OiNK Blog

PiTCHiNG TO PiGLETS PART FiVE: ELECTRONiCS

9 November 2025 Phil Boyce Leave a comment

I really do enjoy this series, a lot of the advertisements featured so far have taken me right back to my youth (which was a long, long time ago now), but I’ll admit the promotional pages contained in this fifth part didn’t result in any purchases or gifts for me in the 80s. That’s not to say they don’t bring back certain memories, though.

In the 80s there was one teeny, tiny little thing that made a huge impact on our daily lives, despite the fact we rarely saw it. From toys to VCRs, from washing machines to the explosion of home computers that entered our homes. It could even be found resting on our wrists. That little, unassuming thing that hid inside more and more of the devices we used was, of course, the microchip.

It’s something that links all of our adverts, too. Beginning with Casio’s watches containing those elaborate stopwatches! Don’t laugh, I remember being very jealous of a friend who had a digital watch that recorded lap times, even though I’d no need for such a feature. Remembering my own basic watches of the time and seeing Michael Knight talk to K.I.T.T. through his, every time I use my smart watch today I feel like I’m living in some sci-fi future.

It’s not only the passage of time and the leaps in technology compared to the 80s that’s making me feel old. I think the fact the next item sounds so absolutely horrific is because I’m now a boring old fart. As a kid I may have gotten about ten minutes of fun out of a keyboard that used sampled sound effects from around the house to produce “music”, but as an adult I can think of nothing worse than this thing.

As it’s nearly Christmas, I’m reminded of a scene in my favourite Christmas movie, Fred Claus. At one point Santa’s brother, who is desperately trying to avoid anything to do with the season, is subjected to a taxi ride with a radio station playing nothing but Jingle Bells with the notes replaced by cat meows and dog barks. It’s horrific! That’s essentially what this keyboard is.

Much better for the kids would’ve been a real keyboard on which they could learn to play actual music and up stepped Yamaha who ran these next two ads over a handful of OiNKs. The Starmakers would’ve appealed because the reason behind it is right there in the name; let’s buy our child this so they can learn to play proper music, become famous and support us later in life. Well, maybe not. But you get my point. I do like the ads though, especially the guitar-shaped one, it’s so very 80s.

I remember a friend of mine in high school was incredibly talented musically. He could literally listen to a tune once or twice and play it back on a piano. He also had two huge Yamaha keyboards in his bedroom and I sat in awe one day as he spent no more then three hours one Saturday afternoon turning the Airwolf theme tune (which wasn’t sampled, he played it from scratch) into a dance track. He should’ve released it!

In the later weekly editions of OiNK an advert appeared for a new computer game and its release confused me at the time. I was aware of The Three Stooges and I think we all saw the odd live-action or animated clip growing up, but I always felt their humour was too old-fashioned for me. So I didn’t understand why they were suddenly appearing in a computer game for us young ‘uns.

I must’ve been an outlier though because apparently the game was very popular, doing well enough to be adapted to consoles such as the GameBoy Advance in the next decade. Throughout the 80s VHS collections of their TV shows were also released and an arcade game was revealed in 1984, followed up with this for home computers. In the game the Stooges had to partake in odd jobs to raise money to save their local orphanage.

Given how outdated I personally felt their humour to be as a young boy I was even more surprised to see some gloriously illustrated strips appear in two issues of OiNK. Co-editor Patrick Gallagher has confirmed these were exclusive to OiNK and were made to tie in with the release of the game. It’s not the comic’s fault I never got on with the Stooges’ humour, a lot of people loved them and I’m sure many enjoyed the strips so I’m glad these little oddities exist, especially as they give us a reason to enjoy some more art from the incredible Malcolm Douglas (aka J.T. Dogg).

The final advert for an electronic piece of entertainment wasn’t an advert in the traditional sense but rather a promo OiNK pieced together to tell us about the free comic sitting inside the pages of Crash magazine on our newsagents’ shelves, as well as the comic’s own computer game of course. You can check out the free comic, the special feature inside that issue of Crash and the game itself in a special section of the blog devoted to the game.

The rise of the microchip and computerised technology in the 80s was a wonder to be a part of, especially at such a young and impressionable age. I’ve stared in wonder at my friend’s very young kids and how quickly they’ve grasped iPads and iPhones and I think I now know how my own parents felt four decades ago!

Right, so we’ve only one more part of this series to go, in which I’ll be rounding up the leftover miscellaneous ads from the pages of OiNK. Look out for that in 2026.

PART FOUR < > PART SiX

OiNK’S REAL ADVERTS MENU

PiTCHiNG TO PiGLETS PART FOUR: COMiCS & BOOKS

17 April 2025 Phil Boyce Leave a comment

Welcome to part four of our look back at the real advertisements in OiNK (rather than the spoof Madvertisements), a series of posts taking us all back to life in the 1980s. After reminiscing about the toys we received for Christmas it’s now time to check out some new reading material, namely the other comics and books we’d while away the days with between issues.

Disney was a target for OiNK’s writers and cartoonists on several occasions, but right back near the beginning (#9) while the comic was still in the capable publishing hands of IPC Magazines, a division of its future publisher Fleetway advertised a set of Disney books to apparently help beat the boredom of school holidays! Did the person who came up with that tagline even remember their own childhood summers?

Around that time I wasn’t a huge fan of Disney. I much preferred Warner Bros cartoons and my shelves were filled with Railway Series/Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends books, so this advert wouldn’t have had any impact on me. It’s just as well they advertised this early though, once OiNK began its ‘Ron Dibney’ madverts and strips we may have been looking for the gag here.

In only my third issue of OiNK in December 1986 (the third comic I’d ever bought myself) another of IPC’s titles was celebrating a mammoth 500 issues! True be told I’d never even heard of it at this stage of my life but I’d become acquainted with it a few years later in high school when I’d meet friends who were obsessed. 2000AD’s fictional editor Tharg the Mighty is apparently surrounded (or rather, superimposed into) a group of beautiful 1960s or 70s women in a funny advert that poked fun at celebrity culture.

Is it any wonder I was so confused as a kid when OiNK ended after only 68 issues? Of course, little did we know celebrating 500 issues would end up feeling somewhat quaint, what with 2000AD still being published on a weekly basis all these years later and clocking up 2,427 regular issues at the time of writing! Much later in OiNK’s run 2000AD’s newsagent reservation coupon would replace OiNK’s own in the penultimate issue, a change we didn’t think anything of until a month later.

Two comics of friend-of-the-blog Barrie Tomlinson’s (Ring Raiders, Wildcat, Super Naturals) were also advertised at various points in OiNK’s lifetime, namely Battle and Eagle. After losing the Action Force licence to Marvel UK, Barrie created Storm Force, which was basically a toy line strip without the toy line. He’d later speak about it in depth in his Comic Book Hero book, a review of which you can also read on the blog.

Coincidentally enough, Battle’s announcement of the new Storm Force was advertised in OiNK’s war-themed issue (#20) and during the following year both it and Eagle were advertised together when they gave away a pair of those flimsy green and red 3D glasses. This was part of a promotion for the short-lived toy line and cartoon series StarCom about astronauts battling alien invasions. Just a few short months later, Battle would actually merge into Eagle.

Towards the end of OiNK’s time a new comic from Fleetway Publications hit shelves and I think I picked up an issue or two, although I can’t be completely sure. I have vague memories of a fortnightly comic full of detailed artwork and the occasional swear word, the latter of which was of great fascination to find in a comic for my friends and I at our tender young age. The character in the full-page advert below also feels familiar but I can’t tell if that’s because I read about her at the time or if I’m just recalling these adverts.

Overtly political (one issue was also produced in partnership with Amnesty International) and adult in tone, Crisis was initially fortnightly and later monthly, which will sound familiar to readers of this blog, I’m sure. In fact, Crisis almost lasted as many issues as OiNK, eventually being cancelled at #63 in 1991. It eschewed traditions in the UK comics industry such as free gifts and annuals, which is about as tenuous a link to our next adverts as I can muster.

Below are promos for Fleetway’s annuals in 1987 (for the 1988 volumes) and 1988 (for the 1989 volumes) and you can’t deny OiNK’s really stand out! Especially that first annual, The OiNK! Book 1988. The advert understates it somewhat by simply saying, “There’s never been an annual like it”. The cover image compared to the other more traditional titles already got that across the second readers glanced at this page.

The next year’s advert, pulled from the final regular issue of OiNK, used the original colours for the OiNK logo before the yellow and pink were reversed to stand out more on the shelves before publication of The OiNK! Book 1989. There’s quite the variety here, with everything from action and sport to comedy and nursery comics. We even see the return of Mickey Mouse from our first advert, who was still a sprightly 60-years-old that year.

I was surprised at how few comics adverts there were in total over OiNK’s run, especially when you compare them to Marvel UK which had promos for their other comics as a regular staple, alongside their fondly remembered checklists. In fact, the final such advert seems to have been literally squeezed into the OiNK Holiday Special ’89; a favourite childhood comic of mine is seemingly used to fill a gap on a page of both real and spoof ads.

We may not have seen much in the way of other comics inside the pages of OiNK, but over the course of its lifetime it was the subject of a blockbuster pull-out ad, crossover strips, free editions in comics and magazines, on top of regular adverts. Maybe Uncle Pigg just didn’t want to share the limelight.

We’ve still got two parts of this series to come that should jolt the old grey cells of original readers and the curiosity of you younger ones out there. Next up are the hip and chunky electronics of the 80s. It was a decade of technological revolution as the microchip introduced itself to every aspect of our lives. Watch out for those samples of another time when this occasional series returns this winter.

PART THREE < > PART FiVE

Christmas, More OiNK, Retrospectives

PiTCHiNG TO PiGLETS PART THREE: TOYS & GAMES

27 December 2024 Phil Boyce 2 Comments

So did you remember to buy enough batteries before Christmas Day for your children’s toys? Did you remember to charge the others? Is your house now a cacophony of tiny electric motors, repetitive music and flashing lights? Of course, it all depends on the age of your kids, but that’s what Christmas was like for us back in OiNK’s days. What were we playing with back then? What did Santa bring us?

For the third part of this series the topic is toys and games, and the pages from OiNK we’d shove in front of our parents’ faces before writing the details on a piece of paper and firing it up the chimney. We kick things off in the very first edition, the OiNK Preview Issue and it’s promoting a smörgåsbord of delights that could have been part of our previous selection of food and drink adverts.

Forget the bags, hats and pens, I can remember my first BMX bike and portable TV, both of which I very gratefully received from Santa Claus. Although I’m sure any younger readers will probably be wondering what’s so “portable” about a very heavy CRT television with a 12” screen. Well, it was so portable we could move it all the way from one corner of the bedroom to the other any time we wanted!

This is of course a competition set by Barratt of Sherbert Dip fame but it showcases some of the hottest tickets in town as far as those chimney lists were concerned. I’m not so sure the next range from Britains would’ve had me as excitedly entering their competition though. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there was a market for them but these adverts make toy cars and trucks seem rather old fashioned even by 1986 standards.

They weren’t the only company that would try to tailor their adverts to the comics medium by introducing panels, captions and speech balloons to make them feel less out of place. Perhaps it was an attempt to get us kids reading their adverts before realising they were ads, or perhaps it was just for a bit of fun. I like to think it was the latter. However, finishing your comic strip would be nice.

I’m not sure whether to laugh at the idea behind this advert or laugh at the audacity! I get the idea obviously; we’re meant to go and buy the toys and finish the story for ourselves and it does get that point across in an original way. Still, you’ve got to hand it to them, it’s a rather cheeky way to cut back on the effort (and cost) to produce it.

In the early issues a series of adverts appeared that actually told a story in three parts. They were for TSR’s Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, something a handful of my friends at school were into. I never understood the appeal at the time of playing a game completely in their imaginations, nor did I have the patience to learn. In later years I’ve met friends in my adult life who have D&D nights and the way they’ve explained it does make it sound like fun.

I think as a kid I was used to games that had pieces and a board and rules etc. I couldn’t wrap my head around how D&D worked and always figured it would be too easy to cheat and just make stuff up as you went along. I know better nowadays, of course. I worked beside a guy in an office for over a year who was the Dungeon Master of his group of friends and I’m now very aware of how much preparation goes into a good session.

In 1986 Hasbro’s Transformers toys showed no signs of slowing down but that didn’t stop them from wanting to replace the original line up with a fresh batch of Autobots and Decepticons. What better way could there be of getting that point across than replacing the iconic Optimus Prime and Megatron with new leaders? And what better way to introduce them to the world than through a movie at the cinema?

While Ultra Magnus was leader was five minutes, Galvatron would be rather more successful. My old school friend Roger (who I know reads the blog, so hi Roger) had both of these toys and as a young child they felt massive my tiny hands. They really were incredible, and just in case Magnus turned out to be a naff leader he had a hidden Optimus Prime inside. That’s right, isn’t it? Of course. It certainly wasn’t a way to cut costs and recycle part of a previous toy, no.

There are moments in your life when you realise you’re a lot older than you care to admit. I remember playing with water pistols and threatening to soak the adults around us, never fully understanding why they didn’t want to play such games in the middle of winter. As my best friend Vicki now has two kids of her own and her eldest, Ollie, is approaching six-years-of-age I’ve been on the receiving end of many such “threats”… and of many Nerf bullets! Yep, I’ve become one of those adults.

Given the fact this advert is 38-years-old that’s a pretty damned good water pistol/cannon that fires over 30 feet. Saying that, I’ve no idea how far today’s top-of-the-line toys squirt water and I’m hoping I won’t find out any time soon. At least not until the summer please, Ollie!

That’s us at the end of our Christmas look back at the toys and games advertised within the pages of OiNK between 1986 and 1988. We’re halfway through this occasional series now and I’ve lined up the next two instalments for next year, beginning with one close to all our hearts: comics and books. Watch out for that during 2025, which is on the cusp of greeting us as I type.

PART TWO < > PART FOUR

CHRiSTMAS 2024

More OiNK

OiNK CHARACTER MASKS: HOGGiNG HALLOWE’EN

25 October 2024 Phil Boyce Leave a comment

Back during OiNK’s weekly issues young readers were treated to five cut-out play masks. They were the typical fare we’d see in comics of the day. Super Naturals gave such masks away with their first two issues, albeit printed on glossy cardboard. OiNK’s may have been printed on regular paper and required gluing them to the customary empty cereal box to make them wearable, but these character faces were so much more entertaining.

Obviously a Dead Fred mask is the most suitable this time of year and in the above selection it’s the only one drawn by the character’s original artist, Eric ‘Wilkie’ Wilkinson, the rest were drawn by Mike Peek. Thanks to co-editor Patrick Gallagher for confirming this after Mike mentioned drawing the Tom Thug one on the OiNK Facebook group. Tom’s face may have incorrect proportions (it isn’t as squished as it should be) but then again it had to fit our faces and none of us had a noggin like Tom’s!

They weren’t originally printed as part of any Hallowe’en celebrations. In fact, they were inside #51 to #55 during February and March 1988 but I thought they’d make for a fun extra post at this time of the year. If you do decide to print them out (and if you do I expect photos to the blog’s socials!) please note that to make sure they’re of a good enough quality when printed they are very big files. The pages were scanned in to measure 22cm across and 30cm top-to-bottom so they’re quite heavy on the memory front (between 15MB and 20MB each).

Also, don’t forget to follow Uncle Pigg’s instructions very carefully, folks. Especially step 3.

I didn’t include these in the reviews at the time because I wanted to keep them for a Hallowe’en after the regular issues had stopped. However, they were part of some of the very best weekly OiNKs and you can click on their covers above to go straight to them. #51 includes Pete and his Pimple and their trouser-press, in #52 Frank Sidebottom had an exclusive scoop about a top BBC radio DJ, #53 saw the debut of Wally of the West, the comic gave a clear (and rhyming) message to bigots in #54 and Tom Thug finally assembled his gang in #55.

Happy spooky season pig pals, and of course let’s not forget the true message of Hallowe’en: Christmas is coming!

PiTCHiNG TO PiGLETS PART TWO: FOOD & DRiNK

21 May 2024 Phil Boyce Leave a comment

I’ve really been looking forward to diving back into this occasional series of posts in which we take a look at all of the real advertisements published in OiNK between April 1986 and April 1990. Still to come are adverts for comics and toys amongst other things, however in a surprise turn it was seeing the adverts for all of the food and drink of the 80s that really transported me back in time.

There were plenty of them in OiNK too, far too many to include in one post, so I’ve whittled them down to 11 of my favourites, all for things I’d have happily chomped down on or guzzled back when I was a kid. Well, there’s one exception to that and as you scroll I’m sure you’ll be able to guess which one. Some of these are no longer available, but even for those that are their adverts are so quintessentially 80s they just had to be included. So let’s get things started with some breakfast, shall we?

I remember those adverts on TV with kids walking down the street with a superimposed red glow around them after eating their bowls of hot, filling Ready Brek, advertised here in #52 from February 1988. I did like that cereal, although I preferred my mum’s huge pots of porridge she’d rustle up. I don’t know about you, but I think a list of ’50 Brill Things To Do Before Breakfast’ would’ve been wasted on me. Getting out of bed and washed and fed was enough to do before school!

“Get yours before the special multipacks dematerialise!”
Golden Wonder crisps

The Bean St. Kids (#39, October 1987) had animated cartoon adverts on TV I seem to recall, complete with cackling villain, but the tins sold themselves. I know we’re told our tastebuds change as we age, so either mine really have or those tins of mini sausages have changed, because as an adult I think they’re completely vile! I tried one of those ‘All-Day Breakfasts’ in a tin of beans and my word, never again. But as a child I loved them, especially with crispy bacon and eggs for breakfast at the weekend.

As our day in the 80s continues it’s time for a mid-morning snack and our house always had multipacks of crisps for us to rummage through, although more often than not they were Crazy Prices’ Yellow Pack crisps (ask your parents, kids). Sometimes we got treated to others though and apart from Wotsits (I remember devouring all of the barbecue flavours before my siblings could) the other household favourites were all advertised in OiNK.

My dad still eats the Salt-n-Shake crisps to this day, although you can only get the salted ones now. This is just as well really because I remember the other flavours didn’t really work. No matter how much we shook the bag like the fella in this advert from #6 (July 1986) we’d always get a mixture of bland crisps and others with so much flavouring on them they’d burn our tongues. Needless to say that “mixing different sachets” to “invent your own flavours” was an atrocious idea too.

I’ll admit I still have a fondness for Monster Munch (#33, July 1987) to this day; the pickled onion ones are a favourite but I just can’t walk past a shelf of roast beef packets without filling the trolley! I was sure the regular Golden Wonder crisps disappeared for a while many years ago but that doesn’t seem to be the case. While they did go into administration in 2006 they were bought by my local Northern Irish crisp company, Tayto and continue to be made here, which surprised me!

“You can meet Jo-Jo, Bruno and our own super hero, ‘Mar-Might’…””
Marmite spread

I remember the Golden Wonder bags of my youth had a little window on the front through which you could see the crisps. The packets were horrible though, becoming very jagged when crumpled and they felt horribly greasy on the inside, things people seem to forget on those talking heads documentaries on Channel 5 where celebrities go all misty-eyed for such things. Here in #15 (November 1986) the promotion to lure us kiddies in was a range of exclusive Sixth Doctor comics, although the lure was lost on me as I didn’t start watching the show until 1988.

On to lunchtime sandwiches and no prizes if you guessed the first of these two adverts (#22, February 1987) is the thing I mentioned above that I didn’t like. I still don’t. I’ve only ever tasted Marmite once but I didn’t eat it. I’m probably sharing too much information when I say I was in my early 20s, I’d been out for a night for a few drinks and at the end I kissed a lady who had just eaten some. Gagging and recoiling from a kiss isn’t a great impression to make.

In #25 (April 1987) bread was advertised in a children’s comic. How exciting. To be fair, it was promoting a free sports bag emblazoned with the loaf’s logo and Champion was heavily advertised during children’s programming as the bread of choice for fit and athletic kids. I hated it back then with all of the little ‘bits’ in it but these days I do love a good granary loaf. Showing my age probably. Mother’s Pride make a vast amount of different breads these days in their Hovis range. I wonder if one of them is the modern day equivalent of this?

Imagine that was your foot!

On the way home we’d visit the sweet shop and long before Jamie Oliver’s sugar tax came in (something I cursed him for at the time but which I now think was for the best) any can of soft drink was so loaded with sugar they were main staples of kids’ diets in the 80s! Cherry Coca-Cola was the latest craze and was advertised with very surreal images on both the telly and in publications. They made little sense but were certainly eye-catching and worked a (sugary) treat, the first two here taken from #28 (May 1987) and #34 (August 1987) respectively.

It doesn’t taste the same anymore. For some reason when the sugar tax came in Coke changed the recipe for Coke Zero (the brand under which the different flavourings now reside) and suddenly it tasted like that horrible Diet Coke stuff (I’ve never been a fan). I moved over to Pepsi Max and actually much prefer it and its range of flavours, so thanks Jamie! I still buy my sugar-full Coke to slow cook my Christmas ham though. (Damn, that’s still too many months away.)

“2p off Milky Way!”
Milky Way chocolate bar

In hindsight ring pulls were so bloody dangerous on a product kids loved, never mind asking us to actually collect the sharp little things, and that advert (#30, June 1987) makes me wince nowadays. Imagine that was your foot! Anyway, collecting them is exactly what we did. I didn’t send any off for this particular product but I’m going to guess many blog readers of a certain vintage will have done so for their Coke or Fanta yo-yos, am I right?

With most of our pocket money spent on crisps and soda what were we going to do about our chocolate cravings? We couldn’t have a can of Coke without a chocolate accompaniment! But we also couldn’t spoil dinner, so we needed something we could eat “without ruining our appetite”. Luckily, Mars gave us a handy coupon for a whopping 2p off our next Milky Way. Hey, don’t knock it, that was a good chunk off back then. The advert was also split in two and spread over the issue (this one appeared in #12, October 1986).

The competition for a Commodore 64 also catches my eye today, it being my first proper home computer, although I didn’t get mine until Christmas 1991. The inside of a Milky Way was chocolate flavoured back then but was changed to vanilla in 1993 and I hated it. Although, Mars’ Flyte came along in 1996 and used the original recipe in a bar aimed at adults. Once I discovered this they were a very frequent purchase. Such a shame they’ve been discontinued since.

This really has been a whirlwind trip down memory lane for both my mind and my taste buds. I feel suitably qualified to appear on Channel 5 now. You can see companies knew how to appeal to us 80s kids. As well as adverts taking the form of comic strips, many offered their own magazines and comics to send off for, and there was always something magical about collecting silly little tokens (or ring pulls) that had the desired affect on us and on their bottom line.

In the next part of this series I’ll be taking a look at the toys advertised during OiNK’s run and you can expect that at Christmas (naturally).

PART ONE < > PART THREE

PiTCHiNG TO PiGLETS PART ONE: MOViES

23 February 2024 Phil Boyce Leave a comment

Welcome to the first in a new occasional series of posts taking a retrospective look at the contemporary advertisements found within the pages of OiNK between its launch in 1986 and its final special in 1990. The real adverts that is, not the spoof Madvertisements. During the comic’s real time read through I found it wasn’t just the antics of the comic’s gangster-led mail order company GBH that transported me back in time, these real ads often brought back many happy memories too.

I’ve separated the adverts into six categories. Coming up you’ll see marketing for 80s food and drink, toys, electronics, comics and books, then finishing with a miscellaneous collection to round things off, but we begin with movies. This was an easy selection to make because there were only five of them featured throughout the comic’s entire run. I present them here in the order of their release, and first up is one I’d never heard of before.

The 80s saw a resurgence in 3D movies for a few years, my favourite being Jaws 3D, a fun sequel to my favourite film of all time which has proper, American theme park style in-your-face 3D. Star Chaser: The Legend of Orin was a cartoon but used a combination of traditional art and computer generated animation to produce its effects. Advertised as the first 3D animated film (it was actually the second after a small Australian movie) the story revolved around human slaves being ruled by a ‘God’ who turns out to be a human masquerading as one.

It sounds quite Stargate-like and starred Stargate SG-1’s Carmen Argenziano (Jacob Carter). However, it was it’s very close resemblance to Star Wars’ story which saw it panned in reviews at the time and it flopped at the cinema, which wasn’t great when it was more expensive to produce than other cartoon films. The advert appeared in OiNK #3 in May 1986 and that summer a much more successful movie sequel popped up in the pages of #7.

Once again starring Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita, The Karate Kid: Part II’s box office not only eclipsed Star Chaser’s, it equalled the original movie’s and spawned a couple more sequels in the original series. While researching for this post I discovered it never actually filmed in Okinawa, the location that was a major selling point for the film. In reality, the heavy military presence there led the filmmakers to choose Hawaii instead.

The first scene in Part II was originally written to be included at the end of the original so, like James Bond’s Quantum of Solace did many years later, this literally picked up straight after the previous film. I recall my brother renting these from our local video store and I can remember the action, the famous training scenes from the first film and some bits and pieces here and there, but mainly it’s the memory of enjoying them with the family that remains.

I finally succumbed to the years of friends talking about how great David Bowie was as the King of the Goblins

The next film (advertised in #15) completely passed me by as a kid, although as the youngest of five siblings I’m sure they rented it at some stage for themselves or at least watched it on TV during more than one Christmas. It was only during this last festive period (2023) that I finally succumbed to the years of friends talking about how great David Bowie was as the King of the Goblins and sat down to watch it on the BBC one afternoon.

Not only did I love David Bowie (his interactions with the goblin puppets producing some wonderfully funny moments), Jennifer Connelly was also superb. I’ve become a fan of hers through the Snowpiercer TV series in recent years and it’s just incredible to see such a great performance at only 14-years-of-age, especially considering the characters she was interacting with. As for the film, directed of course by Jim Henson (and written by Terry Jones, although rewritten by uncredited others) it still flopped but that hasn’t stopped it from gaining in popularity ever since.

For me personally, it was a fun movie although I do think I’d have loved it more as a kid; the imagination on show is brilliant and very 80s. I really loved the fantastic M.C. Escher-inspired staircase scene too. There’s one movie out of these five I adored from the moment I saw it on VHS at a friend’s 11th birthday party in October 1988, almost a year after this advert for its cinema release in OiNK #16. I’m really not sure why we didn’t go to the cinema as a group when it was out!

I didn’t really get into The Transformers until the following year, but once I did this movie was rented a lot! It was basically a way for Hasbro to refresh the toy line, hence killing off most of the TV series’ original cast, Optimus Prime’s death famously upsetting children in American and resulting in an added narration at the end when it reached these shores, promising his return. It also flopped (there’s a theme here) at the time and has been derided by critics ever since as a glorified toy advert.

The Transformers: The Movie is also notable for being Orson Welles’ final film, believe it or not

If you’re already a fan of Transformers you’ll love this, if not then it’s not really going to win you over. As an adult I can appreciate its retro goodness, especially its 80s soundtrack, although I find it does work much better as part of the animated series than a standalone film. I just wish they’d stop cutting the top and bottom off it every time they remaster it. It was created in a 4:3 ratio but every time it gets rereleased they seem to think people will only want to watch it in widescreen, the full-screen version usually left to languish, non-remastered, in the extra features. Such a shame.

It’s also notable for being Orson Welles’ final film, believe it or not. Over the years it’s been said he hated it but in reality he really liked the script; he accepted the role after reading it and was happy to be working on a children’s movie. He may not have fully understood all the characters and their relationships with each other but which adult of a young Transformers fan ever did? As a fan of the modern films (Transformers, Dark of the Moon and Bumblebee being my favourites) this can feel quaint today but during my recent read through of the original Marvel UK comic the 1987 film was an epic, dramatic and really fun part of the experience.

To any readers living outside of this part of the world this poster might be a bit confusing, but this is indeed Harry and the Hendersons, advertised in #42. It was renamed for the UK market, perhaps to better describe what Harry actually was to potential cinema goers not familiar with the legend in the States. John Lithgow seemed to pop up in every American film when I was a child but I never complained, he was always funny in every role he took on. The film was essentially E.T. with a big hairy fella instead of a short, wrinkly alien but I do remember finding it very funny as a child, although I’ve never seen it again since.

There we go. There may only have been five movie adverts throughout OiNK’s run but they’re a nice snapshot of the films that would’ve appealed to young readers at the time and their retro artwork is a joy to look at. There are a ton of adverts for the next category of food and drink though, including everything from crisps and fizzy drinks to Marmite and bread! Look out for that during the summer later on this year.

GO TO PART TWO

More OiNK

KNOW YOUR OiNK!: CARTOONiSTS’ PROFiLES

11 August 2023 Phil Boyce Leave a comment

This is a nice little bonus post even if I do say so myself. Although I can’t take any of the credit, that must go to ten of OiNK’s top contributors who each decided to tell us a little bit about themselves in the second Holiday Special, released in March 1988. Sprinkled throughout the issue were fun little quarter-page profiles containing a self-portrait of some sort and a description of the cartoonist or editor in their own words.

The last part of that sentence is key. Don’t be expecting any actual real information here. This is OiNK after all. If you chose ten of its talented team and asked them to tell the readers something interesting about themselves do you really think they’d waste that opportunity with actual facts? Or would you prefer they took the chance to use their unique senses of humour to have a laugh instead? It’s a no brainer. Let’s kick things off with the three people responsible for OiNK in the first place, shall we? Here are the comic’s creators and editors. These were the people in charge!

I particularly like Patrick Gallagher’s pen name and his unique way of presenting his age, and it’s hilarious to have the incredibly talented Mark Rodgers’ profile presented as so amateurish. Tony Husband’s artistic depiction of himself is so funny but poor Paul Husband! If you take a look at the very first OiNK, the special preview issue, you’ll see he doesn’t actually look like Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins. If readers had wanted to see what all three of these individuals really looked like they would’ve had to check out the article in Crash magazine from the previous year.

As a kid I never knew of Crash (or the unique free edition of our comic tucked away inside that issue), so as far as I was concerned these profiles were the closest I was going to get to really knowing those who made us laugh so much. As a kid I had no idea it was Patrick and Mark who had appeared in photo stories such as Castaway and Star Truck previously. The latter also starred Tony albeit behind an evil alien (chicken) mask, but we never knew who they were in those strips. That’s what makes these silly not-so-fact files so funny of course; this is how readers would imagine the amazing talent behind the comic. It’s just a shame we didn’t get more!

Ian Jackson is synonymous with OiNK and did appear in a photo story alongside Mark way back in the Valentines issue but, like Tony, he was behind expensive (not really) alien special effects. In fact it was only two years ago, not long after I started this website, when John Freeman‘s Down the Tubes website published a spotlight article about Ian that I finally found out what the person behind Uncle Pigg, Mary Lighthouse and Hadrian Vile looks like.

This imaginative profile not only sums up his wacky sense of humour with far-fetched nonsense, he also manages to highlight the truth about being a cartoonist

Marc Riley appeared as another anonymous kind-of-actor in Star Truck but was probably best known for portraying Snatcher Sam during the first year of the comic and The OiNK! Book 1988. The grisly world of punk rock he refers to is The Fall, the band he was a part of for four years between 1978 and 1982 before forming The Creepers. Of course, Frank Sidebottom needs no introduction or indeed a silly drawing! We all knew him from countless children’s television appearances already and the man behind the papier-mâché, Chris Sievey, was always so brilliant with his fans that of course he’d take any opportunity to give them a chance to get in touch directly.

Below is David Haldane’s profile, he of Hugo the Hungry Hippo, Rubbish Man and Torture Twins fame and this imaginative profile not only sums up his wacky sense of humour with far-fetched nonsense, he also manages to highlight the truth about being a cartoonist! Then Steve Gibson, who’d go on to produce a range of very adult comics after OiNK brings us a depiction of himself that’s really rather disturbing and perfectly illustrates (no pun intended) his art style. If you’re interested in a full-page strip of that Judge Pigg he’s drawing then check out the review for #58.

Quite a few years ago now, perhaps about a decade back I had the pleasure of meeting Davy Francis a few weeks before Christmas and had the chance to purchase some of his original OiNK artwork which currently takes pride of place on my wall. I didn’t even know he lived in Belfast like me until I was at a film festival earlier that year, and while chatting about comics to someone and mentioning OiNK they told me they knew Davy. An absolute gent with a brilliant sense of humour and an incredible caricaturist his contribution here keeps to the theme of telling us absolutely nothing about him and instead giving us a good chuckle.

Like Ian and David, Davy works his usual signature into his profile so readers can instantly recognise who this is and then we finish the Holiday Special off with Davy’s good friend Ed McHenry. The drawing in Ed’s is in my mind probably the most accurate, based on my completely unknowledgeable assumptions about cartoonists’ work areas. I really like how he’s tried to incorporate as many of the little random details from his description into the drawing too, it’s packed full of little sight gags and details. Absolutely classic Ed.

A few months after the special one more profile appeared in one of the monthly issues, OiNK #66. While it got my hopes up there’d be more in future issues this was sadly the last but it’s a nice little bonus. Especially since it’s by one of my favourite cartoonists of all time and was in an issue where he contributed almost a third of the contents! Lew Stringer is very much a child of the 60s and plays up to that here, beginning with the profile number being made up of three key 60s movie/TV/comic series. I just wish I’d thought of his excuse for why I sucked at school sports!

There we go. Don’t you feel completely informed about who made the funniest comic of all time? Me neither. Or maybe we should. The details may not be entirely accurate but they portray the sense of humour OiNK encapsulated, the craziness and imagination that captivated us and the combination of comic talent that was like no other. These great profiles inside the second OiNK Holiday Special may not have been an introduction to these cartoonists, but they could very well be the perfect introduction to OiNK itself.

Christmas, More OiNK

HAPPY 2023 PiG PALS!

31 December 2022 Phil Boyce Leave a comment

Happy New Year everyone, I hope 2023 brings you much joy, love and kindness. I know for some people tomorrow is just another day but I’m a firm believer that each day is what you want to make it, so if some want to make the 1st January a new beginning I’m all for it. 2022 has been something of a transitional year for me in my personal life, so I’ve got my sights set on 2023 to be something special. Time to celebrate then! So let’s join David Haldane‘s Rubbish Man’s New Year Party, shall we?

Taken from #44 of OiNK (the image at the top of the post is part of its cover), the comic turns weekly from its next issue so buckle up for more of pretty much everything for the next while. This year on the blog will also see the addition of not one but two new real time read throughs of Marvel UK fan favourites that many have requested (but which I always planned on covering anyway), there’ll be a sequel to one of the blog’s most popular comics and plenty more!

Big year ahead then. Thanks to everyone for your continued support, December has been the second most popular month on the site so far and the average stats are increasing all the time. I can’t begin to tell you how appreciative I am of every single one of you and I hope I can continue to write stuff you all want to read! Thanks again, and Happy HOGmanay!