It is with a heavy heart that I find myself writing this, having found out about the recent passing of Ronald Charles Tickner, better known to OiNK readers as Ron Tiner. Lew Stringer recently broke the news on his own blog and reminisced about the fan favourite five-part Sherlock Hams serial he wrote and which Ron drew so brilliantly.
Born on 8th May 1940 in Borden in Kent, due to his family’s finances he never attended art college and was completely self-taught. That didn’t stop him from passing his knowledge and skills on to the next generation though, as later in his career he taught illustration and sequential narrative at Swindon College for several years around the turn of the millennium.
He had a prolific and varied career in comics and humour magazines which included everything from Punch and Brain Damage, to Tammy and Jinty, to Hotspur and Battle Action. In OiNK he drew some of the best spoofs of 80s culture and celebrity the comic produced. Sherlock Holmes wasn’t the only one to be given the OiNK facelift thanks to Ron, with David Attenborough and Duran Duran among the list.
His art first popped up in #14, which was actually my first issue as a kid so he contributed heavily to my first impressions not only of OiNK but of comics as a medium. On first glance Ron’s work on The Unprofessionals could be mistaken for an official comic adaptation of the TV series, making the ludicrous scenario all the more hilarious.
Not exactly being mistaken for an official DC comic but loved just as much was his artwork for Mark Rodgers’ three-page Superham strip in #28, with Ron’s one and only OiNK cover, one of the most memorable of the whole run. Proving he was a go-to choice for some of the larger assignments Ron also brought his unique comedy stylings to classic literature with King Solomon’s Swines which ran for two months in the comic.
One of his pieces that hasn’t been seen on the blog before is MANK, another spoof strip, this time of the 80s transforming toy line and cartoon, MASK. This wonderful creation rounded off the first OiNK Book in style and has all the markings of a classic Ron piece. OiNK was never full colour, usually about a quarter of each issue was, the fact so many of Ron’s strips were printed this way is testament to his unique, bold and brilliant art style.
After comics Ron worked as a book illustrator, contributing artwork to classic texts for Oxford University Press and Penguin Classics, and later writing his own books about illustrating. Coming full circle back to who he spoofed above, Ron’s book Investigating Sherlock Holmesis a real labour of love. It recreates the time and place of the stories with illustrations, maps, historical photos and a lot more, creating a new, immersive look at the character.
It’s no exaggeration to say Ron’s work on OiNK was always a highlight of any issue he appeared in, and some of the finest examples of parody from the comic. He made an impression on me from the moment I picked up my first issue and to this day when I introduce OiNK to new readers Ron’s work can be guaranteed to be on the list of examples I show off. He’ll be much missed.
(John Freeman’s Down the Tubes website has a wonderful in-depth In Memoriam for Ron which you can read here.)
If there’s one name synonymous with the 80s humour comics a lot of readers of this blog grew up with, like OiNK, Buster, Whoopee etc., it’s Mark Rodgers, whose birthday it would’ve been today. To say Mark was a prolific comics writer is probably the largest understatement I could make. Working across a multitude of titles for the likes of IPC/Fleetway, he’d often write up to a dozen scripts a week.
These were for comics he’d eventually feel were a little outdated in their humour, but that’s not to say he didn’t love reading them. OiNK may have taken shots at Beano and The Dandy, but Mark was known to love both comics, even making sure there were copies of their annuals in the bathroom of his house for visitors to read while on the loo.
During a visit to a local Manchester library one day he spotted Patrick Gallagher writing scripts for the same comics Mark did and they immediately hit it off. Patrick had already met Tony Husband and together the three of them went on to create a new kind of children’s comic, an alternative to the old-fashioned jokes and traditional weeklies kids were becoming tired of in favour of television and computer games. Obviously, this was the beginning of OiNK.
When I began reading OiNK as a young child, thanks to there being no credits in comics at the time, I’d always assumed the cartoonist had written everything they’d drawn. While this was the case with some of OiNK’s contributors, there was one person who wrote so much of the comic for loads of different art styles. The volume of Mark’s work was phenomenal.
When you look through any issue you’ll see his name (or “MR”) on the majority of pages. My favourite creations of his were of course The Sekret Diary ov Hadrian Vile, brought to the page in all of its jaggedy-art glory by a young Ian Jackson, and Mark’s riff on Saturday morning cliffhanger television serials, The Street-Hogs, illustrated by J.T. Dogg. Highly original and unlike anything you’d have read elsewhere, Mark’s imagination was let loose, finally able to express his sense of humour without the restrictions he’d faced in other comics.
Where else could we be squeamish over Hadrian’s disgusting hobbies or laughing at the torture he put his long-suffering parents through one minute, then enjoying a heartwarming moment at the birth of his baby sister the next? Almost all of Uncle Pigg’s and Mary Lighthouse’s hilarious confrontations were written by Mark and any issues that contained a full-length strip of theirs have been favourites of mine (for both young me and young-at-heart me).
Mark wasn’t shy at starring on the pages of the comic either, sometimes alongside his fellow editors Patrick and Tony, sometimes with his partner Helen Jones. Whether it was as the captain of the Enterpies in Star Truck or as a terrifying alien invader alongside Ian while learning a lesson in love from their spaceship (really Mark and Helen’s boiler in their basement).
OiNK writer Graham Exton was a close friend of Mark and Helen’s and after he moved away to lived in the Bahamas the couple decided to visit, and while there they photographed a few pieces for OiNK. One was Castaway, a hilarious one-off written by Graham with the two of them in mind. That washed up body/dinner for Helen? That would be Mark. Mark wasn’t above writing in some funny little cameos for his other half too!
Mark’s productivity, his dedication to making kids laugh and his commitment to the comics medium can all be summed up in one bittersweet joke he wrote for a back page spread in the Time Travel edition of OiNK, drawn by Ed McHenry. You’ll notice that long before modern day A.I., Mark had predicted Uncle Pigg would be using a ‘Script Computer’ in the future to produce his comic. But upon closer inspection you can see who was still writing those scripts, long after he would have left us.
The bittersweet nature of this gag comes from the fact that we did indeed lose Mark to cancer in the 1990s. I know it’ll sound like a cliché to say it, but there really has been no one like him in children’s comics since. OiNK never spoke down to us, it’s three editors understood this and together they were an unbreakable team whose work brought so much joy and laughter to so many people before, during and after its run.
Apart from a few early strips Mark never drew for the comic and, until I started to notice the signatures and little initials beside so many of my favourites as a child, I’d no idea that Mark was so instrumental in moulding my young, developing sense of humour. Several years back, when I mentioned online how I’d lost my OiNK mug decades ago, Helen very kindly sent me a special Christmas present. I can’t begin to describe how happy I was when I unwrapped it and found out it had been Mark’s! I’ll always treasure this.
There are simply too many highlights of Mark’s for one post. In fact, there are literally too many highlights of Mark’s for this entire website! Believe me, I’ve tried. The man was a creative giant in the UK comics industry and when I spoke with Tony a couple of years ago he had possibly the nicest thing to say about his departed friend.
Tony often likened working on OiNK to being in a punk band and that kind of anarchic, rebellious sense of humour was at the forefront of everything they did. “Mark was the glue,” Tony said. “He was the drummer.”
Patrick, Mark & Tony Royal Television Awards for Round the Bend
On 21st June 2010 the sad news broke of the passing of musician, comedian, artist and comic cartoonist Chris Sievey, better known to the wider world as the papier-mâché headed Frank Sidebottom. Upon reading the news I hunted out my few remaining issues of OiNK to read his contributions. I enjoyed them so much I began collecting all the other issues of the comic, and the rest is history. All thanks to Chris. All thanks to Frank.
Chris was born on 25th August 1955 and over the course of the 70s and 80s was the frontman of his band The Freshies (he’s second from the right above). However, during the 80s he developed the character of Frank, an aspiring pop star with his famous nasally voice who portrayed himself as living the celebrity lifestyle when in reality he was living at home with his mum in Timperley. A regular star of kid’s TV in the 80s, I was very aware of him when he popped up in my third issue of OiNK, #16.
“Chris was laborious with his artwork,” OiNK co-editor Patrick Gallagher told the Dazed website. “He could have made it easy for himself by colouring in flat colours, but instead he used this stipple effect done with a felt tip pen. He would take three hours to paint a page which would usually take 15 minutes, but he liked detail and he would always go the extra mile.” That extra mile was always appreciated by this pig pal.
“Having Chris on board was great because it meant that as well as his unique artwork, we also had a real life character [Frank] to front the comic. We had someone out there publicising OiNK who was gaining more recognition,” says Patrick. Indeed, at the time it felt like readers were part of a secret club that those who only saw him on TV weren’t aware of. A secret club that gave us insights into his home life, celebrity friends and musical career. Even his school days.
His contributions to OiNK would vary wildly and included comic strips, celebrity gossip columns, hand-written computer programs, elaborate D.I.Y. board games and even a cut-out zoetrope. With the huge variety of pages he could create, and all so intricately put together, it was clear he put in a lot of time and effort for us young readers and that he enjoyed working on OiNK.
Frank’s stand-up comedy was family friendly, even if it was very random and ‘out there’, and he’d go on to be a semi-regular on Saturday morning TV shows No.73, Motormouth and What’s Up Doc?, as well as creating his own Frank Sidebottom’s Fantastic Shed Show. After retiring the character of Frank, Chris would continue producing work for children on shows such as Bob the Builder and Pingu.
He was good friends with Patrick and they even moved in together when their marriages broke up. Fellow OiNK cartoonist and musician, Marc Riley would often work closely with Chris on OiNK, producing many photo stories starring Frank and Snatcher Sam together, as well as recording the OiNK 45 record. He also starred on four OiNK covers. Two were drawn by Chris and Frank popped up in photo form on the other two occasions, once with Mark and another with Her Majesty. Sort of.
“We needed a shot for our honours and awards issue, so we thought Frank being knighted outside Buckingham Palace would be perfect for this,” continues Patrick. “I had this Queen mask with me and I’m looking for someone to put it on so Frank could get down on his knee for the photo. Only one kid would do it so we had him with the Queen’s face on and Frank being knighted. He [Chris] paid twenty quid for it but obviously it was worth nothing. Frank got ripped off. Sometimes adventures with Chris became nightmares.”
The cover with Marc led to a strip inside too, which perfectly showcases their humour when they got together.
Patrick would also play bass in Frank’s Oh Blimey Big Band (far right in the photo below) alongside Jon Robson on keyboards who would go on to write the Frank movie starring Michael Fassbender inside the head, playing a new character based on our Frank. According to accounts Chris was very pleased with the script. Then in 2019 the Kickstarter-funded Being Frank documentary film covered Frank’s entire life and also included Patrick talking about Chris’s OiNK work.
Chris sadly died of cancer in 2010 at the age of 54. When it was revealed he died with very little money to his name fans gathered together to raise funds to give him a proper funeral, raising over £6,500 in a few hours and a total of over £21,500 in the end. In his home town of Timperley a Frank statue was also erected in his honour and he’s still there, standing with his thumb up in the middle of the high street.
As a kid, Chris’ work on OiNK as Frank Sidebottom was a highlight of the entire run for me. There was just nothing like those pages in any other comic. There’s still no one else like him in the world of entertainment.
Pete’s Pup was the antithesis of all those funny pet strips in comics when I was growing up. Even Gnasher had nothing on the gigantic, destructive, flea-ridden and yet completely loveable (for the readers at least, not his owner’s dad) dog of some far-fetched, unknown breed that made us laugh so much. In my memory he’d been a regular character but in reality only appeared in early issues, their strips staying with me for decades.
Jim Needle’s scratchy art perfectly brought this monstrous good boy to life. Jim was a superb cartoonist who was known for contributing to local newspapers and publications. His signature style was energetic and larger-than-life, much like his canine creation. “Jim came via Bob Paynter (IPC Magazine’s Group Editor of Humour),” says co-editor Patrick Gallagher. “Jim submitted Pete’s Pup to Bob on spec as a sample of his work and Bob thought it would be a good fit for OiNK, which we were currently developing. Bob was right! We loved the character and Jim’s style, and the rest is history!”
These crazy strips of Jim’s appeared in almost all of the very earliest issues of OiNK but by the time I started reading as a kid he’d already moved on. Thankfully, a couple of strips had been left in reserve by the comic’s editors for the first Holiday Special and appropriately enough the Big Soft Pets Issue, #27. While I did eventually get a couple of back issues from a cousin, those two issues and the reprint of the preview issue’s strip in the second annual were all I originally saw of the mangy mutt.
When I came to collecting OiNK as an adult for the blog I was surprised to find the strip only appeared nine times, even more shocked to see I’d missed most of these first time around. They instantly brought back happy memories, this monstrous shaggy pile of ever-shedding fur must’ve made quite the impact on my young self for him to stay planted in my memory that way. Physically, he definitely did so for the family he lived with!
A resident of Jericho in Oxford, England, Jim’s work could often be found in frames on the walls of the local offices and pubs and at one point he worked as a stage hand at the New Theatre, Oxford, the theatre life running in his family’s blood. His local newspaper, the Jericho Echo, commissioned him to draw a panorama of the town’s streets which can still be found near the top of every page of Jericho Online. Unfortunately, as they themselves explain, “Reproduction at this size unfortunately gives only an impression of the detailed quality of the original – another testimony to Jim’s great skill and versatility.”
Jim sadly passed away in the early months of 1997 and it is with sadness that I add another name to OiNK’s obituaries. The Echo newspaper, in its own write-up about Jim described him as “a big man, in every way, and will be greatly missed.” It sounds to me like he may have been just as big a character as the one he created, one that brought so much fun to pig pals all those years ago.
Thanks to Davy Francis for this brilliant caricature of Tony
I never met Tony Husband in person but I did have the opportunity to speak with him on the phone a few times over the years and online. He was always so enthusiastic about OiNK and everyone who had worked on it. His passion for the comic was infectious, his love for all of its contributors clear as day and he was always so open to chatting and reminiscing.
Tony loved people, adored animals of all kinds and cared deeply for our planet. He often reflected these aspects of his character in his cartoons, not only in OiNK but across the spectrum of his output since becoming a full-time cartoonist in 1984, including publications such as Private Eye, Punch, Playboy and The Spectator amongst others. He also released his own critically-acclaimed books, including the highly regarded Take Care, Son: The Story of my Dad and his dementia.
For me he was best known as the creator of Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins in OiNK, the comic he co-created with Mark Rodgers and Patrick Gallagher. Starting off as a strip in which we’d giggle at the situations he found himself in, it matured over time, developing into an ongoing serial covering Horace’s trials and tribulations as he tried to live a normal life, often while being treated as an outsider. It contained a strong message to never judge anyone based on their looks and delivered this with plenty of laughs, the best way to teach life lessons to children.
In the end Horace became a successful footballer and met the woman of his dreams, with him and Mandy marrying after one last adventure in a Holiday Special after OiNK’s cancellation. Tony’s humour was key in my development as a kid and his messages (always delivered in a way that never felt like important messages) had a profound effect on me. I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that.
This particular cover brings back happy memories too. Later in OiNK’s run my cousin gave me a few of his back issues that I’d missed and while sitting next to my late nanny at his house she saw this cover, looked at me and giggled like a little schoolgirl. She knew my mum (her daughter) would tut and shake her head, but my nanny found it so funny. I miss her greatly and this is one of my earliest, happiest memories of her. This cover brings a smile to my face for that reason every time I see it, all thanks to Tony.
Of course many know Tony for his cartoons in Private Eye and the like, his quick gags always raising a chortle. When OiNK went weekly for a few months in 1988 a whole page was given over to Tony to bring us that same kind of humour. With a completely different scenario every issue, a quick gag played out in a large format every seven days. I loved them as a kid, they were just so silly. As an adult reading OiNK for the blog, these were just bliss for sixteen weeks.
Tony wasn’t just known for his own OiNK pages, he also wrote the scripts for some absolute fan favourites drawn by a mixture of brilliant cartoonists. The Spectacles of Doom was an incredible serial that spoofed fantasy films of the 80s and was drawn by Andy Roper, The Slugs saw Tony bring his love of punk music to the comic with suitably raucous art from Les ‘Lezz’ Barton and for Tom’s Toe he ingeniously brought in John Geering to parody his own work from other, more traditional comics.
It’s sad to realise everyone involved in these strips is no longer with us. However, Tony’s unique sense of humour, so prevalent in each one, ensures the laughs are never too far away. A deliciously dark side of his humour could also come to the forefront upon occasion, such as when Ian Knox drew Tony’s Crablad, the ending of which was certainly delicious.
In the first musically themed issue Tony interviewed the lead singer of one of his favourite bands, The Cult after he found out they were fans of his work and of OiNK, something which Tony told me about with such joy in his voice; it was a special moment for him, to be sure. Tony also said he had a surreal moment after the interview when Ian Astbury asked him about some missing OiNK merchandise he’d ordered, which Tony then chased up for him. It was a crazy time.
Tony would team up frequently with Chas Sinclair for many a random strip, however he also created serial The Wonder Pig, whose lead character name would have a different spelling in every outing. Chas’s style was the perfect fit for Tony’s loveable, heroic, yet completely daft pig. Most memorable of all their collaborations was Tony’s take on Wuthering Heights, which had one of the most random and thus completely laugh-out-loud funny moments in all of OiNK for me.
Tony won many awards over his career including the prestigious Pont Award and during OiNK’s lifetime the Cartoonists’ Club of Great Britain’s Strip Cartoonist of the Year Award, which the comic proudly told us all about. Just right. He also co-wrote The Psycho Rap for the flexidisc and OiNK 45 record, so all of you pig pals who can’t get “Don’t eat pigs, ‘Cause they’re made from hhhaaammm, Eat that Nast-y Butch-er Man” out of your heads all these years later have Tony to thank/blame.
Above are some photos Tony shared (taken by Ian Tilton) of the time they teamed up with Spitting Image to hand out the OiNK Awards to various rubberised celebrities (and the occasional real one). That’s friend of the comic John Peel with him, and a photo taken for early promotional material showing who was responsible for editing the new comic.
After OiNK finished Tony, alongside Mark and Patrick, moved on to create the award-winning Round the Bend TV series for CiTV with the Spitting Image team. I’ve very fond memories of that show. I didn’t know who was writing it, I never looked at the credits at that age, but it spoke to me in a way other children’s comedy shows didn’t, it really made me laugh! I really should’ve clicked who was behind it.
For the first anniversary of the previous OiNK Blog I received a surprise parcel in the post. It was this marvellous birthday card from Tony! I couldn’t believe it when it arrived, I’d no idea Tony had drawn it or that he was even paying that much attention to the blog until I saw this. That was Tony, always thinking of others but never making a big deal out of it. It was just his nature, to be kind and thoughtful.
I wish I’d had the opportunity to meet him and I can’t quite believe he’s actually gone, taken far too early. Tony was such a huge, formative part of my life and his work, his humour and his humanity will continue to be an inspiration to myself and countless others for the rest of our lives.
On that note, I think it’s only fitting to let Tony himself round things off as the sun sets on an incredible life and an incredible person.
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