One month ago I gave you the chance to grab a rare piece of UK comics history, the preview issue of Fleetway’s Super Naturals comic. A perfect prize for Hallowe’en, wouldn’t you say? Well I hope Ralph Burns of Mossley, Ashton-Under-Lyne enjoyed the atmosphere within its pages over the past few days. Thanks for the photo, Ralph.

Now, with the fake spider webs still up on the front of all those houses on your street how’d you like to get your hands on six comics filled with more ghosts, goblins and things that go bump in the night? Only this time, what if they were served up with a good dose of comedy?

The Real Ghostbusters was a massive hit for Marvel UK when it was first launched in 1988 and its readership grew and grew, quickly becoming their top seller. Taking a different approach to their other licenced comics, it was back-to-back British strips to begin with (with American imports coming later as back-ups), with between three to five stories every issue that leaned heavily towards humour rather than action or adventure. Talent in these issues includes the likes of John Carnell, Andy Lanning, Dan Abnett, Anthony Williams, Dougie Braithwaite, Anthony Larcombe, Louise Cassell, Stephen Baskerville, Lew Stringer and Bambos Georgiou.

These are so enjoyable you’ll be haunted by the memory of missing out on them if you don’t enter the competition. So you have 14 days to scour the blog for the answer to the following question:

Q – Which OiNK cartoonist drew the first handful of Blimey! It’s Slimer strips in The Real Ghostbusters?

When (you think) you’ve got the correct answer you can either email it to me at oink.blog@icloud.com (all emails are 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 Friday 14th November 2025.

After this date I’ll contact the winners to ask for their postal address. Unfortunately, due to rising postage costs the competition is only open to UK and Ireland readers. If you win I’ll ask if you could take a photo of you with your prize. You don’t have to, but you do get to show off if you do.

For transparency, these doubles are in great condition apart from a tear on the cover of #41 where a free gift was removed decades ago and the cover to #6 has come away from the spine.

Good luck everyone! Don’t end up with slime on your face, get your entries in now! Then, on Monday 1st December come back for the Big Christmas Competition. What will the big prize be? Well, you know what they say about the season: It Comes But Once A Year.

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Last month I told you how August’s competition for a couple of issues of Dragon’s Claws had been the most popular yet and how I expected September’s to be likewise. Well, I received almost double the amount of entries again! Death’s Head is still rather popular it seems, yes? We know the characters from the comic he spun off and, apart from one or two of you, you all correctly answered the question of which God of Chaos did Death’s Head once take a psychic trip into the mind of. It was, of course, Unicron in the pages of Transformers.

Congratulations to Andy Senyszyn from Market Rasen in Lincolnshire, seen here looking ever-so-slightly pleased with himself. Andy obviously knows his chaotic gods. But who will know the answer to this month’s specially-themed competition?

Last month I promised you that as a ‘Preview’ for this month’s competition I wouldn’t ‘Toy’ with you when it came to having the perfect prize for Hallowe’en. So here it is, October’s giveaway.

It may have been a short-lived comic but Super Naturals was quality! This rare 16-page preview edition contains the origin of the characters in a suitably atmospheric tale set on the release date of #1, which just happened to be 31st October 1987. There are also a handful of brilliant marketing mini-posters for the toy range, a light-hearted Ghostlings tale and more. The comic is in as-new condition and could be yours in time for the spooky season.

All you have to do is answer the following question, which may require you to scour the blog for the name of the toy company if you don’t already know it:

Q – The toy manufacturer of Super Naturals was famous for producing toys of which type of vehicle?

You have 14 days to enter, so if (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), 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 Tuesday 14th October 2025.

After this date I’ll contact the winner to ask for their postal address. Unfortunately, due to rising costs the competitions are open to UK and Ireland readers only. If you win I’ll ask if you could take a photo of you with your prize for inclusion in next month’s competition post. You don’t have to, but you do get to show off if you do.

This is a little gem of a comic to get your hands on. Just don’t blame me if you then find yourself on eBay looking for the other issues! The next competition will be here on 1st November, just a day after the Hallowe’en festivities and it’ll continue the theme, albeit on a more humorous note. There’ll be six issues of a comic to be given away, make sure you Bust a gut to get back here on that day so you don’t miss out.

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This post was due on Monday 1st September
but was delayed due to a health issue

Last month’s Dragon’s Claws competition certainly produced a bit of interest out there! It was by far the most popular in these monthly contests. It seems all these years later it’s still a fondly remembered comic a lot of you wanted to relive again. It was Yiu-Chung Lee from Buckinghamshire in England who ultimately had their name plucked out of the proverbial hat by correctly naming the ‘Claws’ dog, Scratch. (For the record, I was also accepting the name Scavenger originally have him, Lady Killer.) Thanks for the photo of your new comics in their new home too.

As popular as last month’s competition was, this month’s may be even more of a challenge for my inbox! Below are this month’s prizes for one lucky blog reader.

The Dragon’s Claws team carry over to this month’s prize in a crossover issue of Death’s Head, and I’m throwing in the hilarious #3 alongside it. Both issues are in superb condition, like they’ve just been brought back from the newsagent in 1988 and will come bagged and boarded as you see above. Death’s Head had a rather busy career back in the day across a multitude of Marvel UK comics before his own appeared, and this month’s question will quiz you on just such an appearance.

So, as usual you’ll have 14 days to scour the blog for the answer to the following question:

Q – Which God of Chaos did Death’s Head once take a psychic trip into the mind of?

Think you’ve got the answer? Then you should email it to me at oink.blog@icloud.com (all emails will be deleted after the winner has been selected, I don’t have anything to plug), 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 Friday 19th September 2025.

After this date I’ll contact the winner to ask for their postal address. Unfortunately, due to rising costs the competitions are only open to UK and Ireland readers. If you win I’ll ask if you could take a photo of you with your prize for inclusion in next month’s competition post. You don’t have to, but you do get to show off if you do.

If you weren’t already entering surely these brief glimpses into the issues I’m giving away will tempt you. You won’t want to miss out on your chance to grab two free copies of this utterly classic action-comedy comic. Don’t forget to check the blog on the 1st of each month to see what’s up for grabs. As a bit of a Preview for next month, I won’t Toy with you but it’ll be a perfect prize for October.

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Well that was a bumper competition last month, wasn’t it? I’m overjoyed to announce Lee Yeates from Kingston upon Thames, Surrey as the recipient of the first 14 issues of Fleetway’s Big Comic Fortnightly from 1988. That was quite the parcel to post and I’m glad it’s been met with such enthusiasm at the other end. Lee has even said he’s going to frame the comics once he’s read them! Unfortunately, Lee hasn’t taken a photo yet but if they do I’ll update the post. I don’t have quite as many comics to give away this month but they do include their free gifts!

Marvel UK‘s Havoc was a revelation to me when I discovered it in 1991 and for that entire summer I ran to the newsagent every week for my next fix of Deathlok, RoboCop, Ghost Rider, Conan and the Star Slammers, as well as the contemporary 90s entertainment news of course. It was a brilliant comic and deserved so much more success than it received. To me, it was so much better than other weekly anthologies such as 2000AD. No, really.

The first few issues came with free gifts and in order to complete my nine-issue collection I’ve ended up with doubles of #1 and #2 with their introductory booklet and poster. Just to be transparent here, the booklet is no longer attached by its staples to the cover and the poster of Deathlok has a couple of little holes where the staples used to be, and it appears the staples must’ve got wet at some stage in the house of the person I bought them from, as they’ve left little stains. But the comics are complete and it’s rare to find them with their gifts at all.

Just like every month, if you want to be in with a chance to grab these for yourself you just have to answer a simple question:

Q – What TV duo did I liken the pairing of human Michael Collins and the Deathlok computer to?

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 on the right-hand side of your desktop screen or under this post on mobile. Your entry must be with me by midnight on Monday 14th July 2025.

After this date I’ll contact the winner to ask for their postal address. Unfortunately, due to rising postage costs the competitions are only open to UK and Ireland readers. If you win I’ll ask if you could take a photo of you with your prize for inclusion in the next month’s competition post. You don’t have to, but you do get to show off if you do.

I especially loved the characters in the Deathlok, RoboCop and Ghost Rider strips and was so excited to get another chunk of their adventures every single week. Havoc was an absolute bargain at the time and here you are getting two of them for free! Remember to come back on Friday 1st August 2025 for a competition you’ll really want to get your Claws into.

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Wow, what a response I had to last month’s competition to win nine issue of Wildcat’s 12-issue run! Clearly the short-lived comic still has its fans, as well as those intrigued by it but never had the pleasure of enjoying it (beyond the reviews on the blog). However, while the response was great in numbers the same can’t be said of the answers. I asked what three comics I’ve nicknamed ‘The Barrie Tomlinson Trilogy’ on the blog. The answer was that he edited Wildcat, Super Naturals and my personal favourite Ring Raiders.

Huge congratulations to Guy Alderson of Tyne and Wear who was the only person to give the correct answer. As I packaged up your comics I could just imagine the delight I’d have felt opening them if I’d been in your shoes! I’m positive you’ll enjoy every single page! Believe it or not I’m going even bigger this issue and not just with the amount of issues I’m giving away; these were also some of the thickest comics we collected as kids. I hope the postie is ready for this parcel!

What we have here are the first 14(!) issues of Big Comic Fortnightly, the hit comic from Fleetway Publications based on their successful book series. (A book series currently receiving its own real time read through every Christmas on the blog.) To write an article for another website I needed #14 of Big Comic Fortnightly and ended up having to buy all of these in one big bundle. Now, on the 37th anniversary of its premiere issue they can be all yours! Just answer this easy-peasy blog question:

Q – Which character has appeared as a highlight in every Big Comic Book review on the blog?

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 Saturday 14th June 2025.

After this date I’ll contact the winner to ask for their postal address. Unfortunately, due to rising postage costs the competitions are only open to UK and Ireland readers. If you win I’ll ask if you can take a photo of you with your prize for inclusion in the next month’s competition post. You don’t have to, but you do get to show off if you do.

You could read all of these in real time in true OiNK Blog fashion and count down to Christmas 2025 yourself! A buffet of classic strips from Buster, Cor!, Whoopee, Whizzer and Chips, Cheeky, Wow, Jackpot, Monster Fun and Krazy, I anticipate this’ll be a popular competition this month so get your answer in! As for next month’s prize, it’ll be here to cause a bit of Havoc on Tuesday 1st July 2025.

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Thanks once again to all who entered last month’s competition to win an issue each of OiNK and Buster. Any pig pal worth their salty bacon should’ve known the FULL name of Jeremy Banx’s spoof character inspired by the Dracula novel in OiNK Weekly was of course Doctor Hieronymous Van Hellsong, and yes, I required the full name.

Congratulations to Dan Fish of Harlow, England who appears to have grown into a fan of the nemesis of all pig pals! I still hope he enjoys reliving some moments from our favourite comic, though. This month I’ve got no less than NINE comics to give away! Wildcat was created by legendary British comics editor Barrie Tomlinson and while it may have been short-lived before merging into Eagle it left its mark on me as a kid, and judging by the response to its coverage on the blog I wasn’t alone.

In order to complete my collection of 12 original fortnightlies I had to buy a few bundles and ended up with doubles of nine of them. The prize is the first eight issues and the tenth thrown in for good measure too (to which there’s a slight tear to the cover, just so you know). Wildcat told the story of the last few thousand humans left alive in the cosmos after Earth’s destruction as they tried to find a new home. Containing great characters, epic storylines, stunning art and thought-provoking anthologies that touched upon some topical issues, Wildcat is still a fascinating read today.

So what do you have to do to enter? Well, as usual you’ll have 14 days to search the blog for the answer to this question:

Q – Which three comics make up the blog’s Barrie Tomlinson trilogy?

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 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 Wednesday 14th May 2025.

After this date I’ll contact the winner to ask for their postal address. Unfortunately, due to rising postage costs the competitions are only open to UK and Ireland readers. I’ll ask the winner if they can take a photo of themselves with their prize for inclusion in the next month’s competition post. (If you win you don’t have to send a photo of course, but you do get to show off if you do.)

Wildcat is classic sci-fi with a twist, and was written and drawn by some of the greatest talent Fleetway Publications ever had. If you’ve never read it you won’t want to miss out on your chance to grab some for free, and if you remember it I know you’ll be eager to relive it.

The next competition is gonna be Big, so come back on Sunday 1st June 2025 to see what you could win.

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What an interesting response there was to last month’s competition. I asked what licenced comic on the blog did The Sleeze Brothers’ creative team work on? Some mentioned Doctor Who after the Sleezes appeared in it, others thought their Some Like It Fresh special was the answer, or even their graphic novel. Of course, while I can understand those that said Doctor Who, of course I actually meant a comic separate from The Sleeze Brothers. The answer was… The Real Ghostbusters, as explained in the In Real Time introduction to the Sleeze duo.

Our winner was Chris Wing (that’s him behind his prize) from Witney, of Chris Recollects Comics on Instagram who bagged himself #3 and #4 of the hilarious Marvel UK comic. Winning another copy of #3 was our runner-up, Ann-Marie Maguire of always-sunny-but-somehow-never-warm Portrush. Thanks to you both for reading the blog and entering the competition. Now on to this month’s prize and it’s about time we featured an issue of the title comic, isn’t it?

This month the last review in the OiNK real time read through will be published, four years after it began and a whopping 39 years after OiNK first appeared in its preview issue at the end of April 1986! I’ve only one double of our piggy pink publication (#57) after I had to buy it twice. I did so because I discovered the eBay seller had failed to mention one of the issues in the bundle they’d sold me had some pen marks on the cover. I’ve held on to this extra issue and now it could be yours.

Because of that pen mark I’m also throwing in a double I have of a Buster comic from the same year which includes a special Pete and his Pimple strip inside to promote the newly-weekly OiNK! This was also my introduction to the superb Ricky Rainbow, so there’s plenty to enjoy. Anyway, on to the question. As usual you’ll have 14 days to scour the blog for the answer to the following question:

Q – What is the FULL name of Jeremy Banx’s spoof character inspired by the Dracula novel who appeared in OiNK Weekly?

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 on the right-hand side of your desktop screen or under this post on mobile. Your entry must be with me by midnight on Monday 14th April 2025.

After this date I’ll contact the winner to ask for their postal address. Unfortunately, due to rising postage costs the competitions are only open to UK and Ireland readers. If you win I’ll ask if you could take a photo of yourself with your prize for inclusion in the next month’s competition post. You don’t have to, but you do get to show off if you do.

These are just some of the highlights awaiting you inside these comics! Good luck to all who enter and remember you can check out the previous competitions to find out about winners and the kinds of prizes I’m giving away. Next month’s prize is Wild, so remember to come back on Thursday 1st May 2025 to find out what it is.

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Thanks to everyone who entered last month’s inaugural OiNK Blog Doubles Competition! Most (but not all of you!) got the answer right, there were 375 posts on the blog’s Instagram covering the real time read through of Marvel UK’s epic Transformers comic. The answer was in its introductory post in the Transformers section of the blog. The winner plucked from the trough was Ian Snow from Berkshire who won a copy of the special gatefold edition of Transformers: Generation 2 and a few other issues from the run. Congrats Ian!

So what’s next?

For March, how’d you like to get your hands on a couple of hilarious tales of The Sleeze Brothers? In order to complete my own collection I ended up with two issues as doubles from its limited six-issue run. Now one OiNK Blog reader can get their trotters on their own copies of #3 and #4, plus there’s an additional copy of #3 for one lucky runner-up! Each month the story was self-contained so you’ll not be missing out on anything and can simply kick back with a bottle of fresh air and laugh until your sides are sore with John Carnell and Andy Lanning’s inept detectives’ adventures, set in the funniest post-apocalyptic world you’re ever likely to see.

Just like last month you have 14 days to scour the blog for the answer to the following question:

Q – What licenced comic did The Sleeze Brothers’ creative team work on that’s also appeared on the blog?

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 anything), 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 Friday 14th March 2025.

After this date I’ll contact the winners to ask for their postal addresses, so don’t be sending that yet. Unfortunately, due to rising postage costs the competitions are only open to UK and Ireland readers. If you win I’ll ask if you could take a photo of you with your prize for inclusion in next month’s competition post. You don’t have to, but you do get to show off if you do.

Please note, as per the photo above, the covers to these issues do have some wear and a bit of discolouration. This is how they originally arrived from eBay.

There’s now a menu page available for you to see the previous competitions and winners if you’re interested in seeing what you’ve missed out on and who the lucky people were. As you’ll be able to tell from the image at the top of the menu page I’ve a pile of doubles from various comics titles covered on the blog, so make sure you check back on the 1st of each month to see what’s next and good luck if you’re entering this month.

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