No, the OiNK real time read through hasn’t merged into Buster already. On this day back in 1988 another of OiNK’s sister publications (with its Tom Paterson cover) ran a special promotional crossover strip featuring one of our favourite characters. Two weeks previous Tom Thugappeared in Whizzer and Chips trying to force himself into the gangs of either Sid or Shiner to no success. The story continued into OiNK itself and now, while that was still ongoing, another of Lew Stringer’s creations was meeting Buster.
Pete Throb of Pete and his Pimple fame ‘popped’ in to help push OiNK to younger readers. Again, I never knew about this strip at the time. In fact, the first Buster I ever read was the issue when OiNK merged into it, taking Pete, Tom and Weedy Willy with it. That was also the last one I read until all these years later when writing the blog, so this is rather exciting because for me it’s my first brand new Pete strip after 35 years!
On his own blog Lew seems surprised he was asked to contribute. “Not only did they let a then-relative-newcomer like me loose in the pages of this fine, well-established comic,” he says. “But I even got to co-star Buster himself in the story – although as you can see, I didn’t show him a lot of respect!” Of course by this stage our piggy publication was no longer called ‘OiNK Weekly’, having fully settled into its new frequency. Also, I think Pete saying he partakes in lots of pimply pranks sounds like he enjoys having the huge zit to cause chaos with, which as we know isn’t the case. But it’s a fun little strip nevertheless.
Fleetway knew OiNK was already performing better than the others and had real potential
I’ve had it confirmed by OiNK co-editor Patrick Gallagher that the comic was by no means failing at this stage. Yes, sales had declined since it went weekly but sales were down across the industry. These crossover strips were a well-intentioned promotion by Fleetway Publications who could easily have cancelled OiNK before now but decided to keep it running.
As I’ve explained before, when Fleetway bought IPC Magazines’ comics they organised them into different sales groups, for example Buster and Whizzer and Chips were in one, OiNK was in another alongside Nipper and others. If the combined sales of a group didn’t perform as well as Fleetway wanted then all of the comics in that group would be canned. All of OiNK’s group were cancelled by now except OiNK itself, showing they knew it was already performing better than the others and had real potential. So instead they turned it weekly to try to increase sales. Perhaps if it had remained in its fortnightly guise with more pages, its themes and all of its characters present (all things that really set it apart) perhaps sales wouldn’t have fallen as much and these promotions could’ve helped more. We’ll never know.
This isn’t the first time Buster has featured on the blog. While the edition which contained the free preview issue of our own comic didn’t exactly promote OiNK within its pages (unlike Whizzer and Chips), the week before it did contain this advert for the craziness to come and a little promo for it on the cover.
Interestingly, that Ricky Rainbow character above is from Nipper comic, one of OiNK’s group mates who had already merged into Buster. Apparently Ricky, drawn by James Hansen, could change colour at will as well as being prone to changing colour based on his mood. I’d like to see more of his strips as I like the idea but inside this issue he doesn’t do any of those things, so yes, I’d like to see more. On the back page of this particular issue is an advert I remember very well, seeing as how completely obsessed I was with this particular franchise and those toys.
I’d just like to say a huge thank you to fellow pig pal Stephen Hyde for sending me the issues used in these two crossover posts. Previously I’d been using Lew’s images with his kind permission, and when Stephen read my posts he got in touch because he just happened to have spare copies of both! So now the two posts are made up of photos and scans of my own issues, so thanks again Stephen.
With the latest issue of OiNK comes the return of Hieronymous Van Hellsong in a prequel mini-series by Jeremy Banx. We’d been introduced to the character in the first half dozen weeklies as he tracked down his ultimate target, Jimmy ‘The Cleaver’ Smith. It all ended in tragedy as our hero was made into sausage links and used by the butcher to escape the pig police. (Jeremy is nothing if not original.) This prequel tale is the last story for Hellsong, introduced by a sobbing Uncle Pigg on the Grunts page.
I remember part of this story revolving around him being in the nude but it doesn’t happen this week so the cover is rather confusing. But nevertheless it’s good to have him back. The same can also be said of The Kingdom of Trump, a name which conjures somewhat different images today. At the time it referred to a family with a name that meant nothing more than flatulence. Hmm, maybe some things haven’t changed.
As good as this is, the characters only appeared three times in OiNK, back here for the first time since #43 and as a full-colour page instead of a mini strip. As ever with his pages Davey Jones gives himself a silly name in the credits and fills the strip with lots of funny little details, like the doctor’s tools hidden behind his desk and what looks like a cameo by Smiffy of Bash Street Kids at the public flogging. It wouldn’t be a Davey strip without some awful puns too and this has one of his best in that final panel.
Beginning in Whizzer and Chips of all places and then continuing into last week’s OiNK, Lew Stringer’s Tom Thug and his Crude Crew is at its midway point, starting with Tom and a baby and finishing with the complete gang. Surely everyone in OiNKtown will now be quaking in their shoes? Well, not quite. From Tom’s misogyny backfiring (as it should) and the cliché of needing a punk compared to what he ends up with, to a mention of one of my favourite TV shows at the time (I can remember laughing at that bit in particular), this one had it all.
I always like it when a character acknowledges they’re living in the pages of a comic, so ending with Tom not only looking directly at us but also acknowledging that his pathetic little gang won’t be able to cause bovver for a whole week I find particularly funny. That juxtaposition between the panel of the completed gang which catches your eye as soon as you turn the page and the penultimate one where they all have their excuses is brilliant. It emphasises the difference between how bullies present themselves and how they really are. Classic stuff.
Last week saw a rare thing occur in the history of OiNK when a whole issue went by without a trip to David Haldane’s Zootown. A staple from the very beginning, skipping only occasional issues, I’m very glad to see the loveable human-esque animals back with another quick gag in a mini-strip. There’s just the one panel this week actually, but that’s all David needed to deliver a good laugh.
Such a shame their continued inclusion can’t be said of some of David’s other creations. In #52 we were told Rubbish Man would be back in a mini series soon (which ends up contained in one of the bigger monthlies) but sadly Hugo the Hungry Hippo seems to have had his fill of chowing down on cities around the world, Godzilla-style. Last seen in The OiNK! Book 1988, his last appearance in the regular comic was way back in #35! We’ll eventually get one more laugh from his insatiable appetite in the third Holiday Special next year but for now it would seem he’s taking a much earned rest between meals.
Keith Forrest and Mike Green have brought Weedy Willy back to full strength again
Back to the issue at trotter and Hieronymous Van Hellsong’s prequel begins with a few Beatles gags during the assassination that starts his adventure, and then Burp’s strip has surely one of the best names created for a comic. Lew decided to end his Pete and his Pimple strip with a random little image that, as you can see, had nothing at all to do with the page. However, according to Lew OiNK’s editors decided to have a little joke themselves and added that cheeky little arrow to it before publication!
The final panel below is from the end of the Billy the Pig serial which comes to a conclusion this week. I haven’t included much of it before now because sadly I just didn’t like it, which is a shock when I think of all those hilarious Laffie the Wonder Pig strips Tony and Chas brought us. But unfortunately Billy reads like any other children’s western adventure story but with pigs in the lead roles, only the occasional joke added in, rather than being a humour strip.
Hieronymous Van Hellsong and Burp by Jeremy Banx Pete and his Pimple by Lew Stringer Billy the Pig written by Tony Husband, drawn by Chas Sinclair
Thankfully a handful of Laffie (or whatever they’ll be called) strips coming up on a weekly basis very soon gave us more to look forward to from this wonderful pairing of writer and artist.
For a strip that would be one of only three to survive beyond the final issue (becoming part of the merge with Buster) recently Weedy Willy has only been popping up occasionally and even then as a mini-strip. Back at the beginning he was mainly seen in full pages and, because of his move into Buster, my memory thought this was how it always was. Written by a variety of talent over the past couple of years, new writer Keith Forrest and regular Willy artist Mike Green have brought him back to full strength again. Well, as much as the character could be.
Only appearing in roughy half of the issues in total, Weedy Willy wouldn’t even be part of the final one before the merge, strangely enough. But when he did pop up he was always a highlight. Yes, he could be the butt of the jokes but it was never in a cruel way, it was just exaggerated silliness. Willy had accepted his lack of any form of strength and the things he’d do to compensate (such as above) were always very funny. Sometimes he’d even get the upper hand over bullies thanks to not being able to do certain things and having to think his way out of situations. He was simply a brilliant character.
In the middle pages is the first poster we’ve seen in quite a while (Simon Thorp’s spoof movie posters were only ever a page in size, meant to be read rather than put on our walls). This is Dave Huxley’s third and final contribution to OiNK, the first being a poster of the Mona Li-sow and then he returned with The Hamformers in the previous Christmas issue. His final piece takes an icon of liberty, of the end of slavery and of welcoming immigrants… and turns her into a cheeky-faced butcher-cooking colossus.
I always felt the name ‘The Statue of Piggery’ didn’t read quite right. While that is an actual word meaning either “a farm where pigs are bred or kept” or “behaviour seen as characteristic of pigs in greed or unpleasantness” so it might make sense, this is OiNK and its piggy puns don’t have to make sense. So I always thought ‘Piggerty’ was right there and would’ve sounded better, but oh well. Given the look on her face I’m not about to argue the point.
Such a shame Dave wouldn’t contribute to any of the remaining issues. In a later article in Crikey! magazine he says he thinks he was hoping to make a career out of historical pig parodies but attributes his lack of further posters or Madvertisements to the comic being cancelled. We’re still a long way off from that so I don’t know why this was it for his time with Uncle Pigg. It’s been a blast anyway.
This has to be one of my favourites just because of how stupid it is!
Elsewhere in this issue is a cut-out mask of our aforementioned esteemed editor, Uncle Pigg. This was actually the last in a series which began on the back pages after the weekly calendar had been completed between #45 and #50. Why have I not shown any of them? I thought I’d wait and show you them all in a post of their own, so watch out for that later at some future date on the blog.
This has to be one of my favourites of co-editor Patrick Gallagher’s coupons, just because of how stupid it is! There’s lot of extra OiNK to enjoy over the next week or so. Three times as much actually. Pete and his Pimple will ‘pop’ up in Buster comic and then alongside the regular 24 pages of #56 of the weekly comic is the second 48-page Holiday Special too. So watch out for the full reviews of all of these over the next week and a bit.
You may have noticed the weekly OiNK reviews have shifted from Saturdays to Fridays this month. Just in case you were wondering why it’s simply because back in 1988 February had 29 days, one more than we had this year. So the shift to a day earlier is to keep things aligned to the original publication dates, which is the whole point of this site after all.
That’s a lot of praise from some surprising sources on the cover. Towards the end of the fortnightlies some clippings were sent in by readers. It might seem like this took a long time but in the pre-internet days and the way comics and magazine deadlines work it would take time for the comic to make an impact, be reviewed, have those reviews printed, then clipped, pasted into the comic and in turn published in OiNK. This issue’s cover decided to sum up previous quotes as well as showing off new ones.
I like the fact it includes some not-so-flattering praise, that little “R.I.P.” being a funny little dig too. The Press Council quote is part of their ruling over the famous complaint placed against the comic which I’ve mentioned before and I’ll take a closer look at soon. As for the banner along the top, perhaps it was the Charlie Brooker Prize? Haha. Always nice to see an Ian Jackson cover and I remember the quotes and clippings pleasing me greatly as a kid because it surely meant OiNK was a huge success and would be around forever. It’s hard to comprehend there are only 14 regular issues left.
Unknown to us at the time a page inside signalled an upcoming change that would ultimately lead to OiNK’s demise.
Reading over the survey there are a lot of silly questions and answers, it wouldn’t be OiNK without them after all, reading almost like a spoof survey but it’s real. The fact there’s nowhere to write in whether the readers wanted it to change to a monthly or not had me thinking this decision was already made. Perhaps the writing was on the wall and this was an attempt to save the comic, worded in such a way to make it seem like it was the choice of pig pals. But I was wrong, for the most part anyway.
“Accept others as they are”
Lew Stringer, Pete and his Pimple
Co-editor Patrick Gallagher tells me, “Our survey, which you refer to, was genuine and not having a designated space for that final question was an error, though the readers used their noggins and scribbled their answers in any available space! And yes, 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. In the meantime [the survey was] checking the audiences’ opinions, which may have had some sway.”
Moving on for now and this issue may have been published in 1988 but this week’s Pete and his Pimple feels rather contemporary. Lew Stringer brings his rhyming strip skills to the fore once again in the tale of Johnny Bigot. It’s a wonderfully funny page with a message of “accept others as they are”; a strong message where we laugh at the bully of course, which is very typically OiNK and Lew. It’s a good life lesson and of course the whole basis of Lew’s Tom Thug character. In a world where people like Johnny seem to have louder voices than ever I find this strip rather cathartic.
If this were printed today the Johnny Bigots of the world would probably scream and shout that OiNK was indoctrinating their children to hate others (irony isn’t their strong point), or that it was full of political correctness in a children’s comic. Nonsense of course, but I just think of this and laugh when I see such things online now and I heartily recommend that. Let’s all figuratively burst our pimples at them and let them sow the seeds of their own demise. Reading funny comics is much more fun anyway.
(On a separate note, as a good friend once said to me, it’s not about being “politically correct”, it’s just about being the second word in those quotes.)
Speaking of laughing at the bullies let’s take a look at Lew’s other famous creation, Tom. Two days after the previous issue of OiNK our resident thicko appeared in a half-page strip in sister title Whizzer and Chipsto promote his own comic to their readers. In that story, after failing to join the gangs of either Shiner or Sid, he threatened to form his own in the pages of OiNK, creating a unique crossover for a humour comic where a story started in a different title. Below is the first of what would actually be a three-part mini-series called Tom Thug and his Crude Crew.
On the one hand you could ask why it’s taken Tom this long to think about having a gang, what with him often ending up in the state he’s in at the start of this strip. But then again he’s a bully so he’s not the brightest. I did laugh at the depiction of the bigger bully and how it takes Tom so long to finish his sentence (not until he’s conscious again in hospital). Then it takes him six months to get out! Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fryer. This story will continue over the next couple of weeks and I’m eager to see who he selects next as my ol’ memory cells have long forgotten.
Elsewhere in this issue we get another Mary Lighthouse strip. That’s two in as many issues. We’re being spoiled. With my fascination with all things Ancient Egypt I just had to include this little highlight below as she regales us with tales of her family tree. Then, the Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins strip continues its football serial. As you can see co-editor Tony Husband has taken the already ludicrously far-fetched football serials in other comics and newspapers of the day and spoofed them perfectly with this ridiculous tale.
Mary Lighthouse written by Vaughan Brunt, drawn by Ian Jackson Horace Watkins by Tony Husband
One page that’s usually guaranteed to be a highlight of each issue is Frank Sidebottom’s. Recently he’s moved away from strips (they’ll return, we never knew what to expect from one issue to the next) and was instead informing us of some very funny showbiz gossip. These pages included intricate background art and lots of text to keep us giggling along for a good few minutes but this issue’s page seems a bit ‘off’, it feels a bit rushed.
The first thing that struck me was how his writing is much bigger than usual so it took no time to read; what’s here would’ve normally taken up about half the page, if that. The background isn’t his usual detailed standard either, looking instead like a few squiggles quickly thrown together to give it come colour. What is here is classic Chris Sievey and very funny but I’m just left wanting more and that hasn’t happened before. Then again, he was an extraordinarily busy man to also be producing a weekly comics page, as evidenced in his diary last week.
The back cover was certainly not rushed. Here we find another spoof movie poster drawn by Simon Thorp from a brilliant script by co-editor Mark Rodgers. In 1987 the Masters of the Universe movie starring Dolph Lundgren and Frank Langella had been released and flopped. The 80s saw rules against toys being made into cartoons and the like relaxed, giving birth to mega franchises based on action figures etc. This was one such example. The fact these toys were being created as franchises instead of just playthings wasn’t lost on Mark and Simon.
This definitely went some way to making up for the two hours of my life I wasted watching the film. There are so many piggy puns in there. Make sure you read the smaller credits at the bottom under that lavish movie title. The longer you look at this the more little sight gags you can spot as well, such as the GBH ‘Mussel’ to go with the GBH ‘Muscle’ and the fact one of the characters’ legs has fallen off like a cheap action figure. Brilliant, memorable stuff which rounds off the issue perfectly.
One thing that did stick out with this issue was the lack of Hadrian Vile. In fact, he hasn’t been seen since #50. With the weeklies having less pages we’d become somewhat used to characters popping in and out, but a strip that’s been in every single edition since #1 going missing for three issues in a row? A character who was a huge fan favourite and whose diary was a highlight of every single issue he was in? It also meant a lot less from Ian Jackson too, which is always a shame, his work epitomised OiNK. (Thankfully we wouldn’t have long to wait.)
Clearly Patrick is needing a bit of a rest after another busy week putting the issue together so we’ll leave things there for now. There’s a lot to enjoy in the weeks ahead, even if this issue seems to have left me wanting a little bit. But last week was one of the very best OiNKs of them all and what’s here in #54 is still great, so onwards and upwards. Don’t forget the reviews will be coming at you every Friday from now on, so join me here Friday 17th March 2023 for #55 and a couple of days later for the next crossover comic!
When this edition of Doctor Who Magazine hit newsstands I hadn’t even watched a single episode yet! It wouldn’t be long before I was a fan though and today I most certainly am, but I’ll get to that at the end of this post when I point something out in the news column of the issue. That’s not why we’re here though. We’re here for the comic strip starring a certain Freelance Peace-Keeping Agent, yes?
The last anyone saw of Death’s Head was when he disappeared through an exploding time portal in the pages of Transformers #151. While we saw the others he shoved through the portal survive the implication was clear he was missing rather than dead and readers eagerly awaited a surprise return at some point. That inevitable return was only two months later, but what was even more surprising was where it happened: in a different publication.
Written by Simon Furman and drawn by Geoff Senior with letters by Zed and edited by Richard Starkings (actually Zed is Richard), The Crossroads of Time was a one-off eight-page strip in #135 of DWM (which is at #588 at the time of writing). The magazine was a very different publication back then, with 36 pages and only the covers and middle four in colour (as opposed to the 84 full-colour pages it has today, complete with regular Lew StringerDaft Dimension strip), but just like the best of the black and white stories in later issues of Transformers I think this really highlights Geoff’s inks and gorgeous details, some of which are very funny.
The opening page sets things up straight after The Legacy of Unicron with Death’s Head still travelling through space and time and crashing into the TARDIS. Soon both he and the Doctor (their seventh television incarnation, portrayed by Sylvester McCoy) find themselves on a random, barren planet along with a Time Warden, an impartial arbitrator. The warden weighs up the situation by taking one look at Death’s Head and decides they’ll have to come to an agreement without him.
Ever the opportunist, Death’s Head gives the Doctor a choice between bargaining or dying, and asks if he has anything to trade. Realising jelly babies aren’t going to cut it the Doctor realises he has one of the Master’s Tissue Compression Eliminators. This is a device his evil counterpart would use to shrink people down into tiny little toy solder-esque versions of themselves, effectively killing them.
It was actually seen in one of the more recent series when my own personal favourite Doc, Jodie Whittaker’s take on the character, went up against Sacha Dhawan’s highly memorable Master. In it he used the compressor to kill quite a few people in a particularly nasty fashion. Indeed, back in our strip the Doctor acknowledges it’s a horrible device but that “desperate situations call for desperate measures”. But the fact Death’s Head is already so huge has an unexpected result.
Despite wracking his body with pain, instead of shrinking him to minuscule size its power only brings him down to the same size as the Doctor. While it’s not a large image of Death’s Head’s face, you can clearly see his shock even from the side angle. After being a Transformer-sized mechanoid who could strike fear into his targets just by being there I find his face here so funny! The Doctor’s reaction is also meant to be funny, but I find it rather out of character.
Yes, he was obviously in danger but he hadn’t even really tried to talk himself out of the situation at hand before turning to a device he hoped would “eliminate” Death’s Head? That sounds more like something a Dalek would do. Even when I started watching Doctor Who with season 25 it was clear he didn’t go around simply killing the villains when he first bumped into them. This story was set during McCoy’s first year as the Doctor when he was still very much a slapstick, comedy version of the character with some elements of Colin Baker’s previous, darker incarnation thrown in, so I think this is just a joke comment rather than anything else.
Death’s Head would pop up in one more Marvel UK comic before his starring role, namely Dragon’s Claws
The following season (my first) he was a mysterious, thoughtful Doctor, often initialising the stories rather than reacting to some evil doer. I absolutely loved that portrayal, so reading this from the year before feels strange to me. But hey, I should’ve started watching it earlier! There’s a fast-paced chase to add some action, culminating in the Doctor finally getting an idea as to how he can turn the situation around and he calls out to Death’s Head that he has a trade to make.
I love that moment. It perfectly demonstrates the character of Death’s Head, his disappointment that he can no longer kill the Doctor because business always comes first. I’m sure I can look forward to a lot more of this humour in his own comic.
But what does the Doctor have that could possibly be of any use in a trade? Obviously, the TARDIS. We know he’ll have no intention of honouring this trade and anyone who has seen the show in recent years can probably predict what happens next. First of all though, it’s a bit of a thrill for this fan of both these characters to have Death’s Head get that enjoyable moment usually reserved for new companions, when they get to see the interior of the phone box for the first time.
The Doctor successfully bluffs his foe into his own fate by quickly running through some technobabble by means of instructions on how to time travel (remember, Death’s Head wasn’t a time traveller, he used others’ tech to do so in Transfomers), before pretending to leave it in the hands of its new owner. Death’s Head stops him, convinced if he did as instructed it would turn out to be a trap and tells him they’ll travel together for the first trip. Of course, this is what the Doctor planned all along and he sets the controls for Earth in the year 8162, concentrating the time circuits on the mechanoid who dematerialises accompanied by the text of that famous sound effect.
Why did the Doctor choose Earth to send a dangerous bounty hunter to? (…Ouch!! Sorry! Freelance Peace-Keeping Agent!…) He’s spent most of his life trying to save us daft humans and the strip even ends with him telling us our home is his favourite planet. Oh well, it’s still been a fun strip even if it’s left me a bit confused with The Doctor’s actions at times. But most importantly it’s set things up perfectly for Death’s Head’s monthly and that was its purpose in the end. (UPDATE: Actually, three months after writing this post, having now reviewed the first issue of another comic that date suddenly seems awfully familiar.)
So he’s now ready to interact with all manner of human characters and by the looks of the advert in the introductory post he even gets a human sidekick. In fact, I think I can just about remember him. I’ll find out in November I guess. I do know from seeing images of the covers over the years that he meets a couple of Marvel’s superheroes along the way so it’ll be interesting to see those interactions, what with his single-mindedness and dark sense of humour. (Kind of makes me think of Deadpool actually.) The TARDIS is even on one cover so there must be a rematch to come!
Before I round things up I wanted to show you the news story that stood out to me.
The story Remembrance of the Daleks was my first encounter with the series. It was a brilliant introduction! Made to mark the 25th anniversary of the Daleks I’d never seen anything like it and I was a fan straight away. This issue breaks the news of the new season’s opening story and it really took me back to that evening sitting in front of the portable TV in my bedroom when I decided on a whim to tune in. There are other points of interest in the magazine too.
It’s edited by Shiela Cranna who was the launch editor of Transformers and friend of the blog John Freeman is the designer and gets plenty of praise on the letters page. On those pages there’s also evidence nothing changes though, with some readers complaining others who like the new Doctor and the current show runner “aren’t true fans”. (Sigh.) It’s like Twitter before Twitter. There’s also a mention of a new Holywood movie which as we know would eventually become the 1996 TV movie pilot. I always find it interesting to read old magazines like this when I know how things turned out.
But anyway, back to the main subject at (detachable) hand.
Things may be all set for a brand new monthly comic starring one of the greatest comics creations of all time (in my opinion) but we’ve a while to wait, what with the first issue’s release date being 5th November. That TARDIS would come in handy. But actually, we haven’t got quite that long to wait and this is where I break the news of the next real time read through to come to the OiNK Blog. Death’s Head would pop up in one more Marvel UK comic before his starring role, namely Dragon’s Claws also created by Simon and Geoff.
For now don’t forget there’s an introductory post showing highlights from Death’s Head’s stories in Transformers (and links to all of the Instagram posts from that multi-year read through too) along with more details about his creation and some insights from the comic’s editor Richard Starkings who very kindly contributed. The Dragon’s Claws will join the blog on Sunday 14th May 2023, #5 featuring Death’s Head will be reviewed on Sunday 17th September and then his own debut issue will be here on Sunday 5th November. I think it’s going to be a good year, yes?
Death’s Head’s first ever appearance, drawn by Geoff Senior and colour by Steve White
In the latter months of 1988 I began reading Marvel UK’s Transformers weekly and my second issue contained a very funny comic strip advert for a new monthly about a certain Freelance Peace-Keeping Agent (not a bounty hunter, never a bounty hunter). It also popped up in The Real Ghostbusters and so I found myself dipping my toes into the first issue of Death’s Head, not fully knowing what to expect and with no knowledge of his already extensive adventures with the Transformers (and even Doctor Who, which I’d just started watching that year too).
Over the next couple of years reprints in Transformers and my friend giving me his back issues meant I was able to read those stories. But I never did buy more than Death’s Head first issue, despite having very fond memories of reading it wrapped up in bed while ill one day and really enjoying the action and comedy. But I was only allowed a certain amount of comics on order at any one time and, while I did buy more with pocket money most weeks, a month was a long time for my attention span back then. Now I can finally make up for this, so let’s take a look at how this very famous Marvel UK character was introduced to the public.
Cover by Geoff Senior
Writer Simon Furman originally created Death’s Head as a one-off character for a Transformers story (not knowing the name had also been that of a Nazi tank division). However, upon seeing legendary artist Geoff Senior’s interpretation Simon knew they had a recurring character on their hands, even rewriting his lines to better suit the image Geoff had created, inspiring the hilarious speech patterns and quirks we came to love, yes? He proved very popular with the readers and altogether appeared in 17 issues and three serials, including two highly regarded epics.
“I loved messing with legal”
Richard Starkings, Death’s Head editor
Despite online information to the contrary, Death’s Head did indeed first appear in Transformers #113 on 9th May 1987. There’s a one-page strip called High Noon Tex (further below) which Former Marvel UK editor Richard Starkings (The Real Ghostbusters, Doctor Who Magazine, Elephantmen) tells me was created to run in other titles first so the company could retain ownership of the character, otherwise Hasbro (owners of The Transformers) could claim the copyright. However it didn’t appear until a year after his first Transformers appearance.
“I dare say,” Richard told me, “that between commissioning the strip (it’s one page, so you know it was my idea) and legal establishing the trademark … his appearance in Transformers notwithstanding, we weren’t able to run High Noon Tex beforehand. There was also a Doctor Who crossover (I loved messing with legal) so the BBC couldn’t own him either!”
Drawn by Geoff Senior, colour by Steve White
Wanted: Galvatron Dead or Alive was one of the early future-set (the then future of 2006) stories Marvel UK produced. With the release of Transformers: The Movie the UK team could focus on stories set after it, creating a new timeline of events and making it easier to write original stories not linked to the US strips. On the first page we see what would become a familiar detachable hand pointing at the wanted poster of the title. A bounty set by Autobot leader Rodimus Prime for Galvatron (the immensely powerful resurrected form of Megatron) after he disappeared at the end of the movie is too good for Death’s Head to pass up.
The story saw the beginning of the comic’s use of time travel and the building of a huge universe populated with both organic and mechanical races, for example the slight-looking barkeep in the tavern where our anti-hero finds himself between contracts. Intending to pay, Death’s Head soon changes his mind when the owner pulls a gun on him, wrongly suspecting his customer of leaving without clearing his tab. What happens next is the perfect introduction for this character.
Over the course of a year Death’s Head even made the cover of Transformers no less than six times. He’d become a big selling point for the comic, such was his popularity with the young readers and the fun Furman had in writing him. My favourite of these is the classic ‘The Good… the Mad… and the Ugly!’ cover by Geoff for #117. His return was always hyped in advance in Next Issue panels and editorial promotions. Really, it was inevitable he’d get his own comic eventually.
#117 cover by Geoff Senior and John Burns #120 cover by Jeff Anderson #133 cover by Dave Gibbons #146 & #151 covers by Lee Sullivan #147 cover by Jeff Anderson, Stephen Baskerville and John Burns
One of my favourite aspects of the character was his loyalty to the contract. Once he’d taken on a job he’d see it through to a successful conclusion no matter what he’d have to put himself through in the process. Yes it was all for money but it was clear he enjoyed what he did and he had a brilliantly dark sense of humour as a result. But even if someone else (usually his bounty) offered him twice the amount he was being paid he’d turn it down, his reputation was more important.
This was a compelling chapter in the character’s life, as he found himself going above and beyond to do the right thing as well as complete his contract
Death’s Head certainly left an impression, not only on the young readers but on the Transformers’ universe as a whole. Travelling back to 80s Earth he went head-to-head against Galvatron, aiding the Autobots and Decepticons in their battle to stop him from becoming an all-conquering god. In this story he also ends up killing beloved Autobot Bumblebee (in the US comic G.I.Joe mistakenly did this) who Hasbro was relaunching as Goldbug (thus this led to his resurrection).
When Death’s Head returned next time he took a contract from Decepticon leader Shockwave to track down and capture or kill Cyclonus and Scourge who had travelled back in time too, and who Shockwave had discovered would kill him in the year 2006. It was great stuff! This made what Death’s Head did in The Legacy of Unicron all the more interesting and dramatic for me. He was actually instrumental in stopping Unicron’s return, aiding Rodimus Prime by linking with the giant god’s mind on the psychic plane, distracting him so that the Autobots and Junkions could get on with their plan free of being psychically tracked.
Top-left to bottom-right: Geoff Senior/Steve White Will Simpson/Tim Perkins/Steve White Dan Reed/Steve White Jeff Anderson/Stephen Baskerville/Steve White
This was a compelling chapter in the characters’ life, as he found himself going above and beyond to do the right thing as well as complete his contract with Shockwave. The Legacy of Unicron was an important story in the history of Transformers, spread over several issues including the landmark 150th in which the origins of their race was told for the first time ever. This was created by Furman for the UK comic, the cartoon series would go on to create its own far less interesting version.
The tale, one as old as time itself, of myths and gods, of the birth of the universe and the eternal fight battle light and dark, was told by Unicron, the transforming planet eater from the movie reinterpreted by Furman as an all-conquering god of chaos. It’s still incredible to read today, especially when you remember this was a toy licence comic! Transformers really did break the mould. Even better, we the readers found all of this out as Unicron relayed his tale to none other than Death’s Head while the two were locked in their mental battle.
Drawn by Bryan Hitch, inking assistance by Geoff Senior, colour by Steve White
The Legacy of Unicron ends with Death’s Head shoving Cyclonus and Scourge through a time portal as the Junkion planet explodes beneath them. The Decepticons reappear on Earth in the present day but of him there was no trace. He wasn’t to be seen in the world of the Transformers again. Instead, as he flew through the corridors of time and space he bumped into a familiar blue police telephone box in another of Marvel UK’s titles. That’ll be the first chapter in Death’s Head’s real time read through in just a few days.
Apart from the last photo above, all of the preceding images were taken from the OiNK Blog’s Instagram feed from the last few years. Over there I’ve been reading Transformers in real time, week-in, week-out for about six years now, taking up to ten photographs of each issue and summing them up in mini reviews of sorts. You can check out all of the issues featuring Death’s Head via these links below.
By 1988 plans were afoot. Commissioned by Richard (who also commissioned the one-page strips below, as well as Dragon’s Claws and The Sleeze Brothers comics) at last Death’s Head was going to get his own ongoing comic, but first of all a change had to happen to the character himself. As you’ll know from reading the comics or watching the movies, the Transformers are somewhat larger than us humans. Seeing as how Death’s Head would now be interacting with plenty of humans he had to be taken down a peg or two first.
This was achieved with a one-off strip in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine in which another alien time traveller, albeit of much smaller stature showed he was more than a match for the other. After this the stage was set for the new comic, the first issue of which was released in November of that year. To promote it he also popped up in an issue of Dragon’s Claws, another Furman/Senior original creation just before his own premiere issue.
Drawn by Bryan Hitch, colours by Steve White
During 1988 High Noon Tex finally appeared across Marvel UK’s range, promoted as a one-off strip for the character. For those who hadn’t been reading Transformers this must’ve felt like a very random addition to their comic, but a highly enjoyable surprise nonetheless, showcasing the action, his brutal personality and most of all his sense of humour. The example above is taken from the back page of an issue of Dragon’s Claws. It was written by Furman and drawn by Bryan Hitch (who would draw half of the monthly issues, co-creator Geoff Senior surprisingly only drawing one of the strips).
As the comic launched another one-page story appeared, this time as an actual advertisement for the monthly. I first saw it in Transformers #193. How could I not rush out to buy it after that? The scan above was taken from #29 of my Real Ghostbusters collection, which went on sale 17th December 1988 while #2 of Death’s Head was on sale. Richard was the launch editor of that comic and told me, “I’d edited The Real Ghostbusters for a year and I knew you could tell a story in one page.” (The Real Ghostbusters could have up to four stories in one issue, including the occasional 1-page strip.) You can read more about the creation of this series of adverts in the introductory post to Dragon’s Claws.
Drawn by Bryan Hitch, inked by Mark Farmer
A much simpler yet no less eye-catching full-page advert was also found in the pages of my comics, using the cover image of the first issue. The issue of The Real Ghostbusters this first appeared in went on sale the same week as #1 of Death’s Head and he also popped up for the first time in the Mighty Marvel Checklist, which a lot of their comics ran at the time. As you can see it was the one not to miss that week and I obliged. At least for one month anyway.
Death’s Head’s comic lasted ten issues. It was printed on smaller than normal paper, the same size as US comics rather than the larger UK paper we were used to. Some fans say this contributed to less than stellar sales because it ended up hidden amongst all the larger comics. Richard tells me this just isn’t true; it was selling 60,000+ a month which would be a massive hit today. “The profit to the company versus cost of origination was too high for those days”, Richard says. “The Incomplete Death’s Head (collecting the whole series and his guest appearances in Doctor Who and others – Phil) #1 sold 400,000. So they got their money back.”
After his comic was cancelled he appeared in Strip in a multi-part adventure, collected in a graphic novel after Strip finished. He was relaunched as ‘Death’s Head II’ and ‘3.0’ later but I never bought into those versions. Furman wasn’t involved in the first and it lacked the humour, a key factor for me, and Simon has also said he doesn’t see either as Death’s Head so this put me off. They definitely have their fans though so I’m happy there’s a version for everyone. In the new century he’s popped up in cameos or guest roles in some more Marvel comics in his original form too, which I’ll detail at the end of the read through. You can’t keep a good Freelance Peace-Keeping Agent down.
So here’s my complete Death’s Head collection containing 30 comics altogether.
You can check out all of those Transformers issues at the links above and as you can see I’ve opted for the graphic novel version of the Strip story, The Body in Question. The premiere issue won’t be reviewed until 5th November later this year (this is in real time, remember) but in just three days on Friday 10th March 2023 you’ll be able to read the first Death’s Head review in a special post about his clash with the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) in Doctor Who Magazine #135.
See you then, yes?
(Special thanks to Richard Starkings, Steve White, Lee Sullivan, Lew Stringer and John Freeman for all their help in putting this post together.)
On this day 35 years ago in 1988 this comic with its Sid Burgon cover appeared in shops across the land but little was I to know, as I went into my local newsagent’s to collect OiNK, that a special additional Tom Thug strip by Lew Stringer was hiding inside Whizzer and Chips just a little way down the shelf. Back when OiNK was fortnightly and it had just started to open my eyes to the world of comics, if the family were going anywhere and an OiNK wasn’t due Whizzer and Chips would usually be my second choice. The set up, pretending to be two separate comics (16 pages of Chips in the middle), seemed just different enough to appeal to me.
I’ll admit it wouldn’t have had me laughing out loud like the piggy publication that introduced me to the medium but it did make me smile and I’d have the occasional chortle to myself. It felt like it had tried something different years previous when first created but without rocking the boat too much, whereas OiNK was tipping the boat upside down and daring the waves to crash into it. This particular Whizzer and Chips came with a free gift, always enticing for new readers, and inside they’d be met with a special crossover strip as a promotion for its sister title, itself having recently turned into a weekly.
The stars you see here are Sid of Sid’s Snake fame from the Whizzer half and in the stripped top is Shiner, a classic character from Chips (which was my favourite half by the way), plus Odd-Ball of course. Found on page 30 of the issue this was in the Whizzer half of the comic. Interestingly, the end of this strip led directly into a mini-series for Tom which began in OiNK #54 the following Thursday. #53 had gone on sale one day before this, so the “on sale now” is actually incorrect but I’m guessing this was more of an error on the part of editorial planning rather than Lew’s.
IPC had been very happy with OiNK’s average of 100,000 copies sold every fortnight but Fleetway wanted to increase its numbers
Tom was one of the few OiNK characters that could be mistaken for a more traditional comic star, although obviously the humour was much more original; the fact a bully was the star of the strip for example, although he was never the hero and always got his comeuppance. Tom was one of three OiNK stars to transfer to Buster comic when OiNK folded and would continue to appear in that title until it ended over a decade later!
The intention with this strip (and a Pete and his Pimple one to come in Buster in a couple of weeks) was to increase OiNK’s sales. As mentioned before, IPC Magazines had been very happy with its average of 100,000 copies sold every fortnight but when Fleetway Publications took over they changed it a weekly to increase its numbers. These crossover promotions would’ve been a part of that push.
The Tom Thug crossover was Lew’s sole contribution to this legendary comic (a title which itself would fold into Buster a few years later) and you can read about him being asked to contribute to it in a post on his Lew Stringer Comics blog. Of course, this wasn’t actually the first time an OiNK character had featured in Whizzer and Chips. Sort of. I say “sort of” because I think it’s safe to say Uncle Pigg didn’t really co-star on a Tom Paterson cover to the issue published on 26th April 1986, making Tom’s the first true crossover as far as I’m concerned.
The issue above came in a piggy pink bag also containing the full-sized preview issue of Mark Rodgers’, Tony Husband’s and Patrick Gallagher’s masterpiece. Buster also came in the same bag but didn’t mention OiNK in any way on its cover, once again proving to me Whizzer and Chips and OiNK were kindred spirits of a kind, the former having tried something different but eventually failed to move with the times. It’s still a fondly remembered comic to this day though and rightly so.
As mentioned above Pete Throb would also get the chance to promote OiNK in Buster which you’ll see on Sunday 19th March 2023. With these two chosen it’s already clear which characters Fleetway would deem most suitable for the merger to come, although of course at this time no one knew OiNK would no longer be a regular comic by the end of the year.
I’d just like to say a huge thank you to fellow pig pal Stephen Hyde for sending me the issues used in these two crossover posts. Previously I’d been using Lew’s images with his kind permission, and when Stephen read my posts he got in touch because he just happened to have spare copies of both! So now the two posts are made up of photos and scans of my own issues, so thanks again Stephen.
Comic covers don’t come much more creative than this. Lew Stringer’s latest OiNK cover is definitely one of my favourites, right up there with those from #6 and #43 by Ian Jackson. The OiNK logo being pushed off the page was all Lew’s idea, who pencilled out a rough of the whole cover for approval by the comic’s editors. After it was approved he then drew the Pete part of the design, leaving the logo for Patrick.
Co-editor Patrick Gallagher was the famous logo’s original creator and told me he thought Lew’s cover was a “swell” idea, pun very obviously intended, and that it was a doddle for him to rejig the letters and complete this eye-catching front page, a highlight of the issue for sure and really makes the issue stand out in the collection. Just as well the inside is as good then. The first interior highlight comes from Davy Francis and Greedy Gorb, along with a special guest star.
Although he goes unnamed, that’s Doctor Madstarkraving (“He’s Bonkers”) who has appeared in his own strip a couple of times (#27 being one example) with more to come later in the run. Showing how uncontrollable his appetite is, Gorb shoots himself in the foot by eating the doc’s inventions when they could’ve fed him even more food! I particularly like the name of the shop, a little dig at how other comics seemed to have sweet shops on every street corner, a hang up from their more traditional (read: old-fashioned) days that OiNK liked to rib.
Speaking of old-fashioned tales, James Bond author Ian Fleming’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang wasn’t a film I loved as much as my friends seemed to. However, I certainly knew enough of its story that the following spoof by ‘Ian Phlegming’ (Simon Thorp) was very funny indeed. It starts off silly and quickly escalates, culminating in an over-the-top ending that couldn’t be further away from the original saccharin tale. Then again, that’s the whole idea.
Spoofs were something unique to OiNK in the children’s comic market at the time, yet in the case of Twitty Twitty Bang Bang this wasn’t the only thing that set it apart. While comics such as Beano and Buster did have text adventure serials in their early days, it wasn’t something humour comics had any more, or any children’s comics outside of the nursery and very young children’s market. Later on in this year (1988) other comics such as The Real Ghostbusters and Thundercats would bring back the prose story, but for the time being pages like this really stood out.
Simon’s other contribution to the issue has plenty of panels of text packed with gags, this time as part of a full-page illustration in his usual entertaining style, with a rather more dreary colour palette than usual which is all part of the joke. This time of the year family holidays would be planned and paid for; I remember the TV listings magazines being full of them the first few months of the year. These were just ripe for a makeover, selling trips to the Porkshire Riviera’s Outlet-By-The-Sea.
While it’s not a GBH Madvertisement their presence is still very much felt with their Spamtins Holiday Camp and Multi-storey Caravan Park. Growing up in the 80s and 90s I really found the caption for the Top Class Variety Acts very funny, even as a fan of the person at the butt of the joke. In the image itself there are so many funny little details, such as the quick sand, the periscope, a pair of socks that seem to have survived beyond their owner and the rigid man who I don’t think is sunbathing anymore.
This wasn’t the only time Simon would try to entice us away to sunnier climbs. Watch out for his special cruise ship cutaway later in the year. That particular contribution will definitely be featured in the highlights to come. This issue’s highlights are particularly good too, beginning with Invisible Charlie (who appeared in three issues) and Davy Francis’ trademark background gags. (Check out the posters in this example.)
“Baby George! The Beastie Babies! And Paul Extremely Young!
Tiny Tots TV, Vaughan Brunt
On the Grunts page a reader must’ve had the fright of their lives on their high street, Tiny Tots TV suggests some more baby based television hits after the success of Muppet Babies and Frank Sidebottom has two colourful pages this week. One is a competition, the other is his recurring Frank Sidebottom and his Fantastic Showbiz Gossip column which incudes his diary and, while he slips in a couple of joke entries, it’s an interesting look into the busy life of the man behind the mask, Chris Sievey.
Invisible Charlie by Davy Francis Grunts compiled by Patrick Gallagher Tiny Tots TV written by Vaughan Brunt, drawn by Mike Green Frank Sidebottom by Chris Sievey
The life of a superstar, eh?
There are a ton of mini-strips in here, including two full pages of them. Over these two pages alone we have the return of Uncle Pigg and Mary Lighthouse to strip form, Zootown, Harry the Head, Doctor Mooney He’s Completely Looney, a GBH Madvertisement, a one-off strip by Charlie Brooker called A Day in the Life of a Typical Schoolboy and the first strip of a perennial favourite, Wally of the West. Oh, plus the weekly funny newsagent coupon.
I want to show you a few of these in quick succession and it’s been difficult to decide which ones to pick out from this brilliant selection. I’ll begin with Charlie’s Typical Schoolboy, simply because it’s so daft.
GBH returns with a tiny madvert with big prices. Their special modelling clay promises plenty of “steaming” fun from the offset, so I’m sure you can draw your own correct conclusions as to what the product actually is. There are so many jokes following on from the theme of that ‘clay’, including the variety of colour schemes and even a special free gift and another dig at radio DJ Gary Davies (also see Outlet-By-The-Sea).
I’m not sure who wrote it but the couple of tiny illustrations are by Steve Gibson, so given past examples in the weeklies of his work with Charlie on quizzes and the like I’m going to assume Brooker wrote this one too.
My eyes lit up and I’m sure I had a great big grin across my face when I saw our next mini-strip, the first appearance of Ed McHenry’s Wally of the West. The character would appear in 12 OiNKs altogether, sometimes more than once in an issue and was a main staple during this final year of the comic. Often accompanied by his long-suffering friend Fungus, the strips were a series of short gags about a very dimwitted cowboy set in the American Wild West of the past.
The jokes revolved around his stupidity which might not sound that original but Wally had two things going for him. The first was the setting which gave it a unique feel and opened it up to new ideas. The second was the most important though, Ed himself. Creator of many quizzes and one-off strips, Ed was now beginning to move into his own serials having also recently created Igor and the Doctor which was an exciting prospect for any fans of his work so far in OiNK.
Back in 1988 Beano reached its 50th anniversary, after The Dandy had the previous year and the first combined celebratory book had been released in 1987. I actually received that book myself for that Christmas, when I also got the first OiNK! Book, although I do think the Dandy/Beano tome was originally for my brother but he’d grown out of comics by the time Santa came to town (as a lot of us mistakenly do at some point before correcting course again). In fact, at the same time I was reading DC Thomson’s book my other annual was making lots of jokes at its expense!
This wasn’t going to stop anytime soon by the looks of this week’s newsagent reservation coupon by Patrick Gallagher.
I’ve one more little mini-strip I want to show you but I’ll finish with it after I round up this review. From the brilliant front cover which showed right there on the shelf OiNK didn’t follow any of the traditional comic rules, to its huge array of mini-strips and strong one-offs, this is by far the best of the weekly editions so far! In fact, it could easily be one of the best issues of the whole run up to this point. I remember being very excited at getting OiNK every single week from issue 50 onwards as a child and that remains true today.
Even though I know there are only nine weeklies left until we have to wait much longer between issues I’m still just as excited at the prospect of those to come as I was 35 years ago. To wrap up this excellent issue we even get a tiny little Uncle Pigg and Mary Lighthouse strip, something we haven’t seen in the regular comic in a long time. They used to introduce every issue, or would pop up in multi-page strips now and again but for a long time now have been relegated to the Grunts page so it’s nice to see Ian Jackson bring them to life again. This time they’re not written by Mark Rodgers as they usual are, but Kev F Sutherland instead. Thanks for bringing them back, Kev.
OiNK #54’s review will be here on Saturday 11th March 2023.
The first cover drawn by Chris Sievey, better known as Frank Sidebottom, is a delight of what must’ve been time-consuming details. As a kid I always loved his unique style but I don’t think I gave it the appreciation it really deserved. Look at the panelling in the wooden fence and each individual window in those distant buildings, never mind the brilliant colour work all completed with felt tip pens. I’ve already discussed previously that co-editor Patrick Gallagher told me how long Chris would spend perfecting his OiNK work and this is the perfect example.
On the Grunts page, under a list of the most popular characters (every reader who wrote in was asked to include a coupon with their top three strips) is news that some of those listed will be returning in new mini-series soon, namely The Street-Hogs, The Spectacles of Doom (you can check some of it out in Andy Roper‘s obituary) and Rubbish Man. In #50’s review I touched upon characters some cartoonists had rested. It’s interesting to see the once-regular Rubbish Man alongside two strips that were always mini-series. Perhaps this was how they’d get around having fewer pages for the large amount of characters readers wanted to see.
So what about those showbiz scoops of Frank’s?
My favourite part of this is the difference between the Springsteen headline and what the story actually is; it’s very clever and very funny, reminding me of those headlines you’ll see from certain websites where every word has a capital letter. You know the type. Nice to see the Smokebusters still going strong after first popping up in #46 (and of course the special edition) and the huge headline on the cover is reduced to a tiny side panel with another hilarious non-story behind it all, aping the tabloid press of the day. (Of the present too.)
Elsewhere there’s a fantastic photo collage of Frank’s time recording a sketch for Saturday morning children’s TV show No.73. I loved that show and the page in question will be part of a special post later in the year. That’s all I’m going to say for now, other than it’ll be worth the wait. Back to the issue at hand and underneath a three-quarter-page Pete and his Pimple (backing up what I said for the last two issues about the return of a more varied layout to the comic) is the latest Cowpat County from Davy Francis.
Last week we had a full-page colour strip, now a quarter-page black and white mini but fans wouldn’t have felt short-changed. This was the nature of OiNK; your favourites could pop up irregularly, in different formats from longer stories to quick gags such as this. It’s great to have that feel of the fortnightlies back again and to be enjoying it on a weekly basis. Davy is a master of the quick gag strips so that’s another reason I wasn’t disappointed to see Cowpat County in a much tinier space this time, because I knew I was guaranteed a good chortle.
The highlight of this issue for me is Jeremy Banx’s Burp. That shouldn’t be a surprise, I’ve never made a secret of the fact I’m a huge fan of Jeremy’s work, especially his strips for this particular smelly alien from outer space. But if you cast your mind back to the previous review, when I was delighted to see the return of Alvin and found the now-sentient coffin so funny, you’ll understand why this week’s strip was a particular thrill to read.
As always with Burp’s pages it’s very funny from the offset, giving us this surreal experience of a tax assessor coming to his UFO as if that’s a completely normal thing to happen in this man’s day-to-day working life. In fact, as he’s presented with ever more bizarre creatures he doesn’t run off as we’d expect, instead he just gets angrier, the “This is going to cost you, lad” response to the Pet Specimen from Uranus being particularly funny.
It’s a great pay off that we didn’t even know we needed
That surprise return is just one of three (well, more if you count his internal organs), having disappeared over the last several months. Always seen dangling from Burp’s belt in earlier issues, here Jeremy even gives us an answer to where he’s been. In what must be one of Burp’s many inventions the specimen can now go anywhere he pleases, giving us a reason as to why he hasn’t been seen dangling. But it’s the other two characters I loved seeing again the most.
Alvin popping up again was a hoot, so certain was I that we’d seen the last of him (I’ve been wrong on that before, right regular readers?) but then to see the coffin, after I said how funny it would be to see these two even just hanging out in the background of future strips, is just hilarious! The coffin even has a name now. I know I’ve said this already but this really is one of my very favourite Burp strips, but only because it works so well after reading all of the previous instalments. It’s a great pay off that we didn’t even know we needed.
The Slugs written by Tony Husband, drawn by Lezz Billy the Pig written by Tony Husband, drawn by Chas Sinclair Tom Thug by Lew Stringer
Cherry-picking some other highlights from the issue I’m not sure how I feel about the word “crap” in The Slugs. While according to Uncle Pigg last week the audience for OiNK was changing from what was originally intended and it was always meant to be the punk rock of children’s comics, it was still a children’s comic. Can you imagine if Whizzer and Chips used this word? It’d have been all over the tabloids. So yes, I’m not sure how I feel about that.
Elsewhere there’s a wonderfully dark yet silly moment as Billy the Pig continues his search for his rustled family, and in Tom Thug there’s a surprise return for big brother Ernie who first popped up seven days ago. This time he’s off for good though, when we find out he’s been charged with being AWOL and in his final panel the character’s bravado we’ve come to know for these two issues disappears completely. Speaking with Lew, he’d forgotten all about Ernie. He was never mentioned again, even in all the years Tom was a regular in Buster.
This is a phenomenal feat for someone still at school to be writing so much for a mainstream comic.
Billy Bang, Brian Luck He’s Really Unlucky, a quiz called Are You a Compulsive Liar?, Transmogrifying Tracey, The Adventures of Death and a GBH Madvertisement all have one thing in common in this issue. They’re all written by Charlie Brooker. This is a phenomenal feat for someone still at school to be writing so much for a mainstream comic. We obviously know of his incredible talent and genius comedic writing in later years but one look at this GBH Azid page and you can see even as a teenager he was already there.
This is simply a brilliant page, Charlie’s excellent script expertly brought to life by Eric ‘Wilkie’ Wilkinson and his unique textured style. Obviously the OiNK editors saw something in the young Black Mirror creator to give him his first paying job in the first place, but with how many times I’m seeing his name already (I knew he contributed a lot to the later monthlies) it’s clear they were impressed with him from the offset and were asking him for more. This is becoming a fascinating look into the early career of one of my very favourite television writers.
We’ll stick with Charlie for one more strip I think and the return of The Adventures of Death, one of those favourite not-as-regular-as-you-remember regular characters. Death was in every edition for six issues to begin with but as Charlie’s repertoire expanded the Grim Reaper became one of several of his creations he had to split his time between. Remember folks, he was still at school! It appears he’s now becoming one of OiNK’s main contributors though. Personally, Death is still a favourite character after all theses years.
I found myself lingering on that penultimate panel. That’s genius comic timing in a comic strip. I can’t help but wonder if OiNK had continued on in this guise and lasted longer than it ultimately did, would Charlie have continued as a contributor, and more so would he have continued with a cartooning career? We’ll never know. What we do know is what Charlie did after OiNK’s eventual cancellation. He produced cartoon art for CeX before moving on to writing for PC Zone magazine, including a comic strip.
From here it was a natural progression into TV’s Games Republic, which led on to writing for such shows as Channel Four’s The 11 O’Clock Show and the infamous Brass Eye paedophilia special. At the same time he created his TV review column Screen Burn for The Guardian. These career paths would culminate in Screen Wipe, a BBC series I adored and really miss. A phenomenal career which all began with our piggy pink publication.
Patrick Gallagher‘s reservation coupon rounds things off as usual and it’s been another fantastic read this week. I’m even getting used to the 24-page format. There’s more crammed in now so it’s taken longer to read than the first handful of weeklies. Great stuff. The next OiNK has one of the best covers of the whole run. If you thought what Lew Stringer did with the logo last week was something special just wait ’til you see what he does with it in just six days on Friday 3rd March 2023. (1988 was a leap year, so we’re missing a day.)
The latest cover from Lew Stringer is one of my most memorable simply because of how inventive it is. Surely OiNK’s was one of the best comic logos ever created, right? Of course I could just be biased, but the logo co-editor Patrick Gallagher created always seemed so bold, so different and so joyful as a kid. It still gives me all the feels today. Tom Thug appearing behind a sea of it is a great idea and you can take a look at the original artwork and the overlaying of the logos in a post on Lew’s own blog from 2015 when it was up for sale.
On the Grunts page Uncle Pigg tells us how the audience reading OiNK is rather different from the one it was originally created for, apparently now mainly made up of teenagers and young adults. I asked co-editor Patrick Gallagher, who also compiles the Grunts pages, how they found this out.
Patrick says, “When we said the audience had changed, I think that was based on audience research from Fleetway plus our original audience (like yourself) was getting older too, but we couldn’t disregard the ‘Whizzer and Chips and Buster‘ younger end of the audience, hence plugging Tom and Pete later in those particular comics (which didn’t cost anything).”
This would in turn lead to the comic slowly changing over the course of the weeklies until it rebooted itself as a monthly “magazine”, to quote #63. For now though, let’s concentrate on the issue at hand and inside our cover star had a page-and-a-half to cause chaos with and a cut-out mask on the back cover (which you’ll see in a future post) so he’s very much the star this week. His strip has a new guest star too, in the shape of his newly created brother.
Like all the best Tom Thug strips it moves into brilliantly scripted slapstick, only it’s not Tom who’s the main recipient of Lew’s penchant for comic violence this time. Well, apart from the front door, with that funny little detail of the wall going down to the brick from the force of Ernie’s entrance. Ernie would be back in the next issue before leaving for good (adding this little fact after reading the next issue seven days later). It’s always fun to see their mum too, what with her being the complete opposite of everyone else in this little dysfunctional family.
“Today’s the day we discover the teddy bear’s graveyard.”
Burp, Jeremy Banx
Reading this in this digital world we now find ourselves in I can’t help but think, given Tom’s attitude towards the army and what he thinks his brother actually does, that our resident bully would definitely have a flag or a football top as his Twitter profile avatar. Lew has said before that Tom would definitely be a cowardly internet troll today. Also, is it just me or does Tom’s mum remind anyone else of their own mum in the 80s? It’s uncanny. Must be the hair.
Moving on to Jeremy Banx’s Burp and I was delighted to find out I was initially wrong about having seen the last of a certain character. Back in #32 in a bid to fix a little girl’s broken teddy bear our friendly smelly alien mistakenly created sentient life. Puzzled by the toy’s lack of organs, skeleton, brain or in fact anything, he thought this was the cause of the girl’s heartbreak so he brought Alvin to life, only for us to see his owner tear him limb from limb in a game of doctor and patient. He returned in #46 and ended up sizzled like a well done steak.
It’s always fun to see another ludicrously-named gadget Burp just happens to have either lying around or invented, with appropriately hilarious results. Will Alvin reappear in the remaining issues that include Burp? Well I’m not going to try and answer that since I was so wrong last time, but given how some of his internal organs have become recurring characters I’d love to see the bear and the coffin pottering about in the background of his spaceship! (UPDATE: Ahem… they did indeed just the following week.)
I showed the punchline from last issue’sBilly Bang and then realised I haven’t showed a full strip of Billy’s since way back in #4’s review when he was drawn by Shiloe (Viz’s Simon Donald). Nowadays Eric ‘Wilkie’ Wilkinson has the duty of exploding the bad tempered lad every week and the puns, which had started to become a little repetitive, are now fresh and funny again thanks to a mixture of writers taking on the task. This week it’s the mysterious ‘Griffiths + Kane’. Also watch out for the facial expression of the fish in the water which I just love.
Billy’s original creator Mike Knowles even admitted he never thought the character would last because of the limited premise but he did, passed on to other creative teams as the comic evolved over time. This ever-shifting roster of talent defied odds again and again and he’d remain a regular all the way through to the end. Well, when I say “regular”, even before the reduction in pages (with #45) OiNK’s roster of regular characters was too big for any one issue.
While all other humour comics had a set amount of regular strips which would neatly add up to the amount of pages needed OiNK was (as always) different. It still had those strips which would appear every fortnight/week, but there were a load of characters that were still deemed regulars who didn’t appear all the time. It was always exciting when your favourites popped up and it kept things fresh, and if OiNK had continued for years and years I’m sure we would’ve seen the return of some of those absent these past couple of months.
Horace Watkins by Tony Husband Cowpat County by Davy Francis
Here’s a perfect example. Two strips we’d all agree were main OiNK strips. Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins continues with his ever-more-ridiculous spoof football drama, a strip which appeared in all but one issue. Then we have Cowpat County which appeared in the first 14 issues (plus the preview) but as new characters were introduced it began to appear irregularly, sometimes every issue, sometimes there’d be a gap. Its length also became more fluid, appearing as mini-strips as well as full pages.
I don’t think any pig pal would argue this made Cowpat County any less of a regular strip, it was just the OiNK way of doing things. In fact, it’s been a while since we got a full page from Davy’s Farmer Giles and it’s an extra special treat to see one in colour, complete with what has to be described as a ‘classic’ joke, surely? Speaking of regulars though, the absence of The Sekret Diary ov Hadrian Vile Aged 8 5/8 Years is glaringly obvious. This is the first regular issue he hasn’t appeared in. Some good and bad news about that in a few issues’ time.
I’m sure we can all agree with the trouser press
One of those characters introduced back in #15 when OiNK’s line up got a shake-up was Lew Stringer’s Pete and his Pimple. This issue sees the first of the reader suggestions for a solution to Pete Throb’s massive spot problem. First asked for in #45 these ideas came thick and fast for the rest of OiNK’s run, starting points for the majority of Pete’s strips to come. I’ve included this one here for two reasons. The first is simply because it’s the first one and I wanted to mark the occasion, the other is for its co-star, the trouser press. Read it, enjoy, and when you get to the final panel you’ll understand.
I’m sure we can all agree with the trouser press in this situation. (There’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.) The colouring might seem a bit odd on first glance but I think it works. There were a few pages which would feature two set colours on this thinner matt paper instead of the various grades we got even in black and white strips on the glossy pages (up to #35) and the higher grade matt used for the remainder of the fortnightlies (beginning with #36). A lot of traditional comics had examples of one colour being used to make certain pages stand out, usually red.
OiNK’s contemporaries like Buster and Whizzer and Chips had a lot less colour than OiNK despite being eight pages longer, and would still use the one colour to set some of those apart, but mainly they were in black and white. Billy Bang and Tom Thug also use just the two tones in this issue to produce the feel of a colour page. I think Wilkie does it best since he has a lot of water in his strip, and in Tom’s look closer and you’ll notice only the small tub of water and the inflatable ring are coloured. But the effect works, cleverly highlighting these items before they became part of the slapstick.
It was rare for Psycho Gran to get a full-colour strip. Fans are used to seeing David Leach’s gorgeous technicolour in her stories today in new digital and physical comics he releases now and again. In OiNK her strips would be of varying length but always in black and white so it’s a lovely surprise to see her latest in colour, albeit limited due to the page stock. Also, for once she’s acting in self defence and not inflicting her unique sense of humour upon others.
I’ll be covering the little old lady’s post-OiNK life at some point on the blog but in the meantime it’s a bit of a shock to realise that after this she’ll only appear in one more regular issue before the comic’s cancellation!
If there was ever an OiNK cartoonist who liked to make sure readers got plenty of value it was Davy Francis. Some of the biggest laughs have come from the backgrounds in Davy’s strips, the incidental moments happening behind the main characters, the little gags squeezed into spaces usually left for scenery by others. While little one-off Mabel the Model doesn’t have as many as some of his previous, this particular one had me giggling with its nod to a favourite TV show.
Davy would always elaborate upon the script in his art and Mabel’s script was written by Hilary Robinson (2000AD, Mindbenders, The Worm: the longest comic strip in the world) who you can read all about on her page of the Women in Comics Wiki, including details of her scripts for 2000AD and what ultimately happened to that working relationship. Just like Davy (and myself), Hilary is a resident of Northern Ireland and I assume a friend of Davy’s. Unfortunately, this would be her only contribution to the comic.
Another newsagent reservation coupon by co-editor Patrick Gallagher rounds off another review. I can confidently say last week’s issue (the celebratory 50th) wasn’t a fluke, OiNK really has settled into its weekly guise; it’s back to its random nature, as evidenced with Tom Thug’s larger than normal strip above most of all. Some missing characters have also popped back in and best of all, until it changes format again we have another 11 weeks of this to go! The next one of which will be reviewed in seven days on Saturday 25th February 2022. See you then.
It’s time for another celebratory issue of the world’s greatest, and funniest, comic. OiNK reached its 50th issue on this day 35 years ago, although technically speaking if you count the special editions this is actually the 55th edition, but let’s not quibble. Not only that but it feels more like the OiNK of old again. With the team caught up on the new weekly schedule characters no longer appear on exactly the same pages anymore, there are more wonderful one-offs and everything is put together in recognisably random fashion again like the fortnightlies.
This is signalled by a move away from the simplistic yellow covers and a fantastic full-page photograph of Frank Sidebottom receiving his knighthood from the Queen, in reality a young passerby. As co-editor Patrick Gallagher told the Dazed website, “I had this Queen mask with me and I’m looking for someone to put it on so Frank could get down on his knee for the photo. Only one kid would do it so we had him with the Queen’s face on and Frank being knighted. He paid twenty quid for it but obviously it was worth nothing. Frank got ripped off. Sometimes adventures with Chris became nightmares.”
Ed McHenry first appeared in OiNK #4 and has contributed to 18 issues and the first annual so far, including many a puzzle page. After an eight-issue absence he makes a grand reentry with Ringo Pig and Golden the Wonder Horse. A beautiful daft full-page strip that signals the beginning of a glorious run of work from Ed. In fact, he’ll contribute to every single issue (including all specials) from now on. His Wally of the West was always a favourite. He’ll be popping up soon on the blog.
But Ed isn’t done with this issue yet as he also drew the wonderful poster in the middle pages that marks the 50th issue with a party for all of OiNK’s main characters, but it doesn’t sit in the issue in isolation. Instead it’s sandwiched between two Lew Stringer strips, namely Pete and his Pimple and Tom Thug who cross over for this special occasion (they also did in #34). Pete’s strip is a bit of a two-for-one deal in the story department, firstly trying to take Lovely Lucy to the party and this backfiring before he runs into Tom outside the shindig itself.
The Lucy part of the strip sets up the pimple’s ability to suddenly flare up to full size without warning (in case you’d forgotten) before it’s used at just the right moment as a way to see off the thug that is Tom, launching us (literally in his case) to the full-colour poster by Ed in the middle pages.
Ed also drew the similarly celebratory poster for the comic’s first birthday, although there it was called an ‘anniversary’ party and here a ‘birthday’ party, which seems the wrong way round. Co-editor Mark Rodgers provides the scenario and script for the chaos reigning here. A script for a poster? Unlike the previous poster which was designed as a portrait of the comic’s stars this is more like Rubbish Man’s New Year’s Party from #44, taking a snapshot in time of the party in progress.
As I’ve said before I always love seeing different cartoonists’ takes on characters created by others and this is a smorgasbord of just that. Ed does a wonderful job of representing a wide variety of characters created by his colleagues while giving each that McHenry twist. Nice to see Mr Big Nose make a cameo after he was dropped from the comic (last appearing in #44) but he’s not the only one I’m happy to see. Roger Rental hasn’t been seen since the latest Christmas issue (and will only make one further appearance in a monthly), and upon seeing Rubbish Man here I’m suddenly aware he also hasn’t been seen in the weeklies! In fact, just like Roger he’ll only be back once more, albeit in a massive strip.
It’s sad to realise some of those included no longer have regular character status
Patrick tells me, “Largely it was the contributors who made the decision to rest certain characters. In the case of Rubbish Man, David Haldane was still busy with his other work. For example in #50 he contributed Torture Twins, Zootown and Haldane’s Amazing, Incredible, Bizzare World. Ian Jackson and Jeremy Banx 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.” At this stage they’d no idea OiNK was going to fold and fully expected the likes of Mr Big Nose to return later.
Even though it’s sad to realise some of those included no longer have regular character status there are a lot of laughs to be had with this poster, such as Burp’s upset tummy (perhaps still upset from the oyster incident), the punch bowl, a selection of awful puns and even though it’s most likely a coincidence I did laugh at the use of the word “frazzle” to describe the little pig on the receiving end of Billy Bang’s temper, given how Frazzles are a bacon flavoured snack! After the poster we’re treated to the end of the crossover tale. This issue is the gift that keeps on giving.
Even though it’s not really a four-page story starring Pete and Tom (which just so happens to co-star a lot of the others) it sure feels like it. It really was something special for a milestone issue and it ends on a perfect note with Tom’s strip. The moment he crashes to the ground from not realising his braces are elastic gave me a chuckle and of course it would have to end on a few more puns, just to round everything off nicely. There are plenty of highlights in this issue, of which this is just one.
All in, this is the issue where the team really settled into the new format. In fact, from next week the ‘Weekly’ would be dropped from the logo on the cover, cementing the fact it was now well-and-truly a weekly comic alongside it stablemates. Alongside the celebrations in #50 Hieronymouos Van Hellsong’s strip ends with Jimmy ‘The Cleaver’ Smith using poor Hellsong to escape in suitably silly fashion and the ever-reliable Billy Bang’s strip ends with one of the best gags he had written for him.
Hieronymous Van Hellsong by Jeremy Banx Billy Bang written by Griffiths+Kane, drawn by Wilkie
Fleetway Publications may have decided to produce double the amount of OiNKs (in order to produce more sales) and bring it in line with the likes of Buster and Whizzer and Chips but that didn’t mean OiNK wasn’t going to continue parodying its stablemates. Whizzer and Chips in particular was an example they’d use to dress down traditional comics as staid and formulaic. Who can forget the wonderful Tom’s Toe from #12 drawn by none other than John Geering himself?
Next to follow in this OiNK tradition (of not following comics tradition) was Charlie Brooker. Still at school while working on OiNK, Charlie would become more and more prolific throughout this last year of the comic (even writing for Lew in #47), not missing a single issue and contributing more with each successive edition. Both The Adventure of Death and Transmogrifying Tracey would continue to pop up now and again, he’d write a ton of quizzes and text features for the monthlies, has a five-issue run of The Swinelight Zone coming up very soon and on top of all that still had time for little one-off additions such as The Check-Up here.
At the back of this issue comes a little public service message and while the Smokebuster Special isn’t mentioned it neatly ties in to the free edition recently handed out to school kids in the north of England. For all the efforts of those people who wanted to ban OiNK or have it banished to the top shelves of newsagents, OiNK had more examples of using humour to teach good values to its pig pals than its contemporaries, so those aforementioned critics were just doing potential readers a even bigger disservice.
Fifty issues of a comic in the late 80s was not to be sniffed at
I hated smoke. Everyone in my household did it (my parents weren’t aware even my siblings were doing it). I hated the smell. I hated the way it scratched at my throat. I hated the way it made my clothes (and me) smell when I visited friends whose parents didn’t smoke. As I’ve said before I never knew about the Smokebuster Special at the time but additions such as this Madvertisement for John Slayer Specials just reinforced my feelings – while also producing a laugh at the expense of smokers, naturally.
Just like the dental hygiene-related Trendy Wendy strip from #42 a few months ago, these anti-smoking jokes made an impact on the young version of me, staying with me throughout my formative teenage years. Would I have relented to peer pressure if it hadn’t been for OiNK? I doubt it, but this certainly helped keep me on the straight and narrow, if only for the fact I didn’t want to be the butt (no pun intended) of the jokes . I’d remember them at opportune moments throughout my teens as a result.
Fifty issues of a comic in the late 80s was not to be sniffed at, especially for one such as OiNK which was unlike anything that had come before, and which had faced a complaint to The Press Council and been subjected to the whims of conservative shop owners and critics alike. The cover of this issue feels like a dig at those self-proclaimed stalwarts of decency in its use of a royal image honouring the comic. Little did we know there were only another 18 issues to come. It’s heartbreaking to think of that now in hindsight. Best make sure we don’t miss any, right?
Out of all the comics I had a regular order for back then only a few saw this milestone (OiNK – 68 issues, Transformers – 332 issues, The Real Ghostbusters – 193 issues, Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends – still going with 819 issues at the time of writing). That didn’t mean I loved the others any less of course; one of my all-time favourites lasted only 6 regular issues. At the time of OiNK #50’s release it really did feel like it was here forever, that nothing could stop it and with a new found confidence in the weekly I couldn’t wait for the next 50!
In a few issues there’ll be a look at the positive feedback the comic had received in the press to counteract those aforementioned eejits, reinforcing that feeling of the comic’s success and it being here to stay. OiNK would now go from strength to strength as a weekly, finally producing wildly different issues once again. The next one of these will be reviewed next Saturday, 18th February 2023.
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