strip! Perfect. With The Beano being fortnightly we were only one issue away from the big festive celebrations and Lord Snooty was getting in on the action already. As the season has already kicked off on the OiNK Blog this year I couldn’t have been happier when I saw this, drawn by Dudley D. Watkins. Snooty’s strip ran from 1938 all the way through to 1991, with a few breaks in the middle.

Upon his return after his first break a lot of his original friends above would be replaced with characters from other, discontinued Beano strips and over the course of his lengthy run he was drawn by a handful of other artists, most notably Leo Baxendale and Robert Nixon. Lord Snooty was the only character from #1 I knew as a child in the 80s (through sneaking a peek at my friends’ issues), by that time he was the last surviving character of that first issue.

Along the top of a Jimmy and his Magic Patch story readers are told to turn to a certain page to find out all the details of the special Christmas issue, but it turns out it’s only this small promo in the middle of a Tick Tock Timothy prose story. The main selling point of the festive issue would be a game called ‘Jinko’, a basic dice board game printed on the back cover. Over the page from this promo we find Tom Thumb is still in the comic, albeit as a picture-panel story instead of the prose of #1.

Another character who was still here but whose format hadn’t changed is one of my favourites from the premiere issue, Charles Gordon’s Granny Green. This was actually a reprint from the original run in the first year-and-a-bit of the comic but obviously I’ve never read it. Again, I really enjoyed it. It includes a quick recap of the premise for any new readers and I originally thought Jimmy’s plan in this particular story sounded awfully cruel… until we find out the water is only a couple of feet deep. Hilariously, the names of the friends mentioned still sound like the kind of creations Bob Mortimer comes up with on Would I Lie To You!

On to the back page and two well known names, beginning with Tin-Can Tommy, the clockwork ‘son’ of Professor Lee and Mrs Lee. He first appeared on the back page of the first issue when he was created after the death of their son because they were struggling with the loss. Originally drawn by the Italian Dinelli brothers who disappeared in France during the war, he was subsequently drawn by Sam Fair, Charles Gordon and George Drysdale but my usual expert resources aren’t aware of who drew this episode.

Tommy would reappear in #3185 in 2003 for the comic’s 60th anniversary. Another character who may also be known by later readers of Beano is Pansy Potter. Pansy was a Beano star between 1938 and 1958 (with breaks), then she moved to Sparky in the 60s and 70s before returning to her original home between 1989 and 1993. That’s the time period in which I remember her from, which she followed up with small runs now-and-again (her last appearance was in #3954) and a couple of annual cameos in 2012 and 2018.

Created by Hugh McNeill and drawn by this stage by Tommy’s Sam, Pansy was the character chosen to be the first strip printed in full colour on the back page a few years later. This strip above reminds me of skating at a temporary rink at Belfast City Hall this time of year many moons ago and the amount of people tripping over chunks of broken ice and toppling into each other. The council not wishing to splash out on a Zamboni never stopped us going back though.

Next time, we’ll jump from 1945 to 1951. Our third issue saw the introduction of a certain boy with a black and red jumper so its inclusion in the box set is no surprise. When this series returns, join me as we travel in time again to the year of The King and I, the Stone of Scone returning to Scotland all on its own, a blue sun, the world’s first nuclear power plant and, in keeping with the theme of Dennis the Menace, the year when a young sailor was fined for the menacing behaviour of kissing his girlfriend in public in Sweden. The Beano #452 will be right here on the OiNK Blog on Saturday 14th March 2026.

iSSUE ONE < > iSSUE 452

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CHRiSTMAS 2025

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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CHRiSTMAS 2025

Christmas

iT’S CHRiSTMAAAAAS 2025!

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“We wish you the merriest, the merriest,
The merriest, yes the merriest,
We wish you the merriest, the merriest,
The merriest yule cheer.”

So sang Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Fred Waring and The Pennsylvanians in a song I discovered while Christmas shopping recently, added to my seasonal playlist and now can’t get out of my head. Another new addition for me this year is Smudge. Regular blog readers will know all about the little cat I’ve been cat sitting for years who’s now living with me. He’s made my home feel even warmer and cosier. Everything’s set for the best Christmas ever, including here on the OiNK Blog.

As each post is published it’s name
will turn into a piggy pink link below

Including what you’re reading right now I’ve 26 posts in total planned over the holiday season, more than any previous year and it’s going to be a blast! If it wasn’t fun to write this site I wouldn’t do it, so when I’m putting so much into Christmas 2025 I hope you’ll enjoy it just as much as I am writing it. I obviously want to provide for my fellow OiNK pig pals in particular every year and this time is no exception.

OiNK’s resident photographer Ian Tilton took the pictures of that famous OiNK! Book cover, which had an original rear (pun so intended) that the publisher just couldn’t allow. That’ll be revealed alongside other rare photos and info from my chat with Ian in A Tail to Tell on Thursday 11th December 2025. The behind-the-scenes goodies continue in The OiNK Scrapbook, a collection of photos taken by members of the OiNK team which’ll be published on Sunday 28th December. This shares the void week between Christmas and New Year with the first of a new series looking back on the OiNK letters pages. This begins with a Grunts Celebrity Special (that’s what happens this time of year on TV after all) on Tuesday 30th December.

Annuals are just as much a part of the blog over Christmas as they were to us as kids. Usually our first post-introduction post is the Big Comic Book but this year I’ve a special treat before that. On Tuesday 25th November you can peruse all the classic adverts for all of our annuals from Marvel, Grandreams and Fleetway in Yuletide Yearnings. Then Fleetway’s Big Comic Book 1990 will make its grand entrance on Saturday 29th November with even more classic comics than before. One of those classics was Buster, and continuing our OiNK love-in we follow Pete Throb and Tom Thug into the pages of the 1991 Buster Book on Monday 8th December.

We’ll take our fourth shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist (and his talking car K.I.T.T., of course) in the Knight Rider Annual from 1986 on Thursday 18th December. This year also sees the start of a new yearly real time read through as we take our first Christmas trip to a firehouse in New York with The Real Ghostbusters Annual from 1988 on Thursday 4th December. If the inclusion of these books tickles you, you’ll definitely not want to miss the Big Christmas Competition on Monday 1st December, trust me!

Another annual series also includes an annual for the first time this year. Confused? Last year I began reviewing the Christmas issues of Marvel UK’s original Transformers comic. You’ll see a preview of this year’s offerings in Coming Up, a post covering 1985’s promotional material on Sunday 14th December. This year’s edition of the weekly is properly festive (Optimus Prime dressed as Santa? Check!) and the comic’s first hardback annual promises to be a feast to rival your turkey dinner. You can compare for yourself, as Transformers #41 will be on the blog on Sunday 21st December (nice of the Cybertronians to celebrate my birthday) and the Transformers Annual will be up on Christmas Day.

Another comic series with a triple helping of goodies this holiday season is Beano. Beano #272 from 1945 was the first million-selling issue and is up for review as part of the 80th Anniversary Box Set read through on Thursday 27th November, the issue’s actual 80th birthday! We come right up to the present day with the Beano Christmas Special 2025 and if last year’s was anything to go by it should be another laugh-a-minute experience with plenty of highlights to choose from. That’s on Saturday 6th December. Then it’s back to the 80s on Boxing Day to take the first look in decades at a childhood favourite book, The Dandy and The Beano Fifty Golden Years.

Rounding things off are the latest entries in two ongoing series. Aliens #19 brings the frosty chills on Tuesday 23rd December, and check out Aliens #18 which is already up on the blog with its seasonal cover. There’ll also be no less than six Mighty Marvel UK Comic Checklists, published every Wednesday with details of special issues on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. These will share the Eves with my usual personal Christmas Message and New Year’s Message too, wrapping everything up in a big bow.

I’m really looking forward to this Christmas in my personal life and I wanted to go all out to have the blog match that level of anticipation. I think I’ve done it because I can’t wait to share all of this year’s treats. You can follow along here using a WordPress account or by subscribing via email (see links to the right on desktops or below the post on mobiles), or via socials on the blog’s Instagram and Facebook feeds and my own personal Bluesky so you don’t miss a thing across the holiday season. Christmas 2025 starts now! (Oh, and if you’re wondering if a certain OiNK Blog tradition continues this year, the tree is below.)

All that remains is for me to wish you all A Very Merry Christmas and Very Happy Holidays!

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