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Obituaries

REMEMBERiNG TONY HUSBAND

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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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Obituaries

REMEMBERiNG KEViN O’NEiLL

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It is with great sadness that we must say goodbye to another contributor to OiNK. The news just came out yesterday that renowned 2000AD artist Kevin O’Neill passed away at the age of 69 after a period of illness. Kevin’s most famous work was definitely the likes of Nemesis the Warlock, Marshal Law and of course League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I was a huge fan of his work on Nemesis but my first encounter with his unique style was in the pages of OiNK. Below is what I said about Kevin and his work in the OiNK Holiday Special earlier this year.

“Now, let’s move on to what would surely be the main event for many comics fans. At the time I was unaware of who Kevin O’Neill was but today I know the man as something of a legend in the industry. Drawing the image of Tharg on the cover of the very first 2000AD he would go on to produce incredible work for OiNK’s stablemate, most memorably for me the stunning Nemesis the Warlock. In 1986 his whole style proved unsuitable for the American Comics Code Authority but thankfully DC went ahead and published his Tales of the Green Lantern anyway. Later, he would co-create Marshal Law and team up with Alan Moore for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. For OiNK’s Holiday Special he drew a four-page parody called The Game is Greed, written by Mark Rodgers.

“Lew Stringer was friends with both Kevin and Dave Gibbons, another legendary comic artist who’d appear in the pages of OiNK. They’d meet up frequently at London comic marts and when Lew found out Kevin was a fan of OiNK he asked him if he’d like to contribute. His first strip was actually a collaboration with Lew called The Truth About Santa for The OiNK Book 1988, then later he drew this brilliant script by Mark, but deadlines for specials and annuals being what they are this was the one that saw print first. I may not have known who he was but I adored the very unique art style and I can remember lying in bed late at night (having already read the comic that morning) pouring over all of the funny details for a long time. I’d never seen anything like this.

“Kevin’s sharp lines, exaggerated action and gorgeous colours really pop, making the strip stand out in even the quickest of skims through the issue. This is no small feat for an issue of OiNK.”

Later, when I began reading issues of 2000AD that belonged to school friends it was Kevin’s Nemesis that really stood out to me. It still does and will always be my first choice of strips when I want to dip my toes into a little 2000AD.

Kevin grew up on The Beano and The Dandy but it was Mad magazine, the same title that partly influenced the contents of OiNK, that really had an impact on him at an early age. He began working as an office boy in IPC Magazines instead of studying art and worked his way up, eventually becoming instrumental in the early success of 2000AD. He was even responsible for the strips having credits, something unheard of before then in British comics!

He eventually worked his way into the American market but The Comic Code Authority thought his work was too shocking and he was effectively blacklisted. Back in the UK his co-creations Marshal Law and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen led to him being held in high regard as one of the greatest British comics talents ever, described by 2000AD themselves as,  “innovative, iconoclastic, idiosyncratic, inventive, visionary and provocative”.

As the obituary on 2000AD’s website says, “His death is a monumental loss for comics.”

Lew Stringer has written a piece about the sad passing of his friend on his own blog.

Kevin’s pals at Gosh Comics in London have also paid tribute in their own post.

An incredible talent, taken far too soon. Our thoughts are with his loved ones.

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REMEMBERiNG LES ‘LEZZ’ BARTON

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The Slugs may have only made their first appearance in #33 of OiNK but they made a huge impact, in no small way thanks to the artwork of Les ‘Lezz’ Barton. His unique, busy and highly energetic style was perfect for their strip, however he also contributed much more to the pages of our comic and other publications such as Punch, Private Eye, The Daily Sketch, Daily Mirror, Whizzer and Chips and on and on…

Born on 8 December 1923 in Wareham, Dorset, Lezz was a self-taught artist. When a motorcycle accident made him rethink his career options he retrained as a draughtsman while using his spare time to create cartoons for submission to publications. He succeeded while stationed in Lagos, Nigeria during World War II where he had his first regular cartoons published.

His first work for Uncle Pigg came in #10 with this Ode to Teachers, a poem that’s just as much fun to look at thanks to the way Lezz has handwritten it on the page as it is to read. Complete with ink blots and crazy caricatures it’s quite the introduction to his anarchic style and really stands out in a comic already known for different art styles. Lezz would go on to produce work for 32 issues altogether, culminating in the final annual.

After the war he worked for the Associated-Iliffe Press as a process artist while also producing anything around 20 cartoons a week! Lezz was also a founding member of the Cartoonists’ Club of Great Britain in 1960. Around this time he was best known for his regular strip I-Spy in Sparky comic about a secret agent whose face was always hidden but whose cloak was full of a seemingly never-ending array of gadgets, all used in the artist’s usual animated fashion.

While his art is distinctive and easily identifiable, Les was also able to adjust it to perfectly suit the script he was illustrating. For example, while we were mostly used to his full-on style he was also able to turn his hand to this fantastic spoof of Bunty comic, Bumty Comic presents Wanda with the Wooden Leg. We can clearly see it’s Lezz’s work but it’s different. He’s tailored it in such a way that on the surface it wouldn’t look out of place in the pages of the comic it’s poking fun at. That was the whole idea of course.

It’s a classic strip and a genius piece of penmanship. Contrast this with The Slugs, which was always written by co-editor Tony Husband. Here’s their second appearance in OiNK from #34 to show you just how Lezz brought these unique characters to life. Each and every panel is packed full of movement and detail, a real feeling of crazy fun and of, well, punk!

Sadly Lezz died in Hayes, Middlesex aged 84 on 20th October 2008. He had continued working into his 80th decade, turning his attention to greetings cards in his final years. Whether drawing for adults or children his work was, to sum it up in one word, fun.

Lezz’s contribution to OiNK and his impact on young pig pals can not be underestimated, and his work rightly fondly remembered to this day by so many of them.

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REMEMBERiNG J.T. DOGG

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With this page young eyes across the UK were exposed to the insanely talented Malcolm Douglas for the first time in OiNK’s Preview Issue. To anyone unfamiliar with the name you may remember him as ‘J.T. Dogg’, the genius illustrator behind Street-Hogs, Ham Dare: Pig of the Future and the OiNK Superstar Posters.

Pig pals will have fond memories of his big, bold and gorgeously colourful double-page spreads leaping out at them every fortnight. Within the pages of those early issues Dogg’s work included the original 11-part Street-Hogs story, written by Mark Rodgers, as well as a series of suitably piggy spoof Superstar Posters of Bacon Stevens, Sty Wars, The P-Team, Hambo, Frankenswine and Peter Swillton, as well as Draculard later in the run. His work was undoubtably displayed on many a bedroom wall across the UK.

Malcolm originally became an illustrator when he volunteered to draw for a newspaper run by the Sheffield University student union. Discovering he could be paid for his work he developed his style and was published in a wide variety of comics, which after OiNK included Brain Damage and Zit, two titles heavily influenced by the one he’d been such a huge part of.

He also regularly contributed Fred the Red for Manchester United’s match programmes, but his best known work remains all of those beautiful pages found inside OiNK. The conclusion to the first Street-Hogs adventure called for a suitably epic wraparound cover poster, complete with a standout OiNK logo as seen below.

When I started collecting OiNK with #14 the ‘Next Issue’ section had a small monochrome drawing of a character called Ham Dare: Pig of the Future, a new multi-part story written by Lew Stringer and brought to life by Malcolm. Knowing of Dan Dare from friends’ comics I was looking forward to seeing a joke version of the character. It would be my first encounter with Malcom’s work. I knew it was going to be funny, I didn’t expect it to be so lush!

Malcolm didn’t receive any professional art training and his skills weren’t limited to drawing either. He was a musical performer and played the mandolin and fiddle among other instruments, performing with various bands he was a regular face around the Sheffield music scene. His knowledge of folk music was encyclopaedic and he contributed to two books about the subject, with a third being revised before his death.

Malcolm sadly died of cancer on 22nd March 2009 and it is on this date that we remember his stunning OiNK work.

During the two-and-a-half-year run of the comic J.T. Dogg brought us three lengthy Street-Hogs strips, a Ham Dare serial, plus more from the Pig of the Future in both OiNK Books and a Holiday Special after the comic was cancelled, and of course let’s not forget those six magnificent Superstar Posters. He even drew Harry the Head in one issue.

OiNK came to its conclusion in October 1988 and while the second annual was already on sale most of us wouldn’t receive it until that Christmas, a couple of months after we’d said goodbye to our favourite comic pals. J.T. Dogg returned with this glorious cover to the 1989 book, a fitting end to the run and a fitting tribute to a man whose talents were second-to-none.

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REMEMBERiNG ANDY ROPER

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This month the very sad news reached me of the passing of OiNK cartoonist Andy Roper. Andy’s intricately detailed strips were always a highlight of any issue he was involved with. While he only contributed a handful of different stories they’re fondly remembered to this day, a testament to his unique art style.

He first appeared in the pages of #11 with Scruff of the Track, written by OiNK co-creator/co-editor Mark Rodgers who is also sadly no longer with us. On the surface it’s drawn in a style that wouldn’t have looked out of place in action adventure comics of the day, at least until you start reading it that is. Upon closer inspection it’s so jam-packed with background detail and visual gags that it pays to take your time and relish every single panel.

Over the course of OiNK’s run Andy’s artwork graced the cover twice, his second being a brilliant parody of King Kong for #31. For me personally, having only collected the comic since #14 the first time I saw his art was when I picked up #22. It was wrapped up in a fittingly spectacular wraparound cover poster to mark part one of a special two-part story called The Spectacles of Doom.

Prince Endor and his amazing eyewear returned two more times, for a much longer story in the regular comic and then in the second (and final) annual, The Oink! Book 1989. While Scruff of the Track was gorgeous to look at in its own right, when Andy applied colour the result was nothing short of amazing. Just take a look at this double page spread from the aforementioned annual to see what I mean.

Just like the late, great J.T. Dogg, Andy may not have appeared in every issue but when he did he made a huge impact on the readers, there’s no doubt about that. Given the intricacy of his work these epic strips must’ve taken a long time to complete, so I doubt he ever stopped working between their appearances.

The fact my memory, which isn’t great at the best of times, has held on to Andy’s pages for decades shows how much of a highlight of OiNK they were for me. I hope this little website can do its part in holding on to the memory of his stunning creations for future readers.

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