On this day back in 1988 the 23rd edition of Marvel UK’s The Real Ghostbusters and the very special 192nd issue of The Transformers and Action Force were unleashed upon the younger members of the public, their covers by Anthony Williams and Stephen Baskerville respectively.
Why was the 192nd Transformers so special? Okay, I’ll admit it was special for me. This was the very first issue of the weekly I bought back at the time after reading that year’s Christmassy Winter Special, although I didn’t get it until the following week alongside #193. As a first issue this one had a fascinating story for young me involving Headmasters disguised as humans and actual human bounty hunters tracking down Autobots. It also featured one of the toys I’d end up with that Christmas, Sizzle, who produced sparks out his rear end… um, I mean out of his exhaust in car mode.
In The Real Ghostbusters there was a massive moment for fans of two of the characters involved. Sort of. Janine finally got a snog off of Egon, which of course was really only part of a haunted dream. Humour comics giant John Geering was also the main artist for the issue, which only added to the overall laughs. Meanwhile, in this week’s checklist the Thundercats comic certainly doesn’t sound like the relaunched comic for a “younger audience”, with what appears to be an epic showdown.
But the two biggest highlights for Marvel UK followers surely had to be the humungous Captain Britain paperback and that premiere issue again. Captain Britain never appealed to me as a kid as I incorrectly saw him as a poor man’s Captain America. In recent years I’ve heard nothing but good things though. His entry also reminds me of those days when it felt like the entire population of the UK only had Nostalgia and Comics to go to for any comics-related events.
Finally for this week’s checklist, and finally in the eyes of fans who had long awaited it, there’s Death’s Head own monthly comic. I know what you’re thinking, didn’t he get this coveted ‘Don’t Miss’ spot last week? Indeed he did, but if anyone deserved it, he did. Or perhaps he ‘advised’ Marvel UK he wanted another week at the top of the league. This made me go and buy it with my pocket money that week (this was my first checklist) but for whatever reason it was months before I read it! The entire run has already been covered on the blog and this first issue was one of the very best of his ten issues.
No adverts this week (none I haven’t already covered anyway) so all that’s left for me to say is if anyone had been lucky enough as a kid to check off all five titles this week they must’ve been very happy indeed!
I really do enjoy this series, a lot of the advertisements featured so far have taken me right back to my youth (which was a long, long time ago now), but I’ll admit the promotional pages contained in this fifth part didn’t result in any purchases or gifts for me in the 80s. That’s not to say they don’t bring back certain memories, though.
In the 80s there was one teeny, tiny little thing that made a huge impact on our daily lives, despite the fact we rarely saw it. From toys to VCRs, from washing machines to the explosion of home computers that entered our homes. It could even be found resting on our wrists. That little, unassuming thing that hid inside more and more of the devices we used was, of course, the microchip.
It’s something that links all of our adverts, too. Beginning with Casio’s watches containing those elaborate stopwatches! Don’t laugh, I remember being very jealous of a friend who had a digital watch that recorded lap times, even though I’d no need for such a feature. Remembering my own basic watches of the time and seeing Michael Knight talk to K.I.T.T. through his, every time I use my smart watch today I feel like I’m living in some sci-fi future.
It’s not only the passage of time and the leaps in technology compared to the 80s that’s making me feel old. I think the fact the next item sounds so absolutely horrific is because I’m now a boring old fart. As a kid I may have gotten about ten minutes of fun out of a keyboard that used sampled sound effects from around the house to produce “music”, but as an adult I can think of nothing worse than this thing.
As it’s nearly Christmas, I’m reminded of a scene in my favourite Christmas movie, Fred Claus. At one point Santa’s brother, who is desperately trying to avoid anything to do with the season, is subjected to a taxi ride with a radio station playing nothing but Jingle Bells with the notes replaced by cat meows and dog barks. It’s horrific! That’s essentially what this keyboard is.
Much better for the kids would’ve been a real keyboard on which they could learn to play actual music and up stepped Yamaha who ran these next two ads over a handful of OiNKs. The Starmakers would’ve appealed because the reason behind it is right there in the name; let’s buy our child this so they can learn to play proper music, become famous and support us later in life. Well, maybe not. But you get my point. I do like the ads though, especially the guitar-shaped one, it’s so very 80s.
I remember a friend of mine in high school was incredibly talented musically. He could literally listen to a tune once or twice and play it back on a piano. He also had two huge Yamaha keyboards in his bedroom and I sat in awe one day as he spent no more then three hours one Saturday afternoon turning the Airwolf theme tune (which wasn’t sampled, he played it from scratch) into a dance track. He should’ve released it!
In the later weekly editions of OiNK an advert appeared for a new computer game and its release confused me at the time. I was aware of The Three Stooges and I think we all saw the odd live-action or animated clip growing up, but I always felt their humour was too old-fashioned for me. So I didn’t understand why they were suddenly appearing in a computer game for us young ‘uns.
I must’ve been an outlier though because apparently the game was very popular, doing well enough to be adapted to consoles such as the GameBoy Advance in the next decade. Throughout the 80s VHS collections of their TV shows were also released and an arcade game was revealed in 1984, followed up with this for home computers. In the game the Stooges had to partake in odd jobs to raise money to save their local orphanage.
Given how outdated I personally felt their humour to be as a young boy I was even more surprised to see some gloriously illustrated strips appear in two issues of OiNK. Co-editor Patrick Gallagher has confirmed these were exclusive to OiNK and were made to tie in with the release of the game. It’s not the comic’s fault I never got on with the Stooges’ humour, a lot of people loved them and I’m sure many enjoyed the strips so I’m glad these little oddities exist, especially as they give us a reason to enjoy some more art from the incredible Malcolm Douglas (aka J.T. Dogg).
The final advert for an electronic piece of entertainment wasn’t an advert in the traditional sense but rather a promo OiNK pieced together to tell us about the free comic sitting inside the pages of Crash magazine on our newsagents’ shelves, as well as the comic’s own computer game of course. You can check out the free comic, the special feature inside that issue of Crash and the game itself in a special section of the blog devoted to the game.
The rise of the microchip and computerised technology in the 80s was a wonder to be a part of, especially at such a young and impressionable age. I’ve stared in wonder at my friend’s very young kids and how quickly they’ve grasped iPads and iPhones and I think I now know how my own parents felt four decades ago!
Right, so we’ve only one more part of this series to go, in which I’ll be rounding up the leftover miscellaneous ads from the pages of OiNK. Look out for that in 2026.
I always enjoyed stories with Janine Melnitz at the centre of them in Marvel UK’s The Real Ghostbusters, but as much as Brian Williamson’s and Cam Smith’s cover excited me when I picked it up from the newsagent as a kid, right now that Art Wetherell and Stephen Baskerville cover to The Transformers and Action Force is the business!
Skullgrin battling his outer Pretender shell? What’s not to enjoy here? A much maligned story by fans took things up a notch and even included the return of my favourite human character (as in, the one I loved to hate), Circuit Breaker. This was also the final issue before I originally became a reader. What an issue to miss out on. Well, that’s been rectified now, that’s what counts. But it wasn’t like The Real Ghostbusters were slacking for ten-year-old me this week.
For the only time in all of Ghostbusters mythos we got the origin story of Slimer thanks to some time travelling on Peter’s part. It seems the green spud was a food-loving (surprise, surprise) King who beheaded jesters who didn’t make him laugh. Although, Egon does say this is only one of his past incarnations, just in case the cartoon ever had their own version (they never did). There’s also a very Fleetway-like strip that sees a baby ghost transmogrifying the team into toddlers, drawn by John Geering no less.
But the big news this week was clear for all to see. The first of many yellow boxes pointing out the big comic for the week was given to the premiere issue of Death’s Head, of course. It was a superb debut, full of action and plenty of comedy. I have a distinct memory of this issue and reading it in bed while off sick from school, such was the impact it made even my greying memory cells remember that. But he wasn’t the only highlight this week 37 years ago.
Action Force had returned to The Transformers and #6 of their own comic was “still on sale” (a space to fill on the checklist?) and I never knew the UK comic had their own exclusive prequel to the cartoon movie. I must check that out sometime. There was also plenty of drama in Dragon’s Claws #6 for Tanya (Dragon’s wife) and Mercy, so it’s unforgivable neither of these brilliant female characters got any mention in the checklist.
As you can see Death’s Head had certainly arrived! The front cover to his first issue made for the perfect advert across much of the publisher’s range and Transformers even ran a little extra half-page featurette. However, judging by the introduction the advert was probably meant to have been the strip version, a brilliant one-page tale you’ll see soon in this series.
Finally, celebrating 25 years of Doctor Who? The series I watched the 60th anniversary specials of a couple of years ago? Oh man, talk about feeling old! I do love writing this blog. I know it’s dedicated to classic comics, but ho boy there can be times when it suddenly hits me just how much time has passed. The fact it’s a Doctor Who advert that’s the culprit this time is not lost on me. I think I need a lie down. See you next week!
One month ago I gave you the chance to grab a rare piece of UK comics history, the preview issue of Fleetway’s Super Naturals comic. A perfect prize for Hallowe’en, wouldn’t you say? Well I hope Ralph Burns of Mossley, Ashton-Under-Lyne enjoyed the atmosphere within its pages over the past few days. Thanks for the photo, Ralph.
Now, with the fake spider webs still up on the front of all those houses on your street how’d you like to get your hands on six comics filled with more ghosts, goblins and things that go bump in the night? Only this time, what if they were served up with a good dose of comedy?
The Real Ghostbusters was a massive hit for Marvel UK when it was first launched in 1988 and its readership grew and grew, quickly becoming their top seller. Taking a different approach to their other licenced comics, it was back-to-back British strips to begin with (with American imports coming later as back-ups), with between three to five stories every issue that leaned heavily towards humour rather than action or adventure. Talent in these issues includes the likes of John Carnell, Andy Lanning, Dan Abnett, Anthony Williams, Dougie Braithwaite, Anthony Larcombe, Louise Cassell, Stephen Baskerville, Lew Stringer and Bambos Georgiou.
These are so enjoyable you’ll be haunted by the memory of missing out on them if you don’t enter the competition. So you have 14 days to scour the blog for the answer to the following question:
Q – Which OiNK cartoonist drew the first handful of Blimey! It’s Slimer strips in The Real Ghostbusters?
When (you think) you’ve got the correct answer you can either email it to me at oink.blog@icloud.com(all emails are deleted after the winner has been selected, I’m not fancy enough to have a newsletter or stuff like that), or use the contact form you can find on the right-hand side of your desktop screen or under this post on mobile. Your entry must be with me by midnight on Friday 14th November 2025.
After this date I’ll contact the winners to ask for their postal address. Unfortunately, due to rising postage costs the competition is only open to UK and Ireland readers. If you win I’ll ask if you could take a photo of you with your prize. You don’t have to, but you do get to show off if you do.
For transparency, these doubles are in great condition apart from a tear on the cover of #41 where a free gift was removed decades ago and the cover to #6 has come away from the spine.
Good luck everyone! Don’t end up with slime on your face, get your entries in now! Then, on Monday 1st December come back for the Big Christmas Competition. What will the big prize be? Well, you know what they say about the season: It Comes But Once A Year.
Have I got a special treat for all you Super Naturals fans this Hallowe’en! One of the highlights of the short-lived comic for me was the incredible art by Alan Langford in stories Mount of Athos and The Curse. Alan brought a mature, horror-centric style that made the battle between good and evil feel truly epic and the evil characters feel properly horrific. His art really showed the potential of the franchise in my eyes.
Finding anyone who worked on the Super Naturals comic has been difficult, finding those who remember doing so has been near-impossible. Even Barrie Tomlinson, while he mentions it in his book Comic Book Hero, wasn’t sure it was definitely his title. Thankfully Alan remembers it well and he very kindly agreed to a chat about contributing to this underappreciated comic. So today, on the 38th anniversary of the premiere issue, here he is!
A full-time member of the Society of Equestrian Artists, today Alan produces truly stunning pieces of art with the graceful, beautiful animals at the centre of each one rather than holographic action figures. Given how elaborate his contemporary work is on his website I was curious how he found working on a licenced comic. In the Adventure Book we saw Sandy James’ character studies which the comic stated other artists used as reference when beginning work. Not so, according to Alan.
“I recall receiving a parcel full of all the Super Naturals models and their extraordinary vehicles to use as references for the comic scripts I had to illustrate”, Alan told me. “Of course they were of invaluable assistance when sketching out my roughs and depicting the finished artwork.” Above are examples of the action figures themselves (in this case, Thunder Bolt) and one example each of the intricate holographic images for Skull and Snakebite that Alan so expertly translated to the page.
As far as this particular licence was concerned, its characters are what stood out to Alan the most. “Well naturally you have to follow the flow of the script,” he explains. “But it was always interesting if the script conjured up imaginative imagery that you felt compelled to draw. I particularly enjoyed depicting Lionheart and his macabre nemesis [Skull], since they were both larger than life, extraordinary characters.”
Indeed, Alan’s depictions of the two in battle were truly memorable. More than any other strip, Mount of Athos gave us a sense of the epic nature of the battle between the supernatural elements of good and evil battling across time, mainly thanks to Alan’s art. The first page in #1 (first strip image above) is all the proof you need. With Alan’s style seemingly leaning more towards horror, especially in his depictions of the evil characters, I was curious if the genre was a favourite of his to draw.
“I’ve long been fascinated by horror since my teenage years when Hammer movies were the regular unmissable attraction at the cinema. Christopher Lee’s portrayal of Dracula was particularly convincing. However, when it came to depicting horror in comics, there was only one real master of the genre and that was the extraordinary fantasy artist Frank Frazetta, whose cover art depicted in oil paint on board illustrated the covers of Eerie and Creepy magazines.”
“A more competent and helpful editor would have been hard to find”
Alan on Barrie Tomlinson
Indeed, regular blog readers may recognise a couple of names there. In Dark Horse International’sDracula comic from 1993 (originally a tie-in with Francis Ford Coppola’s movie), from #4 onwards classic Vampirella stories were pulled from the archives to act as the back up strip. These were originally published in Creepy in the 1960s, and #5’s additional Creepy classic, Werewolf was stunningly illustrated by Frank.
“Beautifully painted,” Alan continues. “Excitingly composed, remarkable masterpieces that drew the eye in an instant and had you searching through your small change to purchase the exciting mags whose cover art was so instantly recognisable. There was no doubt about it, Frazetta was an extraordinary genius, who has left an indelible mark on fantasy and horror art.”
With his influence well and truly established, we headed back into the world of the Super Naturals. The idea behind the Tonka toy licence was that these characters could show up in any place or time throughout history to cause havoc. The Curse was set during a Victorian Christmas, which seems to have been right up Alan’s street with its horse drawn carriages and the like. Alan agrees. “Yes, particularly as you suggested, because I enjoy drawing equestrian scenes. I particularly recall the opening splash page with children climbing into the Hanson cab.”
Above is one of the “extraordinary vehicles” as Alan puts it, expertly inserted into this Victorian Christmas tale. It’s great to finally talk to someone who remembers working on the comic. As such, I just had to ask him if he could clarify if legendary British comics editor Barrie Tomlinson was indeed the editor of Super Naturals and if he recalled the names of anyone else that contributed.
“Yes, Barrie was definitely the editor of Super Naturals. Unfortunately that is the limit of my knowledge [in regards to others who worked on it]. Save to say he was a most obliging and encouraging character. I believe that most of us worked as freelancers under the direction of Barrie, a more competent and helpful editor would have been hard to find. I had worked for him before on a one-off story of Doomlord for the Eagle Summer Special. He has now retired and publishing his memoirs of his long career in comics, most notably his involvement with the famous comic character Roy of the Rovers in his book The Real Roy of the Rovers!”
I hope you’ve enjoyed this rare insight into the making of what was a superb licenced comic, an anthology that deserved to run and run. Of course, when a comic is licenced a lot rides on the popularity of the brand and unfortunately the high quality toys just didn’t take off. The preview, nine regular issues and two specials are well worth tracking down, especially those featuring Alan’s strips. You can find highlights of them all right here on the blog, of course.
Alan’s website is well worth checking out for his watercolour, oil on canvas, and pen and ink work. It’s all stunning! There’s also a book available of his equestrian art. However, even more excitedly for comics fans Alan has produced his very own graphic novel, The Secret of the Aesir. Writing and illustrating it himself over three years, the 132-page book is set in the 8th century in the icy wastes of Scandinavia and tells the story of a long and arduous viking journey and the discovery of an ancient mystery.
I would just like to thank Alan for taking the time to chat with me about his time on Super Naturals, a time which unfortunately for us all was cut short but which still produced incredible artwork for a comic with much potential.
Thanks also to Brett Nutto of the Super Naturals Facebook group (of which I’m a member) for the images of the toys and holograms.
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