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OiNK! #65: POLiTiCAL PORK

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What we have here is the final Ian Jackson cover for OiNK, which is a sad moment. In fact by this stage Ian had finished his work for OiNK, with a page or two held back for publication in the issues to come. Not to take away from anyone else’s hard work of course but Ian was synonymous with the comic, as a child he was OiNK and his Uncle Pigg, Mary Lighthouse, Hadrian Vile, Golden Trough Awards and everything in between were highlights of every issue they were in.

Speaking of those characters, it’s also sad to see our editor Uncle Pigg permanently relegated to the letters page with no sign of Mary anywhere. On the cover of the first monthly there was a cheeky reference to two monthly humour magazines and it does feel like OiNK is trying to fit into that part of the market, instead of leading the way with something completely original for children’s humour comics like it had done for its first two years.

I remember thinking there was something different about OiNK now

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still got those regular characters and a unique line up of contributors who make me laugh like no other comic. As a kid it was still ‘OiNK’ to me, however I remember thinking there was something different about it now, other than the logo and frequency. Now I feel it was trying to be something different. I understand the change was well intentioned, but sometimes I wish IPC Magazines had never sold it to Fleetway Publications and that it had stayed as the themed 32-page fortnightly. But let’s concentrate on the fun!

Peter Porter, Post Office Sorter by Kev F Sutherland only appeared in three issues (this being the middle of the trio) and that’s a shame, although with only three regular issues left I guess there just wasn’t a chance to make more. From the three we did get I always got the feeling he was a new regular character. After he hunted down a customer to threaten them over not including a postcode last issue, this month’s is somewhat different but no less funny, showing how Kev could get great mileage out of just about any concept he came up with.

On to our cover star, although do I mean Nostrahamus or Ian Jackson? A little bit of both. For the cover character to only get two pages inside a 48-page comic feels a bit underwhelming but I think it may have originally been intended for the 24-page weekly OiNK where it would have been more of a headline act. Most likely written by co-editor Mark Rodgers it’s very funny and has lots of little moments you could easily miss, so take your time and you’ll find some real gems in here, such as the change to King Louie XIV’s name (sound it out).

That first page in particular feels very apt in this post-Brexit world we find ourselves, showing up the kind of people you just know voted for it without a hint of irony. I think this reads much funnier to me nowadays as a result. Nice little cameo from Tintin there too. Although, Ian’s art doesn’t feel as considered as normal, the people in the crowds not as detailed as they’d usually be for example. Perhaps it was one of his final pieces and had to be completed a little quicker than normal, but it’s still great to see his work regardless and of course there’s that wonderful cover.

David Haldane’s Incredible Amazing Bizarre World was a new addition to OiNK when it became weekly and has been an increasingly bizarre (it’s in the name after all) and random part of the comic with a handful of usually unconnected examples of David’s wild imagination. This issue the title is shrunk and on this half-page there’s just the one example of the crazy nature of our world, it needs the space all to itself to really get across the gag.

In fact there are three instalments this issue, although two of them are for competition winning entries from readers who wrote in and told David what they saw outside their window after he asked them to do so way back at the start of the year. Below, Richard Howard of Dublin’s entry was a particularly crazy entry, which David then had to draw of course! Another reader highlight can be found on the letters page with a particularly classic OiNK-like joke from Allan Maxwell of Cardross, perfect for Nasty Laffs and Specs.

Marc Riley brings us a rather morbid instalment for one of his long-running characters called Less than 101 Uses for a Dead Harry the Head! No, really. I mean, just look at that shoe! Lew Stringer’s Pete and his Pimple and Tom Thug both enjoy double-page spreads and will be able to stretch out further in the months ahead. Pete’s strip has an amusing opening that plays against the expectations of readers when a magical cure is suggested by a pig pal and Tom does something a humour comics character never did before.

David Haldane’s Incredible Amazing Bizarre World
Letters page compiled by Patrick Gallagher
Harry the Head by Marc Riley
Pete and his Pimple and Tom Thug by Lew Stringer

I remember those final panels and reciting Tom’s chant for years when school holidays rolled around, but little did I know how ground-breaking this strip was. Tom actually left school here, an idea Lew tells me was originally Mark Rodgers’. Humour comics characters are usually stuck in time, rarely developing beyond their original premise. OiNK had already played against type by having Hadrian Vile age along with the comic and seeing his mum’s pregnancy play out over months, but this was on another level. Next month Tom even signs on! I’ll definitely be including that as a highlight.

“Punk rock saved our bacon!”

Dirty Harry

We’re on to our final strip for the issue already and the reason has nothing to do with a lack of quality content, it’s because this final strip takes up no less than 13 pages. Originally created as a six-part serial for the weekly, The Street-Hogs’ return is included in its entirety in this one issue, spread out throughout in its requisite parts. (They really should’ve been the cover stars.)

Their previous serial ended way back in #35 and told us Emma Pig, Dirty Harry and Hi-Fat would return in Malice in Underland and finally that story is here. While the title is the one mentioned almost a year ago I wonder how much the story was developed in that time because this is very much a political satire and seems more suited for the older teen audience the comic was now trying to attract. As an adult it’s much funnier than I found it at the time and makes this issue worth tracking down on eBay if you can. It kicks off with the first ‘mixed school’, something that would’ve been very topical for my fellow Northern Ireland readers back then.

The name of the giant butcher is a bit risqué for a comic I was buying at ten-years-of-age.

While not as long as their original 12-part story it’s longer than their first sequel but there’s a certain something missing. Or rather I should say someone. There’s no sign of Hoggy Bear who, given the fact he was a spoof of the pimp character from Starsky & Hutch I thought would’ve been perfect for OiNK’s new older target audience. The tone of the story certainly is. I can remember J.T. Dogg‘s beautiful, vivid artwork as a kid and loving certain aspects of it, even the renderings of politicians who I only knew from Spitting Image rather than the news.

However, having read OiNK all the way through in real time to this point it seems a bit out of place, despite the reboot with #63. The comedic references to the names and characteristics of 80s politicians seem ill-suited to the comic we’ve come to know and love and I doubt they had much of an impact on my funny bone at the time. Thank goodness for our three heroes and their special brand of silliness (see Harry’s secret body language below) and the return of their arch-nemesis Don Poloney the mafia butcher!

Despite The Street-Hogs strips usually being just plain silly randomness I love the fact there’s actually a bit of continuation from the previous serial here, with Poloney’s appearance explained as being linked to one of the Triffics who ate him last year. The seeds of that particular plant were brushed down a drain and into the sewers, his brain living on in one of the seeds, from which he grew himself a new body. This could only have come from the mind of writer Mark Rodgers! Discovering underground caves with primitive creatures he brainwashed them with stolen videos from the surface of news and the aforementioned puppet show.

Moments like these remind us this is still very much an OiNK strip at its heart, even with the sometimes overbearing references to the politics of the day. As an adult reading this I find it all very amusing but I can’t help remembering my disappointment in it as a ten-year-old boy when so much of it flew over my head. Back to the story and the crazed god-like leader grabs the ‘Hogs with his vines and decides there’ll be no fancy schemes or death traps, just simple strangulation! That’s the cliffhanger leading into our three-page climax.

These final parts don’t have that big bold logo, just a photocopied name in the corner, but what the finale does have is a cameo from some former OiNK stars and it suits the comic perfectly that punk is the answer. It’s an enjoyable strip and funny today even if it doesn’t seem as wild as the Street-Hogs’ previous stories, lacking the wonderfully ridiculous cliffhanger solutions and basically having the one joke to play with (the political lookalikes) until Poloney shows up. But once he does it becomes classic Street-Hogs again. The back page of the whole comic was certainly memorable too. Such a shame that named fourth instalment never materialised.

There are no OiNK Superstar Poster reprints this month but there are half a dozen other repeated pages from earlier issues, albeit absolute classics. Seeing #6’s Fish Theatre with its page overloaded with puns always brings a smile to my face no matter how many times I read it. This issue was originally the first time I read these particular strips so they actually added a lot to the issue for the young version of me and even now, as a little selection of ‘Best of’ strips, their older (as in original, younger target audience) OiNK humour helps make this issue a great overall package.

The Next Month promo promises the return of a certain mechanical porker and from memory it’s a huge multipage strip, another originally meant as a serial but which actually ended up created specifically for the new format. That should be an exciting enough prospect to lure any pig pal, so make sure you come back on Sunday 20th August 2023. OiNK Monthly was released on the third Saturday of each month so we’ve five weeks to wait this time instead of four. Boo!

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UNCLE PiGG’S CRACKLiNG TALES: VOLUMES OF FUN

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In the issue of OiNK on sale now (at the time of writing) back in 1988 a special competition was published in which pig pals could win a set of two new books called From the Pages of OiNK!: Uncle Pigg’s Crackling Tales, new entries in publisher Knockabout’s Jester range. These were novel-sized collections of strips from the first couple of dozen issues of our favourite comic. The competition in #64 also acted as the only advert they’d ever receive. They passed me by as a kid and I only found out about them again a handful of years ago.

I’ve read online from certain quarters that apparently they were of very low quality, that all the reprints were very badly reproduced and that they felt like cheap cash-ins, but nothing could be farther from the truth! So today, at the point in OiNK’s real time read through when they were first announced to the readers I’ve decided to take a closer look at both books, while showing you just how good they actually are.

Given the rough matt quality of paper used for novels these feel like OiNK has been given the Big Comic Book treatment. Novel-sized and with 100 pages each, volume one contains a whopping 53 strips and the second has even more, with 63 classic funnies. They both come with new introductions, the first from Uncle Pigg and both books finish with a little promotion to buy OiNK every week using the design from the OiNK 45 record (the comic was still weekly when these were put together but monthly by the time they were released).

Uncle Pigg’s introduction is full of his usual boasts and I like what the initials after his name really stand for. Rhyming off the achievements of the comic up to this stage makes it all the more saddening to know that at the time of their release we were only a handful of issues away from the end! Also, while he tells the reader to watch out for her, unfortunately Mary Lighthouse (and Uncle Pigg himself) is nowhere to be seen in strip form.

But it’s the person who wrote the introduction to the second book that’s a real surprise. It’s none other than Alan Moore himself (Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Batman: The Killing Joke). Yes, that Alan Moore has written his own personal introduction for this OiNK collection. While it’s great to find out such a legendary comics writer was a fan, initially I thought it was a shame he seemed to get some facts wrong and didn’t seem to have gotten the point about a character. Thankfully Lew Stringer has clarified the latter.

It did read like Alan had missed the point about Tom Thug somewhat in his comparison to Dennis the Menace, which would be completely wrong; Tom was just a bully and always the loser and butt of the jokes. “Alan Moore’s comment about Tom Thug is tonue in cheek of course,” Lew has says in his comment below this post. “He certainly gets what Tom’s about as he compares him to a fascist movement.”

Mad Magazine’s satire and the wish to make something relevant to kids of the 80s inspired OiNK

While some did liken OiNK to Viz after it was released, its three creators certainly did not take their lead from Viz, a myth that particularly irks me as it takes away from its (and their) originality. Viz had no influence on the team’s creation whatsoever. Mad Magazine’s satire and the wish to make something relevant to kids of the 80s inspired creators Patrick Gallagher, Tony Husband and Mark Rodgers. That last important point Alan correctly points out.

I asked Patrick about the books and Alan’s inclusion. “From what I remember, when we were working on the Crackling Tales books, we were also really busy dealing with the early stages of the TV side of things, which, initially, was to produce OiNK! for TV,” he told me. “I think we allowed [publishers] Knockabout to produce the Crackling Tales covers to our specifications but we provided everything else. I also think that Knockabout was the contact for Alan Moore.”

These are excellent additions to anyone’s OiNK collection

So what makes up both books? There’s a star strip in each, with 12 Burp strips by Jeremy Banx in the first volume and a ten-part Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins story by Tony Husband in the other. Things kick off with the very first Burp strip in fact and after reading his misadventures all the way through to the final weekly by now, these early editions feel so different. That’s not to say they’re any less funny than they were originally of course. Both characters are perfect ways to highlight OiNK’s uniqueness.

As you can see the strips are printed sideways which makes more sense when you think about how much smaller these pages are than the comic’s; if they’d been printed normally they’d be far too small to enjoy properly. With 100 pages the books aren’t thick enough for this to get in the way of the strips and their middle panels are still easily read, even spaced out a little more when the art allows. This makes for a decidedly different reading experience, which let’s face it suits the OiNK perfectly.

Alongside Burp and Horace you’ll find a selection of other regulars such as Tom Thug, Weedy Willy, Cowpat County, Zootown, Hugo the Hungry Hippo, even the likes of Lashy the Wonder Pig and a Butcher Watch are included. Also here are some others who never made it past the first year of the comic, like Maggie Pie, Pete’s Pup and Kid Gangster. There are also a selection of one-offs like Jeremy’s excellent Curse of the Mummy and Mrs Warsaw-Pact which I found so funny back in #13 and #10 respectively. Absolute classics!

As you can see from these photos of one-off Scruff of the Track and a Cowpat County the reproduction is superb even on this very different paper, all of the intricate details of Andy Roper’s and Davy Francis’ artwork still as crisp as they were on OiNK’s much larger glossy pages. It’s great to see things like Scruff here too, especially for readers who had come to OiNK much later and could use these books to catch up on some of what they missed. I expected these to be made up solely of the regulars still in the comic at the time of publication, so I’m glad to see I was wrong.

Below you can see the smaller strips look just as good with anything between two and four of them fitting in when spread across this format. Some of my favourites from the whole run are here too such as Henry the Wonder Dog by Davey Jones and Ian Knox’s Roger Rental He’s Completely Mental, who I’ve been really missing from the comic for a while now. The regulars also have a chance to share this space, their half-page entries sitting alongside their larger strips elsewhere, as you can see in two from Lew Stringer here.

When OiNK was printed on gloss paper (up to #35) greyscale colouring was something unique for us to enjoy, with other humour comics printed on newsprint of much lesser quality they were unable to produce the same result. Even when it changed to matt paper initially it was of a good enough stock for artists such as Lew to continue with this style (although it did stop when the comic went weekly for a while due to the paper). Pete and his Pimple above may not look quite as good as they did originally but I don’t think it looks bad at all for this paper.

So where did all those criticisms of the reproductions come from? There are some examples of strips losing detail in the transition to these books, although across the combined total of 116 only three strips suffer from this. One is below and unfortunately it’s a really rather good Burp strip. I’m not sure how this was okay for the publishers, maybe it just slipped through by accident, but to write off these books because of three such instances is just silly.

It’s great to see Willy here too in some of his earliest adventures back when he was guaranteed to pop up in every issue. His earliest pages were definitely among his strongest (not an adjective Willy was used to) and it’s been great to see him back on form these past few months in the read through ever since the second Holiday Special. Reading those and his starring role in these books, it’s clear he was a good choice to make the transfer to Buster later in the year.

Some other pages I was very happy to see reprinted were an early Tom Paterson contribution when it was still a possibility he could’ve been a regular cartoonist for Uncle Pigg, there are a few Christmassy strips which made me very happy indeed including a classic entry from The Sekret Diary ov Hadrian Vile, it was great to see Pete’s Pup again from the late Jim Needle, a character who really should’ve stayed around, and the first appearance of Tom’s Toe poking fun at conventional comics still grabs your attention thanks to his cartoonist being none other than John Geering!

Meet Mister Cheese by Tom Paterson
Hadrian Vile written by Mark Rodgers, drawn by Ian Jackson
Pete’s Pup by Jim Needle
Tom’s Toe written by Tony Husband, drawn by John Geering

These books appear on eBay quite regularly for a few quid each and for anyone who wants to relive some of their favourite childhood comics but doesn’t know which issues to choose from, or who likes the fact they can do so while storing them easily on a book shelf, these are a must. Unfortunately, there would be no more volumes in the series. “I don’t think we had any concrete plans to produce any more Crackling Tales books,” Patrick says. “That would have been dependent on how the first couple sold. But by the time that information might have come through, OiNK was probably history!”

Sadly that was most likely the case. I doubt these got much of a promotional push by Fleetway by this late stage in OiNK’s lifetime, especially seeing as how it had basically been rebooted as a monthly ‘magazine’ for teenagers by now. As it stands though, these are excellent additions to anyone’s OiNK collection, or even for your book collection as a great round up of OiNK’s crackling sense of humour.

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OiNK! #64: WAKA-WAKA-WiT

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The second of our monthly OiNKs brings a surprise cover star in the shape of Police Vet, a character who had appeared before in The OiNK! Book 1988 in a funny take on 70s police dramas, with a pre-Ace Ventura slant of an officer who only investigates missing pets etc. While it’s easy for us to look back on the 80s and have a well meaning giggle, here we have the 80s and its excesses taking the hand out of the decade that preceded them. So it’s a retro look at a different retro time and I think it’s great fun.

On the inside cover is the most blatant example of how OiNK had been rebooted for an older teen audience. Mark Rodgers’ script for the latest Rotten Rhymes completely baffled me at the time. I was only ten-years-old and firmly inside the original target bracket for the comic. Reading this now, as funny as it is it would suit another publication more, inside OiNK it just feels out of place. I know that’s the way the comic was heading but it’s jarring after 63 issues of hilarious children’s comics. They had been suitable for all but now this was aimed way over the heads of the loyal fans who’d been pig pals since the start, for the first time excluding a part of the audience.

It reads like a cross between Austin Powers and Ace Ventura which is quite the feat when neither existed yet, with a liberal sprinkling of Starsky and Hutch thrown in for good measure

The rest off the issue is more like the OiNK we knew and loved. The main event is the six-page Police Vet story written by Mark and drawn by cover artist Eric ‘Wilkie’ Wilkinson. Beginning with its own version of a Shaft-like theme tune we soon shift to some pretty awful (read: funny) puns as our hero gets his assignment. This reads like a complete strip and not a serial originally meant for several weeklies pasted together. The monthlies will have a mixture of these kinds of larger strips (edited serials and tailor-made). This could also have been made for a future special or annual and brought forward for the new format. As such it changes the pacing of this particular story and is all the better for it.

It reads like a cross between Austin Powers and the aforementioned Jim Carrey movies which is quite the feat when neither existed yet, with a liberal sprinkling of Starsky and Hutch thrown in for good measure, particularly in Police Vet’s nonchalance of being in an exciting car chase. The best bit for me is how he deduces Foxy isn’t a real woman because she was too much of a bad stereotype, only for the culprit to be the most stereotypical French person imaginable. Brilliance.

We even have an example of the 70s laughing at the fashion of the 80s! It’s a shame we never got to see the character return, as after this he’d hang up his platforms for good. Maybe it was for the best before the joke wore thin. To perk me up from knowing that was the end of Police Vet is Misplaced in Space on the very next page with a very surprising special guest artist, following the likes of Dave Gibbons in #49 and Kevin O’Neill in the first special and book. Pencilling Davy Francis’ script here is none other than John McCrea (Hitman, The Boys: Herogasm, 2000AD).

Another local (to me) talent like Davy and OiNK’s Ian Knox, John was born in Belfast and good pals with Davy, who approached him about contributing to the comic. Renowned for his 2000AD strips in particular his body of work is quite staggering and in 1988 he added a page of OiNK to that list. Written and then inked by Davy, John brings a unique look to the strip. Especially unique because he didn’t normally do humour comics work. What a treat to see these two completely different talents combine their styles inside my favourite comic. OiNK really was one of a kind.

I have a vague recollection of news bulletins in the 80s being filled with something every night that seemed to unite mainland Britain in anger, and which Spitting Image took great delight in poking fun at. It didn’t affect the populace of Northern Ireland but that didn’t stop me from knowing just enough to enjoy this next piece written by Howard Osborn. I am of course talking about the Poll Tax. OiNK taking its role as a children’s comic very seriously for a moment here to educate us on the latest piece of legislation.

As I mentioned in the preview for this issue there’s a page in here that would end up being read out in the House of Commons. No piggy prizes for guessing correctly this was it. OiNK would actually tell its readers about this in a future issue so we’ll check back in on what happened when we get there. I wonder what Howard thought of that! It feels very current too, especially the digs it takes with points five, six, seven and the final sentence. Unfortunately some things just don’t change, eh?

A couple of quick Lew Stringer highlights next. A quite monumental moment was approaching for Tom Thug, something that had never happened before in children’s funny comics. Reminding me somewhat of how The Sekret Diary ov Hadrian Vile saw his mum go through an actual pregnancy before his new baby sister appeared in the story, Tom would actually leave school and go out into the adult world. But he still has to finish his final year of course. Then in Pete and his Pimple, with the Zitbusters from #41 back a lucky reader got to see themselves as the person who saves the day! Sort of. Well, basically how Lew imagined they might look anyway.

Tom Thug and Pete and his Pimple by Lew Stringer

This issue leans more towards the text-heavy pages than normal and there are more examples of the partnership that seems to have blossomed between young writer Charlie Brooker and the unique art of Steve Gibson on these pages, specifically Doctor Jonathan Swiller’s Home Health Check-Up. The character is a parody of Dr Jonathan Miller, a physician who also happened to be a director, author and actor, and was well known in the 1980s.

The following self-diagnosis test asks the readers to answer honestly so they can get a free and easy assessment of their overall health. With only eight questions in total, to get the thorough diagnosis we’re expecting surely these questions will really probe deep, right? Not quite, no. Starting with the insanely easy and making its way to the ludicrous in no time at all, this is genuinely very funny and, even though I never knew the person this was based on, I remember finding it just as funny as a child. Sometimes the silliest ideas just work.

Charlie’s work as both cartoonist and writer in OiNK is a highlight of the whole run for me. He contributed a lot for still being at school, appearing on no less than five pages out of the 42 pages of new content here (#6’s Watery Down and two of the OiNK Superstar Posters are reprinted). Speaking previously with co-editors Patrick Gallagher and Tony Husband on separate occasions both praised Charlie’s work, remembering how the amount of his contributions kept rising, so impressed were they with what he was producing.

Before I show you a handful of the issue’s great mini-strips we’re off to the sunny climes of the Bahamas once more after we visited there in #61 for the GBH Desert Island Survival Kit. Clearly co-editor Mark Rodgers, his partner Helen Jones and writer Graham Exton felt the gorgeous setting and opportunities it provided were ripe for more than one OiNK moment. This issue we find ourselves on a golden beach (albeit in black and white) as bored Robina finally finds what’s been missing in her life in Castaway, a “Heart-Wrenching Photo-Story”.

I think this is all the funnier knowing now that’s real-life partners Helen and Mark. Playing on the expectations of those typical love photo-stories found in women’s weekly magazines (which have been a target since the very beginning of OiNK) I love how Helen’s acting is deemed to need a large arrow telling the reader what she’s portraying, plus her goofy look in the panel below. This must’ve been so much fun to produce.

The characters of When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth sign off with one of their best entries

While the issue has its fair share of text-heavy pages and the like it’s also got a particularly good selection of mini-strips sprinkled throughout. Below are the best of the crop. A recent addition to the regular OiNK team that’s becoming just as prolific as Charlie is Kev F Sutherland whose Rotten Rhymes version of Polly Put the Kettle On is classic OiNK. Marc Riley’s Harry the Head is still in mini-strip form from the weeklies and appears to be staying that way with this acknowledgement of the new look.

Davy Francis’ Doctor Mad-Starkraving (a spin-off from Davy’s Greedy Gorb) tells a great gag that in hindsight is actually the most obvious time travel joke! It’s just that no one had thought it up yet. An instant classic gag from Davy then. Finally, Marc’s zany characters in When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth make their final appearance in a new strip (they’d return next issue but as a reprint before disappearing) and they sign off with one of their best entries.

There’s one more page I’ll show in a special post next week. It’s a competition to win a couple of books of particular interest to pig pals and I’ve been able to procure them in time to have a closer look at, so watch out for that post.

While OiNK would take another issue or two to truly settle into its new guise this issue has still been a belter. As more and more gets created with the new look in mind we’d see bigger and better strips from all of our favourites and some truly memorable moments that are among the very best OiNK produced. The Next Issue promo in this issue elicited real excitement too when it signalled the return of The Street-Hogs at last in ‘Malice in Underland!’ You’ll see that promo in the preview post on Thursday 13th July 2023, swiftly followed by the review of #65 itself on Sunday 16th. 

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OiNK! #63: NEW PiG ON THE BLOCK

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That looks a bit different, doesn’t it? While OiNK did change a little for the weeklies this was a complete transformation. As I said previously I liked the funky new logo as a kid but nowadays I already miss the original. Note how it promotes itself as a “magazine” now too. It’s thicker, glossy (again) and monthly, but its contents is that of a pure comic. Mad and Cracked were marketed as magazines and you may spot a little in-joke there on the cover, but this was a rebranding based solely on its new physical form. There was no such thing as monthly children’s humour comics at the time.

Lew Stringer made a good point about the younger audience not having the patience to wait a month between issues

Inside it was our OiNK but ramped up to Holiday Special levels. 48 pages in total and back to the paper it was printed on for its first 35 issues. As such it feels very special when you first get your trotters on it. Later monthlies would benefit from content created specifically for the format (just like the weeklies eventually did), for now it feels a bit like two weeklies stapled together and with good reason, the change had happened suddenly. Over the next six months you’ll spot a shift, not only in the size of some of the strips but also their tone, as OiNK repositioned itself into the teen market, which I feel was a mistake as I mentioned back in #61‘s review.

When discussing these last six issues with Lew Stringer he made a good point about the younger audience not having the patience to wait a month between issues. I did because I had a regular order and other comics to fill the gaps by this stage. However, at such a young age that long wait was the reason I never collected new comics such as Death’s Head even though I enjoyed the first issue, because by the time the next one came along my attention span had forgotten all about it! This could’ve contributed to OiNK’s sales falling. But we’ll get to that later, there are six big porkers to enjoy first. Let’s begin this one with Cowpat County.

Davy Francis’ strip of “The Everyday Lives of Country Folk” was the very first to appear in OiNK, in the preview issue no less. A fan favourite, it was strange to learn it was only a regular for 14 issues before appearing sporadically from then on. This is actually the penultimate outing for this daft lot. They’ll be missed but Davy’s contributions will continue in different forms, no fear.

This was possibly intended to sit comfortably both on the regular comics shelves and those higher ones W.H.Smith had banished it to

Elsewhere Grunts is renamed simply ‘OiNK’s Piggin’ Crazy Readers’ and Uncle Pigg introduces us to the ‘new’ publication and the characters within, even though many are long-established strips. This was clearly intended as a kind of reboot for the comic for a different audience than originally intended, possibly to sit comfortably both on the regular comics shelves (as it did in my newsagent) and those higher ones W.H.Smith had already banished it to.

Something the teen audience would definitely have appreciated (or rather, not appreciated) was acne. Pete and his Pimple had always been a popular addition ever since he first appeared up in #15. Here we’re treated to two strips for Lew Stringer’s character, originally intended for #63 and #64. We kick off (no pun intended) with this memorable one about the flying naked rugby players. It’s silly and immature fun and we loved it! Heck, I still do, it’s just so ludicrous (or Lewdicrous I should say).

Did you spot (no pun intended) the little mention of Cowpat County’s cartoonist there?

As you can see in the second strip the ongoing tale of Pete and Spotless Suzie comes to an early close. While she was perfectly fine with his huge zit (due to her Y.T.S. course on compost analysis) she also understood Pete’s desire to see the back of it and would help out with the reader suggestions coming in thick and fast. After all of the elaborate suggestions comes a very simple one from Glasgow’s Stephen Donnelly. Bribery. We even end up with a brand new strip.

I was surprised to see just how much of a thug Pete turns into so quickly, but I did enjoy seeing Lew depict himself throughout and what pig pal doesn’t want to get their hands on some Uncle Pigg notes? Of course Pete gets his comeuppance and loses everything in the end. A harsh lesson for young Mr. Throb but a necessary and ultimately funny one. There’s a lesson for the readers here too about hubris when we overcome challenges in our lives that others still face, of not pulling the ladder up behind us so to speak, all told through humour and it’s just as relevant today.

Written by Charlie Brooker and (I’m going to assume) assembled by co-editor Patrick Gallagher, this GBH Video Madvertisement not only fits their usual M.O. perfectly, it also reminds me of all the awful low-budget knock-off movies that pop up when big blockbusters are released. I’ve seen some of those horrible Transformers and War of the Worlds copies on the SciFi Channel and these GBH ones sound better than all of them! Speaking of Transformers, The Transformoids make another appearance in this issue but it’s not a sequel to the brilliant strip in #3, it is the strip from #3.

Yes, the dreaded reprints have begun. By 1989 and into the early 90s some of my other comics would also begin doing this, although OiNK was the first as far as I was concerned. At the time I wasn’t aware until a later monthly issue, as the ones used here were from before I discovered the comic, but unfortunately the much hyped ‘bigger’ OiNK wasn’t all new material despite it being just two-years-old. It’s only six pages (Transformoids and the first two Superstar Posters) but you can’t help feel a bit cheated. Within the next year or so reprints became a regular thing across the UK comics market.

Fleetway published two very lucrative fortnightly comics based solely around the idea of reprints

As the UK market became saturated sales of individual titles fell (much like the videogame crash earlier in the decade) so cutbacks had to be made and “classic” tales would return to fill out page counts for cheap. Fleetway even published two very lucrative fortnightly comics based solely around the idea, namely Big Comic Fortnightly and Funny Fortnightly, which Marvel UK then copied with its Marvel Bumper Comic. While reprints were great for newer readers (I personally liked catching up on older Transformers stories I’d missed, for example) it was a sticking point for long-time fans and I could see why.

OiNK had always been a little more expensive than its contemporaries, a result of the earlier gloss paper, its fortnightly schedule (thus less issues to make money on) and being produced independently. Now, with the return of higher quality paper and a much higher page count a few reprints would help keep costs manageable without increasing the cover price even higher. It still contained 42 pages of all new material, including many choice highlights such as these below.

Neighbours of the Dallasenders Hotel
Tom Thug by Lew Stringer
Batbottom + Bobbins by an unknown dynamic duo
Arnold Schwarzenhogger by Simon Thorp

Dallasenders Motel had been a story in #23 made up of six photo-mini-strips, but this one (renamed ‘Neighbours of the Dallasenders Motel’) was brand new, made up of seven full-page episodes originally intended to run across multiple weekly issues. Elsewhere, Tom Thug’s constant truancy comes to an end and he faces a reading and comprehension test, Batbottom and Bobbins continue their takeover of Frank’s page and cover star Arnold Schwarzenhogger gave us his Guide to [Ham] Acting.

Back in 1988 I was so excited to see the next strip, the return at last of The Sekret Diary ov Hadrian Vile Aged 8 5/8 (yearƨ). The last entry of his diary was back in #50, then his mini-series about television took over the back pages from #56 to #61. As a child I’d always assumed the diary would return and this appeared to be the case here. Unfortunately not. No more diaries would appear in the regular comic, just the one in The OiNK! Book 1989 released later in the year. Despite that, this issue’s strip shows the potential for future storylines involving his baby sister who we first met in #37.

While Ian Jackson‘s art is as brilliantly funny as ever (so is Mark Rodgers‘ script), the typed sentences aren’t as chaotic as usual, making me think this part of the page was finished in a bit of a hurry. I’d guess this strip was originally planned for the weeklies when the diary was due to return after the aforementioned Vidiots series but, as previously mentioned by Patrick Gallagher, Ian was now busy on work outside of OiNK.

This suggests the diary wasn’t coming back for quite some time, but instead of holding this completed page of artwork back indefinitely it may have been quickly finished off to help make up the larger page count. It’s still a delight to have him back even if it is a one-off. It just makes the issue that little bit more special.

Ed McHenry’s gorgeous full-page mini-strips (as I called them) were a delight in the later weekly issues and we’ve two here. One is actually a Wally of the West but I found this one funnier. As someone who used to jog in Saturday morning Park Runs where there were always those in the crowd who took the fun activity far too seriously, I found this particularly funny.

Kev F Sutherland’s contributions to the monthly OiNKs is staggering, quickly becoming one of the comic’s most prolific cartoonists. His Meanwhile… series was always a highlight and this issue’s two entries are no exception. Sometimes it’s the simplest ideas, the silliest little strips, the best puns that stick in our memories the most. Meanwhile, At The Fishmarket… checks all of those boxes.

There are many common misconceptions about OiNK. Two of the most prolific being it was a children’s version of Viz and that it was cancelled because of the Janice & John strip, which was actually published all the way back in #7. Another is that it went monthly because it was on its way out, that it was an admission from Fleetway the comic was failing. Co-editor Patrick previously confirmed for the blog, “I think it was Fleetway‘s intention to go monthly as it had been to go weekly, from what I can remember, which I didn’t mind – though I can’t remember at the time thinking the writing was on the wall. I think sales were down across the board but OiNK’s figures weren’t the worst – it was the other comic’s figures that dragged it down.”

There was definitely no intention to cancel the comic at this stage

The survey question in #54 which asked readers if they wanted it to go monthly was genuine, to see if the majority were behind the idea, and as it turned out they were. “I think it was more a case of Fleetway considering going monthly and in the meantime checking the audiences’ opinions, which may have had some sway,” Patrick continued in that issue’s review. He has elaborated further since, saying, “However, if something else financially detrimental occurred within Fleetway, unconnected to OiNK, that alone may have forced the decision to go monthly if it saved money – so that’s the only scenario I could imagine where OiNK might have gone monthly ‘regardless’. Hope that makes sense – it wasn’t always exactly black and white!”

Over the course of the years some fans have since written off the monthlies in the same way some complained about the weeklies. (Some people just don’t like change, which can be understandable.) I hope I’ve been able to correct these assumptions and show the weekly comic settled into its format and became the excellent OiNK we’d all known and loved. Let’s see what the monthlies have in store for us over the next five months. There was definitely no intention to cancel the comic at this stage, merely reboot it as I mentioned above. It’ll be interesting to see it develop and settle into its third format now. The next issue’s review isn’t until Sunday 18th June 2023, we’ll find out then if it’s worth the wait!

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OiNK! #62: HELLO TO THE GOODBYES

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For the last time in the regular comic let’s take a look at that classic logo.

Looking a lot like the cover to Shoot! magazine or Roy of the Rovers comic, probably deliberately spoofing them, comes our last weekly OiNK and this front page starring Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins by Tony Husband. Inside, Horace’s strip would run to a whopping four pages in our final 24-page issue, rounding up his football drama with a happy ending and the promise of “Great new adventures of the ugly boy wonder in OiNK! Monthly”. Yep, we’ve reached that time in OiNK’s real time read through.

There’s no indication on the cover of any “great news for all readers” inside, although Uncle Pigg does hint that there’s something big, fat and glossy coming up and, if readers hadn’t already scanned through the comic to the back page they’d have assumed he just meant something along the lines of another Holiday Special. In fact, if readers did read the comic from beginning to end without looking at the rear page that final panel in Horace’s strip may have made for quite the shock.

Back to the rest of the issue for now though and our final regular Burp (sounds like something we’d see our doctors about.)

As good as ever and that rat-like creature in the final panel had me in stitches reading this today, however as the final Burp I think last week’s reads better, what with it being a double-page strip and leaving him (and all of us) stranded in the 50s and having to live life out to the 80s again. (Maybe it was created as the last one?) Yes, Burp and his cartoonist Jeremy Banx do return with a mammoth story in The OiNK! Book 1989 but that would’ve been created long before this point, so as far as Jeremy was concerned this was his final OiNK page.

As a child it sounded like we were essentially going to get a huge Holiday Special every single month!

I asked co-editor Patrick Gallagher about Jeremy’s absence from the monthlies and Ian Jackson’s reduced contributions by this stage too. “Ian and Jeremy were also very busy on their other work outside of OiNK and since we had a healthy stockpile of other artists’ material building up, we were never short to allow them a break,” he told me. “Also, at that time, we had no idea that OiNK was going to fold, so always expected [Jeremy’s characters] might return later on.”

So long Burp and thank you for all of the laughs Jeremy! As I’ve mentioned before on the blog his Burp strip in the second annual ended up teaching me a thing or two about growing up as I headed towards my teen years. You’ll have to wait until Christmas to find out what that’s all about. For now, from one long-term regular bidding adieu to one of the newer characters also making her final appearance and she’s saved her best for last. It’s Charlie Brooker’s Transmogrifying Tracey.

What’s so brilliant about this for me are the reader voices, especially when one of them questions the gaping plot hole I’d spotted too. This may be Tracey’s final appearance but it wasn’t Charlie’s. Mr. Brooker’s OiNK career would go from strength-to-strength in the months to come, his name popping up on more pages than ever. We definitely have that to look forward to. Being able to transform into anything may sound like Tracey’s strip had limitless potential but Charlie brings her time to an end and we’re left with fond memories of her time in the comic.

Looking over some of the other highlights of the issue you can see how Uncle Pigg’s announcement in Grunts on page two may have had readers thinking something different than what actually happened. GBH takes the marketing slogan of Allison’s bread adverts in the 80s to the extreme and after all the drama of memory loss, stalkers and nuclear monsters Horace (Ugly face) Watkins‘ football serial comes to its conclusion with something even more horrific. Then, Lew Stringer answers a question we really should’ve asked by now.

Grunts compiled by Patrick Gallagher
GBH Health Foods written by Charlie Brooker, drawn by Wilkie
Horace Watkins by Tony Husband
Pete and his Pimple by Lew Stringer

Pete and his Pimple has been with us since #15 but not once have we considered the ramifications of his existence on the wider world.  Sounds very serious, doesn’t it?  Who cares about the clean up, the putrid mess left behind on the streets of Oinktown and the health hazard of having large amounts of greasy, slimy pus all over the pavements? As it turns out Albert Piles cares. He follows Pete around, shovelling up all the pus as Pete dances away spot-free without a care in the world, then he takes it to become glue for holding pages together at… well, I’m sure you can work it out.

There’s no Frank Sidebottom strip or showbiz gossip column this issue, what we get instead is a page I can remember seeing for the very first time 35 years ago. This superb full-page mini-poster of Batbottom and Bobbins (that latter name being his go-to phrase for anything he found to be a bit rubbish) is completely charming and completed using Chris Sievey’s usual felt-tip pens. Oh, I mean, it’s not Chris at all, nor is it Frank and Little Frank, the identities of those responsible for this page are clearly a secret.

Lovely stuff. I love the sheer silliness on display here and not just the main picture. The fact the pin-up being on page 17 is deemed important enough to mention, making sure the reader knows they’re not from Timperley, and the knowingness of the captions on the bottom-left. Frank would of course continue with his crazy, random OiNK pages all the way to the very end. In fact, he’d be the cover star of that fateful, final issue.

One of my favourite additions to the weeklies has been the inclusion of some lovely full-page strips containing no dialogue and very few panels, like large mini-strips if you’ll pardon the contradiction. These started off with co-editor Tony Husband’s very funny series but as the Horace Watkins strip started to take up more space and more of Tony’s time another cartoonist stepped in. That person was Ed McHenry with such creations as Ringo Pig in #50 and of course the return of Eric Plinge seven days ago in #61.

This one has got to be my favourite of Ed’s. It’s a gorgeous page too and beautifully coloured, especially when you see it on the printed page. It has such character in every panel and a genuinely funny surprise. These simple strips became a fixture in the weeklies and I think being in a slightly smaller comic made them stand out all the more. No other humour comic would’ve dedicated such space to what is essentially a quick gag in a 24-page comic.

Of course with double the amount of pages from next issue onwards will we see a plethora of these? Or will we be treated to new and exciting variations of OiNK content that we haven’t seen before? Some of the OiNK team really do take advantage of the larger canvas, as you’ll see in the months ahead. Let’s wrap up this issue first though with a Madvertisement from Kev F Sutherland featuring a jingle that’s used to this day for Fairy Liquid, although not quite like this.

Well here we are at page 24 and the shape of things to come. You’ll remember in #54 Uncle Pigg ran a reader’s survey and the change from next issue came off the back of that. As co-editor Patrick Gallagher told me in that issue’s review, Fleetway were making enquiries about turning OiNK monthly already and the aim of the survey was to see if the readers liked the idea. Clearly they did. As a child this back page did excite me, but then again I always liked ‘new looks’ in my comics and it sounded like we were essentially going to get a huge Holiday Special every single month!

At the time I liked the new logo (just like the original it was also designed by Patrick) but as an adult I do wish they’d kept the one we’d had since the beginning, it had more character to it and felt like it summed up the feel of OiNK more than the new one. But that’s just a bit of a quibble, I’ll leave my opinions about the monthlies until I actually read and review them. I do remember from childhood that after a couple of issues they’d really take advantage of the page count, a bit like how it took a little while for the team to settle into the weeklies.

So Uncle Pigg gets the final word in the final weekly. It’s all change next issue but at least we haven’t got a full month to wait for that huge porker of an issue. Each of the following OiNKs would go on sale on the third Saturday of every month in 1988, beginning in May. This means we’ve only 16 days to wait for a month’s worth of fun! I’ll see you back here for OiNK #63 on Sunday 21st may 2023 for all of those “sophisticated” smelly jokes.

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OiNK! #61: BAHAMAS, BiONiCS, BATS, BALLS, A-WOP-BAM-BOOM

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Another Burp cover only two issues after his previous one? Indeed, and who’s complaining? Not I. This one relates to a special two-page story inside but it’s also notable for another reason. This is both Burp’s and cartoonist Jeremy Banx’s final OiNK cover. Okay, so there are only seven issues left but because it goes monthly we’ve still got OiNKs all the way to October and Jeremy makes his final regular strip contribution next week! So let’s enjoy this one while we can.

If it had stayed as that 32-page fortnightly children’s comic I think it could’ve lasted longer

At the bottom you can see OiNK is officially now a teen comic and I don’t know how I feel about that. As a kid I remember the monthlies felt different, more subversive (not that I knew that word back then) and as an adult I feel a little sad about the fact it was no longer being aimed at those kids still inside the original target range in 1988 (as I was). Maybe a bit of that original OiNK uniqueness and innocence had been lost because of this decision. We’ll see as the remaining issues play out.

Of course, the change in the general age of the audience happened naturally. The team aimed their comic at the eight-to-thirteen-year-old children who weren’t satisfied with other humour comics and it just happened to attract a wider range of people. But personally I think it should’ve stayed as it was, it was already being enjoyed by older readers anyway, it didn’t need to make changes to try to appeal to them. If it had stayed as that 32-page fortnightly children’s comic I think it could’ve lasted longer. Let’s enjoy what we have though, beginning with a Pete and his Pimple strip I promised to include.

A couple of issues ago I mentioned a particularly icky plop-based pimple solution proposed by a reader. As a child they were always funny little things to have around the comic, however as an adult I can’t help but focus on what they actually are(!), especially when they’re sweating all over Pete’s pimple. I remember this one the most for the plops’ social club and how all of the little piles of poo on our streets (no one lifted them back then) were just friends hanging out. Strangely, the plops seemed to be one aspect of OiNK the comic’s overactive critics never mentioned. 

Anyway, from one memorable strip to a very memorable Madvertisement from GBH and possibly Simon Thorp’s best spoof movie poster, although it’s a close call between this and his Butcher Busters from #40. Back in 1988 only the first ’18’-certificate RoboCop movie had been released in the franchise so the young readers technically couldn’t have seen it (we had) but that didn’t stop Simon from creating RoboChop. Not only is it a brilliant depiction but I’ve never seen so many imaginative piggy puns on one page.

Years back a pig pal showed everyone on the OiNK Comic Facebook group a photo of this framed and up on the wall in their home. Apparently their dad had known it was their favourite and tracked down a copy of the issue in order to surprise them with it framed as a gift. Unfortunately it appears that person has left the social media platform because the image is no longer there. But the story shows how highly regarded Simon’s work for OiNK was, and still is.

OiNK’s multinational corporation also takes over the middle pages with The GBH Desert Island Survival Kit and they’ve gone on location to the Bahamas to shoot it, so Uncle Pigg must be doing very well indeed. In reality writer Graham Exton lived there (still does), sending scripts by fax I would assume and co-editor Mark Rodgers and his partner Helen Jones were out visiting him when they decided Helen would take a bunch of silly photographs. The end result is hilarious.

Watch where you’re going on that GBH Emergency Portable Bulldozer, Mark! That poor dog! Over on the other page you’ll see Ron “Machete” McHetty. A few years back I asked Graham who that was because I didn’t yet know what he looked like and wanted to be sure. He told me they were very lucky to have got the dashingly handsome good looks of Michael Fassbender to pose for that photo. I think it’s safe to say we now know what the “dashingly handsome” Graham Exton looks like.

Imagine having this amount of fun in the Bahamas as your job!

Imagine having this amount of fun as your job. Actually, I’ll reword that. Imagine having this amount of fun in the Bahamas as your job! This translates into a Madvertisement that’s a lot of fun to read, my favourite bits being the non-camouflage gear and the ‘10% discount’ banner which reminds me of many offers we can come across online these days. Always read the small print. This is by far my favourite part of this issue but there are a lot of other highlights backing it up.

Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins’ spoof football drama ends on a romantic cliffhanger and Rotten Rhymes’ take on Goosey Goose Gander has the character of the title meeting a different kind of old man than the original, with a somewhat different ending to boot. There’s only one Sekret Diary of Hadrian Vile strip in the monthlies (probably made for the weeklies but left out due to space) then one more in The OiNK! Book 1989 which would’ve been finished months before publication. As such, this issue’s final instalment of Vidiots – or Hadrian Vile’s Interleckshual guide to Tellyvision was actually the last page of Hadrian’s to be created.

Horace Watkins by Tony Husband
Rotten Rhymes by Kev F Sutherland
Hadrian Vile drawn by Ian Jackson

As you can see he can’t even face looking at us for fear of shedding a tear.

With next week’s OiNK being Jeremy Banx’s last regular issue I will of course be showing you the Burp strip so I hadn’t intended to do so this week. That is, until I read it. It was so good there was no way I could leave it out. As you can gather from the cover Burp travels back to the 1950s à la Marty McFly because in his research into pleasing us humans he’s discovered many in the 80s would like to go back to that time. There’s a strong hint about what’s to come when he names his time travelling device ‘The Fools’-Paradise-O-Tron’.

Cue the usual classic cars on the roads and the classic films showing in the cinemas, the kind of representation we were used to in movies such as Back to the Future. But then things take a turn. Yes, it’s a silly strip in a children’s comic but it actually makes a great point about nostalgia and people’s rose-tinted glasses colouring their memories of “the good old days”. This reads particularly well (and is particularly funny) today when it seems more folks than ever are impetuously clamouring for some mythical time gone by. 

You know you’re in for a special treat when you see Burp taking up two pages, so imagine my glee when I opened the second OiNK annual on Christmas Day 1988 and found an eight-page Burp inside. Yes, eight pages! If you’re reading this at the time of writing you’ve got eight months to wait to see it, but then again so do I. I have complete faith it’ll be worth the wait. For now we’ve only the one Jeremy Banx strip to fill that gap and that’ll be in seven days. So we’d better make sure we don’t miss the next issue, hadn’t we?

Indeed. In steps co-editor Patrick Gallagher with his final newsagent reservation coupon. I remember the next issue would finish with a back page promotion for the first monthly in much the same way as #44 did when OiNK went weekly. So The Absent-Minded Pistol Packer is the last of these. Who’d have thought a book of Victorian illustrations and the necessity to have a reservation coupon in your comic could’ve come together to produce such a fun series? Only in OiNK.

I usually end on these coupons but this week I’m doing something different. First though, as we prepare to wrap things up for another seven days (the last time I’ll be able to say that for OiNK) just a quick reminder that you can pop back here on Friday 5th May 2023 for #62, the end of another era in OiNK’s lifetime. As always I haven’t read it yet but I do know we’ll be saying goodbye to Burp and Jeremy and I’m sure they’ll do it in style. There’s also a Horace Watkins cover and of course news of the final evolution of OiNK. I’ll see you then.

Just to finish on a bit of silliness, The Amazing Eric Plinge was a one-off mini-strip by Ed McHenry way back in #9. Eric was a young kid whose neck took over when his bat and ball stopped working. Later in #27 Davy Francis, a good friend of Ed’s, brought us Derek Blinge – The boy with no brain, clearly a play on Ed’s character. (Check out that issue for the full story behind the two men and their strips.) Now the ball is back in Ed’s court (no pun intended). Below is his original strip from #9 then the full colour page from this issue takes it to another level. See you in seven.

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OiNK! #60: WHEN PiGS FLY

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With the large “Not just for kids!” and the “Powerful Parody and Stinging Satire” captions it’s clear the OiNK team was really leaning into publisher Fleetway’s findings that the comic’s audience was a bit older than the original target audience two years previous. There’s been a slow but steady shift in tone recently with more references to the kind of pop culture young children may not have been clued in on, but which older teenage kids would’ve appreciated.

The late Les ‘Lezz’ Barton’s cover of The Slugs fronts an issue with no strip for the characters inside although they do get a middle-page poster spread. Surprisingly, despite being the cover stars the next issue would contain their last regular appearance. After that they’d disappear from the comic until the second annual and that’s it. Another casualty of the comic’s shift to a new look in just a few weeks’ time. However, there was one character who would only go from strength-to-strength over the remaining months (and beyond).

Only when reading this for the review did I pick up on the more adult humour in the fourth panel and what that frog is actually referring to. But it’s the panel at the end of that row I wanted to mention in particular. Originally, Lew Stringer had the word “Parp!” in large letters exploding from Tom’s backside. This accidental noise is what the woman on the street is reacting to. But when the comic was published it had been removed, a casualty of Fleetway’s censors. But their tinkering just makes this look so much worse!

On one of those rare occasions Fleetway’s scissors were used it had the opposite end result to their intentions

Lew discusses this on his own blog and I agree with what he says there, how removing the fart gag makes it look like Tom is mooning the passerby instead. It was very rare for anything to be changed by OiNK’s publishers, both IPC Magazines and Fleetway understood the humour of the comic and the “precocious” (see the original newspaper marketing leaflets) youngsters who lapped it up. It just so happens on one of those rare occasions their scissors (or rather, patch paper) were used it had the opposite end result to their intentions.

Other details in that panel, such as Tom’s reaction and the woman’s hat blowing off also make more sense and are much funnier when you see the original panel (again, see Lew’s blog post). A strange incident this one, but it wouldn’t be the last time the publishers would edit one of Lew’s strips before OiNK’s finale. You’ll see what I mean in a few months. From one of OiNK’s most prolific artists to another who contributes only her third (and final) piece it’s co-editor Patrick Gallagher’s neighbour, the wonderfully talented illustrator Ann Martin.

Alongside a cheeky little poem Ann’s illustration is both daft and yet gorgeous. It’s such a shame she never returned, or had contributed more frequently to OiNK, but then again Ann’s work wasn’t usually seen in comics so we should feel very lucky indeed to have had her work as part of our silly little periodical. Go and check out my favourite piece of Ann’s, the brilliant Watery Down from way back in #6. Yes, very lucky indeed.

A quick look at some bite-sized highlights from #60 before we move on. On the Grunts page we find out the survey results are being counted. Little did we know what that would mean soon. Also, despite Mad magazine being a key influence for OiNK’s creators/editors they can’t help having a dig. Then Jeremy Banx’s superbly dark humour of Hieronymous Van Hellsong ends, never to be seen again. Van Hellsong may only have appeared in 12 issues but he remains a fan favourite to this day.

Grunts compiled by Patrick Gallagher
Hieronymous Van Hellsong by Jeremy Banx
Transmogrifying Tracey by Charlie Brooker
Lappie written by Tony Husband, drawn by Chas Sinclair

Charlie Brooker’s Transmogrifying Tracey, who could transform into anything, turns into lots of different household objects for her unlucky friend before drawing a line and our Wonder Pig (named Lappie this time) and his owner have a surprise happy ending. His owner doesn’t even fall down a pit! Instead, they enter a sheep herding competition and win trotters down. Have you ever seen a pig so happy with themselves?

While there’s a lot of fun to be had throughout each issue of OiNK there’s been a definite trend in recent weeks of the biggest laughs coming from the final few pages and their collections of mini-strips. Here you’ll find the likes of Ed McHenry, Marc Riley and David Haldane taking up residence with quick one-gag strips that always hit the spot and the latter’s Zootown isn’t about to break that streak anytime soon.

Thankfully Zootown won’t be a casualty of the changes to come and will continue, missing only the occasional issue before popping back up again in specials released after the cancellation. The same can’t be said for Davy Francis’ Cowpat County, which after this issue would only appear in the first two monthlies and that’s it. Thankfully Davy himself would be a permanent fixture, contributing a handful of strips to each issue in the months ahead.

This issue’s Cowpat County is one of my favourites, which is all the more surprising when you realise it doesn’t include Farmer Giles or the familiar farm setting. Instead we’re off to the countryside’s palladium for a spot of culture and Harry Keiths and Norbert. For you youngsters out there this is a reference to children’s TV faves Keith Harris and Orville, staples of television and variety shows across the country in the 80s. They’re not the butt of the joke here though, as always that’s the simpler folk of Cowpat County.

That made me chuckle. We’re already at the end of our sixtieth issue’s review and this one really has flown by. I have to say, even after 16 weekly editions of OiNK I’m still very aware they have eight less pages than all of those that came before. I thought I’d have gotten used to that aspect of them by now. I do love how much better they read compared to those (admittedly still good) early weeklies, but they still feel like rather quick reading experiences.

Yes, I’ve only seven days to wait for each chunk of piggy goodness but I still think I preferred the two-week wait for a meatier read. In that regard I’m looking forward to the big porkers that are the monthly issues, but will I also enjoy the other changes the new format brings with it? We’ll find out soon. In fact, exactly one month from now, because the first monthly (#63) went on sale on 21st May 1988. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, there are still another two weeklies to go so you’d best place your order with your local shop, hadn’t you?

Tellingly (with hindsight) co-editor Patrick Gallagher’s reservation coupon has dropped “every week”, replacing it simply with “regular order”. Don’t fret pig pals, your OiNK reviews may be going monthly but to plug the gaps there are other comics joining the blog over the summer. Don’t miss out, follow along by subscribing via the ‘Follow’ button along the bottom of the screen or get notifications of each new post on the blog’s Instagram or Facebook accounts.

The next OiNK review will be here from Friday 28th April 2023.

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OiNK! #59: PASSiON, PENS & POSTERiORS

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This issue of OiNK attempts to mark a celebratory milestone too early, while marking a sad one that we weren’t aware of at the time. For the former Uncle Pigg tells us OiNK is two-years-old this week. However, not only is there nothing else in the issue to celebrate this but he’s also got his dates wrong. The first birthday issue (#26) marked the end of the first year after the release of the preview issue, rather than the beginning of the second year and the anniversary of #1 as traditionally celebrated in other comics.

This issue we’re now reading went on sale today 35 years ago, 14th April 1988. #1 wasn’t on sale until 3rd May. Even the preview issue wasn’t bundled inside other IPC Magazines comics until 26th April. #60 will be on sale five days before even that anniversary. I’ve no idea why this happened. Anyway, as I said it also marks a sad milestone, namely the last ten regular issues. Of course because it goes monthly those final ten will stretch all the way to October but still, it’s sad to know we’re inching closer to the end. Better show some comedy to lighten things up then, hadn’t I?

Ed McHenry’s mini-strips hit the giggle factor every time, which makes it all the more surprising that it’s taken so long to give him the chance to have regular characters, although his semi-regular puzzles were always fantastic. For example, check out the double-page spread in the recently released (in respect to this issue and the real time read through) second Holiday Special. Saying all this, Igor and the Doctor only appeared in eight issues (and just the one monthly after this) so here’s a look at what they had to offer.

On the next page is the penultimate chapter to Hieronymous Van Hellsong’s prequel tale in which he finds himself in the pits of hell looking for the lost soul of pop singer Raoul McCurtney, who is putting on a concert for the demons. Given this outlandish set up I loved how the solution to getting inside is something so clichéd and simple.  But it’s when they make their escape in the final panels that I can distinctly remember reading this as a child. I’m not going to say a word about it yet, you have to read it for yourselves.

Well now, there we go. After this many issues of OiNK it’s become something of another cliché to say here’s something else you wouldn’t have seen in other humour comics (but I think it just had to be said again). Jeremy Banx in particular liked to push his strips beyond what we’d expect, even for OiNK. They were never unsuitable for children but their humour always felt more grown up when I was a kid. In reality, looking back now it was just that his sense of humour really spoke to the new generation of more savvy, cheeky children of the 1980s.

I can’t remember how this story ends and if it were anyone else I’d struggle to believe they could top this final cliffhanger, but Van Hellsong is in great hands and I for one can’t wait to see the final showdown. At the top of the review I looked forward and mentioned we’re now within the final ten regular editions of the comic, but what’s even worse than that is we’ve only three more with Jeremy in them! We’ll come back to that but for now let’s keep things cheerful with a quick glance at other highlights of the issue.

“Sorry about the nose drips, but the artist has a cold!”

Lew Stringer (Tom Thug)

The aforementioned message from Uncle Pigg is actually drawn by a reader, the one and only time this happened, so kudos to Craig Els of Liverpool. Nigel and Skrat the Two-Headed Rat makes a sudden reappearance, keeping to their regular schedule of popping up every dozen issues or so(!), the age of competition winners was definitely on the increase when you compare who met Frank Sidebottom in this issue to #26 and Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins’ spoof football drama continues with its ridiculously far-fetched kidnapping plot.

Grunts compiled by Patrick Gallagher
Nigel and Skrat by Noel Ford
Frank Sidebottom by Chris Sievey
Horace Watkins by Tony Husband
Tom Thug by Lew Stringer

The life of a freelance cartoonist isn’t as glamorous as some may think, especially when it comes to sick leave, or rather the lack of it. So let’s spare a thought for one of OiNK’s own this week. At the beginning of Tom Thug’s strip there appears to be a green blob randomly drawn on the page with a teaser of “What’s this? Find out later” alongside it. As his page comes to an end it’s revealed his cartoonist, Lew Stringer, was feeling rather poorly at the time, something he slips into the credit at the end of his Pete and his Pimple strip too in an equally funny manner, having a little laugh at his own expense.

Isn’t that just the happiest little shit you ever did see?

Last week Pete met Spotless Suzie, who was the target of a misogynistic idiot harassing her into giving him a snog. Through a series of events this idiot ended up the worse for wear thanks to Pete’s pimple and when Suzie thanked Pete by giving him a kiss his zit burst all over her. But there’s a twist. Suzie is on a Y.T.S. course (do your 80s research, kids) about ‘compost analysis’ so pimple pus was a doddle to handle. Thus, Pete now has his first girlfriend, aww.

However, in previous issues Lovely Lucy was the object of Pete’s unrequited affection. Even though she made it abundantly clear she had no interest in our unlikely hero, ridiculing him in front of people, it becomes clear she’s not the type to take being passed over for anyone else either. Add in Suzie’s own nemesis Harrison (the one mentioned above) and you’ve got the makings of a pair of comic villains.

Isn’t that just the happiest little shit you ever did see in the fifth panel? Another of the plops takes on a starring role in a future Pete and his Pimple strip and from memory it’s because of a somewhat icky pimple solution sent in by a reader! I’m sure you can draw your own ghastly conclusions as to what that may be. It’s one of my faves though, so there’s a good chance you’ll see it in a future review.

Jeremy Banx and Lew have both been rather prolific with the OiNK covers during the weekly stage of the comic, with this issue’s from Jeremy even featuring a cameo from one of Lew’s characters. Better than that, it reunited readers with some of Burp’s internal organ characters we’ve come to know and love, even Kid Kidney. This issue’s Burp strip features some of that glorious wonders-of-the-universe storytelling Jeremy likes to include, beginning with some well-meaning educational moments from the smelly one before it all descends into utter chaos as per usual.

We even get another cameo in the final panel! If you’re not a regular blog reader (why not?) you should scoot off and read #32’s review, followed by #46 and you might understand why that teddy bear popping up makes my day every time. As mentioned above we’re approaching the end of Jeremy Banx’s time with OiNK and that’s just heartbreaking. I don’t think I realised he wasn’t part of the make up of the monthlies, he or Ian Jackson!

This isn’t a slight against either of them; I was very young and being bombarded with so much from others in each bumper monthly, and Burp did come back for an epic story in the second annual later in the year, one which I have very personal, very formative memories of. That’s all I’m saying about that one for now though. Just wait and see.

We’re racing towards the back of this edition of OiNK and a lot of the mini-strips converge on the final few pages including Ed McHenry’s always lovable, always funny Wally of the West. 

Even when OiNK’s strips aren’t being rude or surreal or satirical, even when they could be deemed more ‘traditional’ they hit the funny bone more than any other comic’s strips did for me. Wally’s are the perfect example of this.

We arrive at the end of another issue, the apparent second birthday one at that, although arguably that could be either of the next two, but still we’ve covered two years of the world’s funniest comic on the blog. OiNK has come a long way in this time (as has the blog), it’s constantly evolved and grown, gone from strength-to-strength and yet it feels like no time at all since this all began. We may be only a handful of issues from the end but they are packed with content. It’s going to be a great summer and autumn, believe me.

So with your coupon filled out and handed in you’ll not miss out on any of the fun over the coming months. Just a few weeklies to go. Ultimately the changes to come would lead to the end of an era, but I really enjoyed them as a kid. Will I enjoy them as much now as an adult?

The next issue’s review will be here from Friday 21st April 2023, see you then.

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OiNK! #58: JUDGED TO BE FUNNY

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I have distinct memories of showing this issue of OiNK to some friends of mine a few years after its publication when I’d moved on to grammar school and met some huge 2000AD fans. Their reaction to the cover and the strip inside was one of laughter, naturally. One of them had also collected OiNK, for the others it was something new and they were gutted not only at the fact Judge Pigg wasn’t a regular strip, but also that the comic itself was no longer being produced.

The lack of colour on the cover is a bit of a disappointment. The strip suits being in black and white as it’s a spoof of the earlier days of Judge Dredd when the majority of 2000AD also lacked colour, but I can’t help wonder how much better the cover could’ve looked. Interesting to note the comic is committing to ‘satire’ now too, after writer Graham Exton previously went to lengths to explain OiNK focussed on parody instead of satire and the difference between them . Perhaps this was another sign of the changing age of the audience mentioned in #51.

Steve Gibson is the perfect artist to parody the hard-edged style of classic Judge Dredd, making the joke of the whole thing even more reminiscent of what inspired it. In fact, I’d go so far as to say there’s something quite Brian Bolland about it, like Steve was spoofing that particular Dredd artist. It’s written by Mark Rodgers (of course it would be), someone who had worked for IPC Magazine’s humour comics for many years and who would’ve been very familiar with their stablemate sci-fi comic.

Also, as a regular cat sitter myself and someone who can’t walk past a kitty without trying to befriend them I just love that ending. This is one OiNK strip that’s even more enjoyable to me nowadays than it was when I was a mere ten-years-old. Not just because of the cat though. I think I appreciate the work Steve has put into the style of the strip overall because I’ve read a good bit of Dredd in the intervening years, whereas originally I don’t think I even knew the character.

Frank makes tabloid headlines the butt of his jokes with the actual story being very different to the assumption the headline produces

Since going weekly co-editor Tony Husband has contributed a hybrid full-page/mini-strip to each issue. Containing only two or three panels each but taking up a full page, there’s a chance those unfamiliar with OiNK and the freestyle drawings of Tony might initially think these pages are light on content, maybe even rushed as one friend put it at the time. Not true of course and when each and every one of them produces a good laugh who cares anyway?

Those of us used to two years of Tony’s award-winning style and his Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins strips enjoyed these bold full-page gags every week and they were a defining part of OiNK’s short but memorable 18-issue stint as a weekly comic. Tony also created one of my favourite non-regular characters, the multi-named Wonder Pig who this issue goes by the name Lazzie. They were getting a four-issue run (quickly followed up by one more in the first monthly) and the repetition of the predicament that would befall his owner continued to raise giggles.

Other highlights of #58 include Frank Sidebottom’s Little Bit of Show-biz (sic) Gossip at the bottom of his page. As per usual Frank makes tabloid headlines the butt of his jokes with the actual story being very different to the assumption the headline produces. Also, Hieronymous Van Hellsong is in the pits of hell looking for the soul of singer Raoul McCurtney and it appears even in that dark place there’s always that one person.

Lazzie written by Tony Husband, drawn by Chas Sinclair
Hieronymous Van Hellsong by Jeremy Banx
Frank Sidebottom by Chris Sievey

I’ve mentioned before I’ve been surprised at how infrequently certain characters actually appeared in OiNK, simply because they’d formed such a strong part of my memories of the comic from childhood. Perhaps the very fact some of my favourites weren’t in every issue helped make their appearances all that more memorable and I think this applies to the following series as well, which I’m very surprised to discover had only six episodes.

Charlie Brooker’s The Swinelight Zone popped up in #44 as a one-off strip and then reappeared three weeks ago in #55. It’s been in each issue since as well as the recent Holiday Special but it disappears after this, never to return. I’d thought it was a regular fixture all the way through to the last issue. What a shame, but at least they go out on a high. Quite literally in this case.

One strip which would remain with us until the very end was Kev F Sutherland’s Meanwhile… series. Each had a completely different scenario with nothing to link them other than the title and the cartoonist’s unique sense of humour. Kev would take a seemingly trivial locale or event and create a guaranteed laugh from it in his own unique way, such as ‘Meanwhile at the Fun Fair…’ back in #49. That was a properly funny mini-strip and I’m very happy to see the return of the series for the first time since gets a full page.

There’d be at least one in each of the monthlies and they really were a constant defining highlight of those later issues. The Meanwhile… in this issue is the perfect example of what we could expect so much of. It takes a simple idea, a simple joke that could’ve worked in a smaller capacity and takes it to another level, making it as crazy and as funny as possible before the pay off. So, after Kev’s pun-packed March of the Killer Breakfasts last week comes something completely diffferent.

That was the beauty of the Meanwhile… series; on the surface they were more like a series of one-offs by the same talented cartoonist, every single one felt completely different, yet that idea of taking a joke and getting as much value out of it as possible was key. The example above still pops into my head today whenever I hear someone utter those words, and I have a little chuckle to myself every time.

From strips I thought were regulars but weren’t, to one I thought was a tiny little one-off when it appeared in the previous Christmas issue but then was delighted to see return just a few weeks ago. It’s The Kingdom of Trump. This is another last appearance unfortunately, but then again I didn’t expect more than one in the first place so I’m just happy to see it. This is also the most memorable of the trilogy.

I’d loved to have seen what else Davey could’ve come up with

Davey Jones’ King isn’t the main character in this one but the silliness of his kingdom and all those who dwell within is very much front and centre. Davey’s sense of humour is completely insane; go and have a look at #20’s war spoof Bridge Over the River Septic if you need any more proof of that! He’d later become a hit in the pages of Viz and you can clearly see why in his OiNK work.

From the wooden stick masquerading as a horse to the dragon living in a cave right next to the throne with a polite little doorbell, there’s so much that made me laugh on this half-page. Funniest of all is that silent penultimate panel with that facial expression! The Kingdom of Trump really should’ve been a regular, the three examples we got were so funny, each one better than what came before. I’d loved to have seen what else Davey could’ve come up with.

On that note we come to the end of another review. We of course finish with co-editor Patrick Gallagher’s newsagent reservation coupon as per usual, moving from the already random Great Moments in History to the completely daft Great Moments in the Height of Good Manners (number 76 no less). April is the last month full of weekly issues so make sure to come back next Friday 14th April 2023 for #59 as we inch closer to the next big evolution in the life of OiNK.

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OiNK! #57: ROLL ON EASTER

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This issue’s cover is one of my favourites from all of OiNK’s issues for two reasons. It’s a Jeremy Banx cover featuring Jimmy ’The Cleaver’ Smith, the comic’s villainous butcher baddie in a pool of glistening blood on a splattered background. You wouldn’t have got this in other humour comics, that’s for sure. The second reason is the audacity that the issue’s cover, its selling point on the shelves, states clearly it has absolutely nothing to do with the contents inside. 

This is actually a bit of a sticking point with me as far as some modern American comics go. They can have lovely elaborate covers, yes, but they don’t always relate to the story inside. If this issue of OiNK was released today I’d swear they were taking a shot at those. Inside, it’s also the Easter issue, with Uncle Pigg chowing down on a mountain of chocolate eggs while he cracks (sorry) puns, but apart from Lew Stringer’s two strips no others shell out (sorry again) on eggy scripts. Tom Thug’s title panel also seems to follow the theme from the cover.

The fact the egg (or rather Tom) appears to be asking for “Ralph” or “Hughie” is a great gag; we know exactly what’s happening to the dim-witted one inside and the panel showing us the results is convincingly disgusting! Having once stupidly gone on an amusement ride after eating ice cream and the result of that I almost feel sorry for the dolt. Almost. The limited colours given to the page really help highlight the main plot device (the egg) and the one splash of green makes for a funny moment in itself.

Did you also spot the ‘School Rules’ on the wall? At the time of the comic’s release I could definitely empathise with the kids at Tom’s school with that, finding it very funny in the process. This and Pete’s strip (a highlight is further below) being Easter themed makes the whole issue feel extra special in 2023 too, what with the Easter holidays happening almost at the same time as in 1988. With this quality no wonder Tom carried on for so many years in Buster comic.

This particular issue contains something of Kev F Sutherland’s that I’ve been looking forward to for a long time

Kev F Sutherland first contributed to an issue of OiNK in #38. Having proven himself with that mini-strip his work has finally become a regular fixture and this particular issue contains something of his that I’ve been looking forward to for a long time in this read through, March of the Killer Breakfasts! As a kid I loved my various cereals and their advertisements on TV promising toys and surprises. I can understand why things have changed (for the better) today, but this next strip takes me back to that time and laughing at all of the references to those adverts, never mind the onslaught of over-the-top puns.

There’s something quite genius right there on page one, when Kev perfectly lays down two future jokes when he names his protagonist. To the reader it’s initially just a funny name tied in with the cereal theme, but later two perfectly timed puns in the same caption tell us why ‘Dr Brek Sugar’ was really given that name. This is one of Kev’s best and one of the funniest strips in OiNK. Out of all of his contributions I think it’s tied for first place with his time travelling professors we’ll meet in a monthly later in the year. It’s comedic genius and it’s inside a children’s comic.

Right from the start OiNK wanted to give a chance to young, new talent in the world of children’s comics and hired accordingly. This commitment rubbed some long-time professionals up the wrong way but the comic stuck to its guns. Now, with Kev centre stage in each issue and the likes of young Charlie Brooker producing so much material, OiNK had evolved a lot since its early days and it makes me wonder what other new talent it could’ve discovered if it had continued for longer than the two-and-a-half years it ran for.

Pete and his Pimple by Lew Stringer
Laffie written by Tony Husband, drawn by Chas Sinclair
Burp by Jeremy Banx

There’s the Pete and his Pimple strip I mentioned earlier, when Pete eats too many Easter Eggs and discovers his pimple’s pus takes like delicious milk chocolate. Of course it runs out just as he tries to impress Lovely Lucy. The Wonder Pig (this time called Laffie) is back in the first of a series of weekly adventures with the usual predicament, and then on Mercury a rather familiar looking royal family have summoned Burp to help with the sweltering heat on the first planet next to the sun. This leads nicely on to one of two GBH Madvertisements in this issue.

Are you sick and tired of your job? Don’t you just wish you had the ability to leave it, perhaps by winning the lottery and not needing the money anymore? Well GBH has just the thing for you. Their special offer of two free (not free) books will teach you everything you need to know to do just that. In fact, all you need is a lot of privilege and being born into the right family. Surely this isn’t something you can teach, right? Well that kind of detail never stopped these gangsters from trying to hock their latest scam.

While OiNK’s humour for the most part has not aged, when it spoofs celebrities of the 80s it’s inevitable that kids reading it today (as some blog readers have told me their own kids do) may not appreciate those particular strips as much as us who grew up with them. This particular Madvertisement has aged but for a whole other reason, however let’s not shut down the whole country again and just move on, shall we? I do like Steve Gibson’s very Spitting Image-esque drawings too.

A couple of mini-strips before we round off this week’s review and Ed McHenry’s Wally of the West continues to entertain. This week it’s not Wally himself that’s acting on the silly side, he’s actually the innocent victim of someone else’s ridiculousness. Then Marc Riley’s Doctor Mooney He’s Completely Looney has two scriptwriters this week, Marc himself and Michael Peek. It’s silly, gross-out humour and one which made me chuckle because I’m still a big child.

That’s us at the rear end of another issue. Just time to ensure the young readers reserved their copies at their local newsagent’s with co-editor Patrick Gallagher’s usual weekly nonsense in the Great Moments in History coupon. To paraphrase it, I’m hoping the blog is still to all of your tastes and in case you missed it (somehow) make sure you check out the extra review we had this past week for the OiNK! Holiday Special #2! When you’re all caught up make sure you’re back here next week on Friday 7th April 2023 for #58 and have a Happy Easter (even though the next issue will be out by then).

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