Category Archives: New OiNK Material

CHRISTMAS CONFESSIONS: NEW PSYCHO GRAN!

What better way to kick off the New Year than with some brand new strips featuring one of OiNK‘s most beloved characters. From the pen of David Leach comes two corking new stories for Psycho Gran, once more in the digital pages of Aces Weekly. One was published in issue six of the current volume on 27th December and was billed by the comic as a Christmas horror story (albeit with the usual Psycho humour), the second on 3rd January so both are available right now! I’ll tell you how you can get your trotters on them below, but first here’s a quick preview of both.

The Confessions of Psycho Gran has our former OiNK star head to the confessional in her local church. I think a whole issue of Aces Weekly could be taken up with her confessions but here the focus is on the poor priest who is there to listen and forgive. As you can see from this first page (of three) she’s taken her toll on him. Just a little bit. It’s a darker story than usual, even by Psycho Gran standards, but as always it’s laugh-out-loud funny.

The second, four-page strip is called Still Waters and takes place at the local swimming pool where Gran is enjoying a paddle in the swim lane. None of the other swimmers want to share it with her but one man isn’t having it, he’s paid for his swim time and so pushes through, jumping the entire queue and into the water. I’m not even going to hint at what comes next but it’s a brilliant final page which I personally found particularly funny, and it includes a nice nod to a classic comic star.

Aces Weekly was created by David Lloyd and Bambos Georgiou and is a digital anthology comic full of a huge variety of content from a wonderful array of talent, covering many genres in every issue. Each volume is seven weekly issues in length and you can either subscribe and have each one delivered to your inbox, or buy any volume in one go for just £6.99. The latest volume containing Psycho Gran is now complete so you too can dip your feet in the waters if you dare!

This isn’t the first time David’s creation has appeared in the comic, in fact last year both she and Lew Stringer‘s Combat Colin had further new strips appear in the landmark 50th volume, as you can read about in this previous blog post.

Get to it. Seriously, you won’t regret it pig pals!

OiNK CARTOONiSTS ASSEMBLE!: NEW ACES WEEKLY STRIPS

Who wants some brand new Psycho Gran from David Leach and brand new Combat Colin from Lew Stringer? That made you sit up and take notice, didn’t it? Well that’s exactly what you can get by tapping those trotters over to the Aces Weekly website.

If you’re unfamiliar, Aces Weekly is the brainchild of David Lloyd (V for Vendetta, Wasteland, Knight Rider) and Bambos Georgiou (The Real Ghostbusters, Knights of Pendragon, Spider-Man) and is an online only anthology comic containing a variety of strips from across the spectrum of creators and genres.

Each volume consists of seven weekly issues and costs only £6.99. That’s only £1 per issue! The current volume is their 50th, meaning the title has clocked up a mighty impressive 350 issues to date. As ever, it’s chock full of brilliant content, not least of which are strips starring OiNK‘s Psycho Gran and Transformers/Action Force‘s Combat Colin. Both characters have appeared a few times before in Aces and have been invited back for this celebratory volume.

Below are the first pages of the two different Psycho strips from David Leach. A fan favourite since her first appearance in OiNK #15, these new additions to her story do not disappoint.

The first is called Dog Toffees and the little old dear is taking Archie for a walk in the park when someone approaches her to ask for a doggy bag. An innocuous tale to anyone not familiar with her appearances in OiNK perhaps, but for fans we know better and you won’t be disappointed. The second one is titled Fantastic Voyage II and as you can see it’s a rather topical outing. Believe me when I say even those of us who grew up with her won’t see the end to this one coming.

Psycho appears in #6 and #7 of the current volume of Aces Weekly.

Currently over on the blog’s Instagram feed I’ve been reading Marvel UK‘s Transformers in real time and one of the highlights every week is Lew Stringer’s Combat Colin, so it’s a thrill to read a brand new Combat adventure in the final issue of the volume.

Two of the madcap supervillains also return, namely Professor Madprof whose name I have always found funny, as well as Bankrobber Man. Anyone who grew up with these loonies will take one look at the preview above and feel right at home.

All three of these strips are three pages apiece and are only a small part of the quality reading material gathered within these issues. But that’s not all, because both Psycho Gran and Combat Colin have had their own series of independent comics released over the last few years from David and Lew which are well worth tracking down.

So there you go, a quick preview of brand new strips from two OiNK legends, featuring fan favourite characters from two comics covered by the OiNK Blog. So what are you waiting for? Nip on over to the Aces Weekly website where you can buy the complete 50th volume for just £6.99. Hop to it!

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?: SPECKY HECTOR

If you’re not already following Lew Stringer‘s blog then let this be your official instruction to do so. Not only will you be kept up to date on the latest comics work of Lew’s seeing publication in titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Beano, The Dandy Annuals and Rebellion‘s Cor!! Buster Specials, followers also get a look into his extensive back catalogue, glimpses into how some fondly remembered creations came to be and, in the case of OiNK and Buster character Specky Hector, a look at what some characters are up to these days.

Specky first appeared in #20 of OiNK and popped up again in #25 and then in the comic it merged into after its run came to an end. Well, fast forward a couple of decades to the present day and Lew has shown us how Specky is doing. I’m very happy to see he hasn’t changed one bit.

Drawn as an A4 piece to help raise money for the War Child charity via an auction run by Enniskillen Comic Fest organiser Paul Trimble, it shows everyone’s favourite comics collector is still very happily collecting comics. In the end this one drawing raised £105 for the charity which is great news too.

Fans of the Hector’s may like to know he also made an appearance in 2020’s new Battle (of Britain) Special where Lew brought back one of his classic strips in a new colourised form. The special is still available on the 2000AD online shop at the time of writing.

Thanks to Lew for his kind permission to share this image here on the OiNK Blog.