Creating Comics, Interviews, Knight Rider

DRAWiNG THE KNiGHT RiDER: DAViD LLOYD iNTERViEW

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I was elated to discover how well the first Knight Rider Annual held up today when I reviewed it a few days ago. Any fears I had of a cheap cash-in were quickly dispensed with when I saw the comic strips inside. They were simply gorgeous. Coupled with fun prose tales and backed up with interesting articles featuring photographs which enthralled me as a kid, it was a superb package and one I felt proud of as an absolutely massive fan of the show.

I was thrilled to find out none other than David Lloyd (V for Vendetta, Wasteland, Hellblazer) was responsible for all of the art, both the strips and the illustrations for the prose stories. David is the editor of Aces Weekly, the superb digital anthology comic which has featured on the blog before. I thought I’d reach out and ask David if he’d be willing to answer some questions about his time working on the Knight Rider books. He said yes!

Not only was David very forthcoming with some fascinating information he also sent over scans of some of his early sketches, drawn while watching a recording of the series. These show his initial designs for K.I.T.T. and Michael, including a study of David Hasselhoff. I’m thrilled to include this post on the blog and I’m sure it’ll be as interesting to comics and Knight Rider fans alike.

OiNK Blog: I was (and I’ll admit still am) rather obsessed with Knight Rider. The show was a massive hit with families and kids of all ages. How familiar were you with it before working on the strips?

David Lloyd: I liked Knight Rider at the time too, though not quite as much you, obviously!

OB: I just love the finish of the drawings you did for the first two annuals, especially on the strips, they seemed to capture the darker atmosphere of the pilot movie in particular.

DL: I have particularly good memories about the first annual because I was very happy with the work I’d done on the wash drawing. Loved using wash and there were few places you could use it in regular comics art at the time. I had fun with the illos (illustrations in the prose stories – Phil), too.

OB: The show couldn’t have been on for very long when you started work on this, did that hamper you in any way?

DL: No problem with it not being long-running [yet] and no one’s going to wait for you to become familiar with it all before you can draw an adaptation of it. You do your job and get on with it as a professional! And anyway, annuals were usually planned during a first season of a new series in expectation of some success, enough to justify the publishing of them, and also as part of some package of various launch/promotional agreements that might have been made, so you’d normally be drawing one for a new series before it had become massive, if it was going to.

OB: The show’s newness may not have hampered David but he did have to get creative in gathering references.

DL: By the way, to add some detail, I did that first KR annual before I had a video recorder, so I asked the help of a friend who did have one, and went round to sit and sketch some details from one of the shows I’d asked him to tape for me – pausing to sketch dashboard detail, etc. If you’re interested I can scan some of those scribbles, and some Hasselhoff studies I did before starting the job. I think you’d probably like to see them.

OB: What did a study entail?

DL: Just trying to study the likeness and get his face right enough. You’ll see these were hanging around for a while on my drawing board, which is why they have all kinds of notes and stuff on them!

OB: There were no credits in the Grandreams annuals but David has let us in on who wrote the strips and prose stories.

DL: The comic scripts and the shorts were all written by the brilliant Steve Moore. In fact, he wrote everything I ever drew on all the annuals I did for Grandreams. He was so good he could write any character to be exact to their personalities in any TV show he had to write stories for. And in some of the annuals, I think his stories were better than the TV scripts.

OB: I haven’t heard of the name Steve Moore before but you’re right, his stories in these were fantastic, especially the text stories. One in particular involving an art heist would’ve made a fantastic episode and I completely agree, some of his stories were better than some of the TV scripts! He definitely got the funny partnership between man and machine perfect.

DL: I’m surprised you hadn’t heard of Steve as I’d imagined you knew a lot about Brit comics as someone running a blog named after OiNK. Everyone who was around at the period of that particular comic were mostly aware of the general scene in Brit comics at the time and its denizens. If you have heard of Alan Moore, though, then you should know that Steve – no relation but a long-time friend – taught Alan how to write comics. Steve was a great writer but never busted through into making a great international profile for himself as some including Alan were lucky enough to do. He was just a fabulous craftsman in a specialist field of writing. And he wrote a book on the I Ching called the Trigrams of Han. No ordinary guy.

OB: David went on to name some of the other titles Steve wrote for, many of which were published before I started collecting comics as a young child with OiNK (and so haven’t been covered on the blog). These titles are classics through and through.

DL: On Steve Moore – he did most of the backup strips in Doctor Who magazine that I did, he created Laser Eraser and Pressbutton for Warrior, amongst other things, and Abslom Daak Dalek Killer and Hercules comics. Check them out if you can sometime.

OB: As far as choosing which parts of those wonderfully written prose stories to illustrate…

DL: The brief on the short stories in Knight Rider, and on all the other annuals I did, was to do a bunch of scenes that you could pick yourself, so it was very freeing creatively to do those. And I had particular fun using coloured inks on the KR stuff.

OB: Can I just ask about your drawings of K.I.T.T. himself? After the first two annuals Jim Eldridge took over and it was more traditional line work rather than the painted look of yours. How difficult (or indeed, fun) did you find drawing the Trans-Am in these action strips, especially that complicated dashboard?

DL: Not difficult, though I’m no great fan of drawing cars. If you have a good story to tell and enough reference to do it well and you can enjoy yourself with good characters and settings, it’s fine. I sketched enough of what I needed to sketch and used what I could from elsewhere. I don’t know who did the following KR books but annuals publishers generally used talents of varying quality – some straight out of art school, some who were just jobbing illustrators who had no real feeling for comics art, and sometimes guys who knew exactly what they were doing : ) I did a Knight Rider colouring book, too, so if you’re a completist and want to seek that out from somewhere! (I’ll add that to my eBay searches then – Phil)

OB: Of course it wasn’t just K.I.T.T., the character of Michael was just as important and thankfully you and Steve realised this too. Can I just ask you about your process for drawing the strips? They’re unlike anything else from the time that I read. Most used more standard line work, whereas yours was completely different. How did you achieve the finished look?

DL: I can’t say much about the process it would take too long. It still begins with some degree of line drawing to start with except the shading that might be done in line drawing only – with cross-hatching, etc – is substituted with black watercolour washes of varying strengths. As I said, there wasn’t much wash drawing used in most comics at the time, as you attest, so it was good for me to be able to take the opportunity I could with KR. 

OB: Just one more question, all of the images of K.I.T.T. (drawings and photos) have “Knight 2000” on his bodywork somewhere, no matter the angle. This was never the case on the show, he was meant to blend in, but I remember all of my toys as a kid had the same thing. I’m guessing it was to differentiate between Knight Rider and Pontiac Trans-Am merchandise in licensing, can you remember this being something you had to add and why?

DL: The car branding, I don’t remember any instruction about that and there are drawings of mine in the strips and illos where it isn’t added – so I forgot about it if I had been – but I think it must have been a requested requirement from the licensor because on the second page of Crime Buster K.I.T.T. in the second annual the car has the branding, but badly done, so it wasn’t done by me.  Yes, so, perhaps a contractual need from Trans-Am.

I just want to say thanks so much to David for his time, I can’t begin to describe how appreciative I am to have the chance to chat to him about Knight Rider and a book which brought so much joy to not only six-year-old me, but also to the 44-year-old who now writes about these childhood comics and books. To see more of David’s work from the first Knight Rider Annual you can check out the full review and then wait (patiently or impatiently) for the next one in twelve months’ time.

Don’t forget to subscribe to David’s Aces Weekly too, the digital anthology comic. Each volume is made up of seven weekly issues for only £7, that’s just £1 each! The entire back catalogue is also available on the website and even features work by OiNK cartoonists David Leach and Lew Stringer. So don’t miss out, click on the title below and off you go!

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CHRiSTMAS 2022

Annuals, Christmas, Knight Rider

KNiGHT RiDER ANNUAL #1: MAKiNG A DiFFERENCE

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“No matter what’s going on in the world or in my life, putting an episode on can bring a huge smile to my face. Don’t we all have something in our lives that does that? This is mine.”

My late grandad Ted came to my house one Sunday morning when I was a child and asked my parents if I’d seen the film on TV the night before about the fantastic car that was filled with computers, could talk, drive itself and even jump in the air. My mum hadn’t heard about it but luckily enough my grandad knew it was going to be a TV series starting the next week and he thought I might like it. He wasn’t wrong. Thus began a lifelong obsession with Knight Rider.

I may have grown out of it temporarily by the late 80s but when repeats began airing in the mid-90s my love for Michael and K.I.T.T. returned and has never gone away. Every decade since may have brought its own obsession, from Babylon 5 to Stargate SG-1, from Doctor Who to NCIS, but Knight Rider has a special place in my heart and, no matter what’s going on in the world or in my life, putting an episode on can bring a huge smile to my face. Don’t we all have something in our lives that does that? This is mine.

There wasn’t a Knight Rider comic because the trend at that time was to feature popular series in strip format inside our magazines such as Look-In, a young person’s TV guide which featured the series alongside the likes of The A-Team and Airwolf. But between 1983 and 1987 Grandreams released five Knight Rider annuals filled with strips, prose stories, puzzles, pin-ups and behind-the-scenes features and interviews. I think I only ever owned this one from 1983 though.

The series debuted this side of the Atlantic in February 1983, with the first annual released at the end of the summer and my eager young hands got a hold of it that Christmas, hence why I’m reviewing it now as part of the blog’s festivities. I remember reading the two-page Look-In strips in my sister’s magazine, with their weekly cliffhangers similar to the 60s Thunderbirds comics. However they were line drawings, not the gorgeous greyscale wash we get here.

Upon picking this annual up for the blog I wasn’t sure what to expect. I really hoped for something entertaining but over the years I’ve seen some horrible annuals quickly thrown together in order to cash in, without much love nor care for the property. As long as this wasn’t like that I’d be happy. What I didn’t expect was something of such high calibre, with an excellent creative team behind great stories illustrated with gorgeous art, alongside some fun articles. I couldn’t be happier Knight Rider received this treatment.

When I opened the book and saw the two-page introductory strip above which recaps the set up for the series not only was I in awe of the art, I was instantly transported back to that Christmas. Quickly telling the tale of Michael Knight’s original identify, being double-crossed, shot in the face and left to die, and the reconstructive surgery which resulted in his new identity and new life, we’re instantly up to speed and ready to get stuck in to what promises to be a much better book than I thought it was going to be.

The intro strip is followed by a feature explaining the background to the characters, the Foundation for Law and Government (F.L.A.G.) and the story behind the series. Some of the details here didn’t even make it into the show and were pulled from the series bible, put together by Glen A. Larson when the show was created. For the uninitiated, Wilton Knight’s Knight Industries set up F.L.A.G. as a non-profit arm of his company to help ordinary citizens fight those untouchable criminals who operate above the law.

Court battles and legal wrangling made up the majority of their work (though for obvious reasons we only heard about these happening off camera) but sometimes “direct intervention” was called for and that’s where the Knight 2000 project came in; one man in one car, that car offering him all the funding and resources of the Foundation to make a real difference in the lives of people the justice system had let down. Sounds like a good set up for a show, doesn’t it? Well, it sure was.

Of course, that one car was K.I.T.T., or rather the Knight Industries Two Thousand artificial intelligence inside the Knight 2000 car. That’s something the show (and I’m glad to say this annual) made perfectly clear; K.I.T.T. wasn’t the car, he was the A.I. inside the car; a car that could jump, drive on two wheels, create fog and oil slicks and so much more, all inside the near-indestructible molecular bonded shell capable of 300+ kph. Add in K.I.T.T. who could control all of this, drive it, remotely hack computers (a big deal back then) and give Michael computerised, forensic and scientific resources that’d make NCIS envious.

There’s even information which was new to me today. It’s full of wonderful little details fans will lap up

Knight Rider was that rare thing, a television show my whole family gathered around to watch together. It was unlike anything anyone had seen before. My sisters may have had David Hasselhoff posters on their walls, but mine were adorned with K.I.T.T., shelves packed with models of the car, books, electric toys… you name it, I had it. I remember when ITV repeated the show in the 90s and my mum, dad and a then-teenage me would still watch it together. Today, the remastered HD Blu-Ray collection takes pride of place in my own home. My love for this show will never wane.

So, intros out of the way and my obsession detailed, I can happily declare this opening feature is anything but a basic round up. Michael’s boss Devon Miles (played by the excellent Edward Mulhare) may be misspelled ‘Deven’ but there are details here from the series bible the show didn’t elaborate on until later seasons, so it must’ve been fascinating reading it in 1983. There’s even information which was new to me today. I never knew Devon originally met Wilton on a mission in France for the British S.O.E., or that his parents were killed in the blitz. Technician Bonnie Barstow’s father was a pilot who worked for Wilton and she has a Masters in Computer Science and a Doctorate in Robotics. It’s full of wonderful little details fans will lap up.

This image is taken from the first strip, Break-Out. There are two strips in the book, both of which act like the final part of an episode, so all of the detective work and build-up is out of the way and the strips can concentrate on some fun action. For example, here we see the results of the supposed damsel in distress trying to double-cross Michael only for K.I.T.T. to quite literally eject that plan. So who was behind these exciting, fun stories and the simply gorgeous, atmospheric art?

I was thrilled to find out my favourite thing in the universe was handed over to none other than David Lloyd, he of V for Vendetta fame (as well as Wasteland, The Territory and Hellblazer). Yes, that David Lloyd! His unmistakable style and that lovely wash suit Knight Rider perfectly. The original pilot movie was rather dark with a lovely atmosphere and David’s art is reminiscent of the direction of that particular episode. With Marvel UK’s Transformers letterer Annie Halfacree bringing her talents to the page the only question left to ask was who wrote these?

While speaking with David recently (more on that at the end of this review) I was finally able to find out it was Steve Moore (Abslom Daak Dalek Killer, Hercules, Warrior) who wrote many of the stories for Grandreams tie-in annuals at the time. Steve nails the characters of Michael and K.I.T.T. and, best of all, their dynamic interplay. This evolved as the series progressed and at this early stage could still be quite antagonistic at times, Michael’s patience sometimes wearing thin with the analytical and logical computer. I’m very happy to say that’s here in spades.

The prose stories, beautifully drawn and coloured by David, are lengthier than any in Marvel UK’s annuals, giving Steve the scope to give us a more detailed adventure for our heroes. Although, I must note Bonnie is conspicuously absent outside of the features. This could be because the stories had to be written so far in advance that the pilot movie was all Steve had to really go on (Bonnie didn’t appear until the first regular episode). But then again the stories take place out on the road already, so by this stage in the episodes it would be all about Michael and K.I.T.T. anyway.

Reign of Terror uses that old 80s staple of the bad motorcycle gang, one the show itself used in its first season. In fact, the episode Good Day at White Rock would’ve been broadcast months before this annual hit the shops. Also, K.I.T.T.’s functions are limited to those shown in the pilot movie, so again I think these were written before much of the series was broadcast. Given this, it’s nothing short of incredible how well Steve nails everything from the characterisations to the tone.

The distinction between K.I.T.T. and the car are particularly enjoyable, especially since this was something the series would only really begin to highlight in season two (after it was set up in the pilot). For example, in one paragraph here, “K.I.T.T. brought the car round the buildings and came up behind them.” It’s enthusiastically written and I get the impression Steve was having fun with this. Michael and K.I.T.T. throw everything at the bikers and it’s not just a checklist of the car’s functions, there’s a proper plan here, perfectly thought out and executed with panache, a plan that could only be achieved by this unique partnership.

Reign of Terror’s plot may not have been all that original but it paints an entertaining picture. The other prose story, The Long Chase is a more original idea. The US Customs Department asks F.L.A.G. for help in an art forgery case, where they believe a legit art business is also smuggling stolen works. They’ve tried tracking their trucks but are always met with car accidents, traffic jams, road blocks etc., too many to be a coincidence. Enter Michael and K.I.T.T.

In the end it boils down to a situation where they have a choice of two trucks to follow, each going separate ways on the highway. They deduce which one to tail and are met with the same impediments, but they’re no match for these two and we get a wonderfully written sequence of them barging their way through everything thrown at them, much to the terror of Marshall, the Customs Agent along for the ride.

These images have a lovely retro feel to them that many would pay good money to have painted and framed today

When it’s clear they’ve followed the truck with the legitimate art (sent on a wild goose chase with the diversions) Marshall is about to quit, what with the other truck now hundreds of miles away. But this is a challenge our pair relish. There are some really nice scenes involving Michael and K.I.T.T.’s burgeoning partnership. It’s intriguing, well-paced and all round a thoroughly entertaining little tale. There are also some brilliant night scenes drawn by David, my favourite being a double-page spread of K.I.T.T. coming head on towards the reader, scanner and headlights cutting through the night. These images have a lovely retro feel to them that many would pay good money to have painted and framed today.

Alongside a brief bio of The Hoff there are two features centred around our other main character. K.I.T.T. – The Car and the Stunts is pretty self explanatory and is apparently based around an interview with one of the producers, although they go unnamed and give inaccurate information, which is odd. I wonder if the book did speak to someone involved with the show or if they got these details from elsewhere and reprinted them.

There’s a reference to turbo boosting on to the back of a truck being done for real, but the scene in question was actually achieved through clever editing and effects.  The ‘producer’ also says the only thing that isn’t done for real is the ejector seat, but in reality this was really installed into one of the cars used on the show. Indeed, since this book there have been numerous interviews with the stunt people on the show which have been very funny, especially the story about when they were trying to calibrate the ejector seat for the first time and the stuntman went flying into the air higher than a palm tree next to the car! Unfortunately, this isn’t referenced here.

But at the time of this book it was just exciting to see photos of K.I.T.T. in action. You have to remember this was way before the internet. Even VHS video recorders were only starting to be installed across the UK. That meant the only way to see your favourite TV show was when it was broadcast or repeated, and the only chance to see photos was in printed publications. There may not have been any photos of him turbo boosting over anything which I remember being disappointed with, but there are explosions, a ski mode (up on two wheels) and a very memorable chase where the stunt performer jumped from a flying helicopter right down into the driver’s seat of the speeding, self-driving (on the screen at least) K.I.T.T., all without wires!

What’s interesting is how the book credits actor William Daniels as K.I.T.T.’s voice when the show didn’t. In fact, Daniels insisted he not be credited so as not to ruin the illusion for the kids, so given who the target audience is for this book it’s strange to include his name. The second car feature, K.I.T.T. – Equipment and Functions deals specifically with the fictional side of the car, meaning its artificial intelligence and futuristic abilities.

There’s a particularly well written introduction to this part of the annual, especially when discussing the different ways he interacts with the human characters.

“Michael and K.I.T.T. are true partners: they bicker, they rib one another, but they are fiercely loyal to each other. K.I.T.T. is a little bit of a know-it-all. He’s pragmatic, sometimes arrogant, often fussy and peevish. And since he’s (yes, he is described as a “he”) completely logical, he has a difficult time understanding this most illogical of humans, Michael Knight.”

Of course he’d soften as his character developed over the series, as he learned from his human companion and their missions together.

“K.I.T.T. has a great sense of humour and he is incessantly interested in human emotions and feelings, things he seems to pick up on as time goes on.”

It’s clear these details were taken from the series bible because when this was written they were the future plans for the character, rather than anything seen yet. Also, maybe an early draft of that document was used because even here there are some inaccuracies, such as claiming K.I.T.T. can’t have independent thought unless put into surveillance mode. This mode is for scanning the area, K.I.T.T. always had independent thought. (Elsewhere in the same article this mode is described correctly.)

It’s rather strange that the publishers obviously had access to information from the show itself yet these errors still slipped in. Could it be the series bible was further refined as the pilot was created but after it was handed out to licensees? Or perhaps the book elaborated where they thought they could, not thinking they were contradicting anything. Most glaringly are the two oft-cited errors that peeve fans off: no, turbo boost does not enable K.I.T.T. to fly and no, he does not have offensive weapons.

Saying all that, as a child I really didn’t care. We were much more forgiving back then. Books such as this were the only way we could see photos of the super cool car and enjoy new stories away from Saturday evenings in front of the family telly. My own copy of this annual disappeared many, many years ago and I remember it falling apart from being read that many times. It rarely left my side for months after Christmas 1983. I’d even clutch it tightly while watching the latest episode.

To finish this childhood favourite is Devil’s Valley, our second gorgeous strip and it’s even better than the first. It may have been a family show but Knight Rider never shied away from dealing with issues you’d see in more adult dramas, such as murder, kidnap, drug dealing and terrorism. All defeated by one person making a difference of course. Another topic it would touch upon more than once, which this strip also does, was racism.

A variation of the Ku Klux Klan seem to have kidnapped a young lady to make some sort of religious sacrifice. She escapes and runs out in front of a self-piloting K.I.T.T. (Michael is having a doze). Once again, it plays out like the final scenes of an episode and all of the car’s capabilities are the same as the movie but it’s huge fun. The spread above is an exciting collection of panels and shows the potential a regular Knight Rider strip could have had when coupled with a deeper story.

One thing I have noticed throughout the book is the incessant need to have ‘Knight 2000’ plastered all over the car. It looks like it’s been added later and David confirmed he can’t remember any instruction to do so. (It’s particularly jarring on the cover.) I remember any toy K.I.T.T.s I owned as a kid had stickers of this all over them and I’d always remove them. After all, K.I.T.T. was meant to blend in. It could be a licensing thing, to separate merchandise for Knight Rider from that of car manufacturer Pontiac, but adding it to the strips feels unnecessary.

As you can see this is only the first of five Knight Rider Annuals and if this one is anything to go by I’m glad I’ve finally been able to track them all down (those later ones seem to be somewhat rare) and I’m really looking forward to the next one. When will that be? Why, next Christmas of course! This blog is in real time after all. It’ll be an agonising wait but nope, I won’t be reading ahead, it’ll make the experience all the better for it.

For this year however, I have a very special treat in store for both Knight Rider and comics fans in general. Artist David Lloyd very kindly agreed to answer questions about working on the annuals and not only did he supply some fascinating insights, he also sent me some of his original sketches for K.I.T.T. and a Hasselhoff study! You’ll be able to check all of these out in just a couple of days on Saturday 17th December 2022. For now, I’m off to have my yearly viewing of the show’s sole Christmas episode, appropriately enough titled ‘Silent Knight’.

“Straight ahead.”

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Christmas, OiNK Comic Reviews

OiNK! #43: CHRiSTMAS, STUFFED!

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I have so many happy memories associated with OiNK, none more so than in and around Christmas 1987 when the comic was at its height. First up was this superb second festive issue, followed 13 days later on Christmas Day with The OiNK! Book 1988. The double whammy of these two editions can’t be overstated as far as I’m concerned. This issue ended up being my favourite regular issue of the comic and the book my very favourite edition of all! Do they live up to the memories? Let’s start with #43.

Just like all the best issues it begins with an Ian Jackson cover, possibly my favourite of his in fact, with apparently obscene words for us kiddies to guess at the time. I always looked forward to the festive issues of my comics and seeing the snow covered logos always made them feel extra special. There may be no multi-page Uncle Pigg strip like last year’s (by this point he and Mary Lighthouse seemed to be limited to the Grunts page and promotions) but it still manages to outdo even that issue with its plethora of Christmassy contents.

Let’s begin with The Night Before Christmas, a Yuletide Tale from David Haldane. Sounds nice and traditional, doesn’t it? It does and it’s right there at the very beginning of the comic, setting the anarchic tone for all that follows. OiNK was always great at taking traditional comic elements and turning them on their head. Surely nothing could be more traditional than Christmas comics, and upon reading this issue the feeling you come away with is one of the whole team having a blast with poking fun at the season and everything we loved about it.

Haldane’s naughty child was the epitome of an OiNK reader wrapped up in one quick half-page strip. No, we didn’t really steal all the other children’s gifts from Santa but this cheeky, irreverent nature of the comic was what we lapped up, encapsulated here in the first strip of the issue. Things are looking good. A few pages later Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins gave readers a chance to appear as themselves and show just how irreverent they could be with letters to his headmaster.

After being banned from playing for Melchester United, Horace asked readers to send in letters begging his headmaster to change his mind. Well, the word “begging” was replaced with “telling” by those who wrote in, including one Stu Perrins, an OiNK fan who in recent years has written comics series such as Megatomic Battle Rabbit and Chrono-Cat. All of these readers won a Horace t-shirt which is something I’ve yet to see.

Way back in the mists of time when I reviewed #3 of OiNK I loved a particular spoof of some favourite comic and movie stars of mine, the Transformers. Named The Transformoids and drawn by Ralph Shephard, the go-to guy for such stories at the time, it made fun of the characters and their abilities. This issue the target is the Hasbro toy line itself, in the very capable hands of Dave Huxley. This reminds me of my parents’ attempts at following the instructions of my Transformers toys when I got into them about a year or so later.

I remember my dad in particular treating my Headmaster Slapdash like some kind of elaborate Rubik’s Cube puzzle on Christmas Day, following the instructions step-by-step and still not being completely sure he’d got it right in the end. Similarly, the above was based on Dave’s own struggles with his sons Alan’s and John’s Transformers toys which he described as “near lethal” in an article in Crickey! magazine some years later. He even drew his sons into the madvertisement, although apparently they weren’t too impressed.

This next page is so clearly the work of the mind behind Screen Wipe and Black Mirror

Dave’s work would only appear in three issues altogether, going on to become Dr. David Huxley at the Manchester School of Art and for a while had a page of his work, including one or two OiNK pieces, on their website. Unfortunately he no longer appears on there so must have moved on. However, look out for a post about that Crickey! article at a future date on the blog.

After that hilarious cover, thankfully the OiNK team weren’t done with spicing up our favourite Christmas Carols and who better to write some than Charlie Brooker? As we all know he was still at school at the time of contributing to the comic but this next page is so clearly the work of the mind behind Screen Wipe and Black Mirror. These are great fun and next to the carols is a Christmas pop song, the Jackson 5 version of which I have on my Christmas playlist every year, but now I can’t help but replace the words in my head when it comes on.

Alongside Charlie’s words are some crazy illustrations by Steve Gibson, whose tiny drawings always added so much to the text-based pages of OiNK. If social media is anything to go by these carols are fondly remembered and recited to this day by many pig pals. Oh, and in case you’re wondering ‘James Lost’ is a reference to the ‘happy music’ of James Last, who wasn’t a stranger to releasing some top-selling Christmas ditties.

If like me you make a bit of an occasion out of wrapping your Christmas presents, you might have a TV show (usually Channel Five) counting down favourite Christmas songs and music videos on in the background while you wrap. At some point during it you’re very likely to hear the inspiration behind our next strip, just as you’re guaranteed to see the animation itself on Channel Four. Every. Single. Year. Raymond Briggs’ name is easily changed into a piggy pun and Davy Francis doesn’t disappoint with that and the quick gag of his The Snowbloke.

Despite only having sat down and watched the original The Snowman once when I was a kid, seeing even small parts of it on the TV and hearing that song never fails to make me smile because it reminds me my favourite time of the year is here, and hearing a song we hear every year at Christmas reminds me of all the things I like to do every festive season. Even seeing this small spoof brings those same feels. I’m really enjoying this issue.

Other highlights here include Ponsonby Claret, the Know-It-All Parrot taking the pirates he lives with to task, Rubbish Man and Boy Blunder’s Christmas dinner has more hidden surprises than any pack of crackers, the GBH Christmas Catalogue order form has one particular addition I found very funny (the Yes/No part) and Weedy Willy finds something he’s capable to contributing to at Christmas that doesn’t strain/exhaust/scare him.

Ponsonby Claret written by Griffiths+Kane, drawn by Steve Gibson
Rubbish Man by David Haldane
Weedy Willy written by Howard Osborn, drawn by Mike Green

Something you’ll see on the TV every year from about October onwards are a plethora of extravagant, clearly very expensive advertisements for various brands of perfume. It always confused me how they’d spend so much on these every year and yet not one of them actually tells us anything about what the product smells like. This might be a blessing for this next piece of fragrance marketing however, because Jeremy Banx’s Burp appears to have released his own to cash in on the gift giving.

This being Burp of course this particular spray (a deodorant) isn’t straight forward. We’ve all seen how Burp interacts with his internal organs, how many of them act independently of their host, even leaving his body to go and live the lives of villains, superheroes and lovers in the outside world. So, after a suitably moral reminder that beauty is not just skin deep the following strip really takes a turn for the bizarre.

I love how Burp is interrupting each of his organs as they go about their daily lives inside his body, reading OiNK, eating dinner or simply having a nice, relaxing glass of wine. Then, just as the stupidity and weirdness ends Burp reminds the reader that all of these fragrances etc. are really about inner confidence, not the glamorous models on TV. A good message but also a wonderful way of poking fun at those advertisements and with a laugh in every panel.

The last page I want to show you is another of those traditions we loved as kids, namely writing the letter to Santa Claus and who better to type out one in OiNK than Hadrian Vile, as ever written by Mark Rodgers and drawn by Ian Jackson. I remember writing my letter several months before Christmas, my parents reading it over and over (it was as if they wanted to memorise it for some reason) before it went up the chimney to Santa.

“Noeboddy wud bee daft enuff to dress up in a red duffel cote and climb down chimbleys.”

Hadrian Vile

I’m glad Hadrian waited until now to write his though, it makes for a great strip near the back of the issue just as young readers were preparing for their holidays and the arrival of the man with the bag. There may only be three drawn panels to go alongside the pages of the letter but they’re packed with detail and lots of sight gags and cameos from other characters in Hadrian’s regular diary. Watch out for a special mention of Mark’s friend and OiNK writer Graham Exton too!

After this issue it was only 13 days until Christmas Day itself when that gorgeous big, floppy and ultra glossy book would be brought down “ower chimbleys”. I’d seen it on the shelves of my local newsagents for a couple of months now and marvelled at its shine and the big piggy grin on the cover. It really stood out amongst all the other annuals and I’m so excited to almost be at the point when I’ll be reviewing it for the blog. When can you see it? That’ll be on The Big Day itself of course. While it had been in the shops for a while, we all received our annuals from Santa, didn’t we?

Of course, I’ll be breaking the rules of the real time read through a little bit and reading it a few days in advance simply because it’s Christmas, but it’ll be published first thing Christmas Morning so you’ll have a bit of OiNK to wake up to as we did 35 years ago. One more rule break: the Hogmanay issue’s date is Boxing Day so it appeared early back in 1987. I can’t be sure of the exact date and I didn’t read my issue until Boxing Day because it just didn’t feel right back then to celebrate the New Year before Santa had even been. So I’ll be keeping to the cover date for that one. A double whammy for you, OiNK reviews two days in a row.

With all of this to look forward to back in 1987, the news of the comic turning weekly in January (drawn above by Patrick Gallagher) was just the icing and the marzipan on the cake. Of course, we weren’t to know yet of the changes to come when it went weekly but the excitement at this time was electric for pig pals; the festive season had so much to enjoy and the future looked very bright and very pink indeed. 

For now it’s time to sign off, but watch out for a little extra OiNK-related post on Christmas Eve as Psycho Gran prepares to welcome the jolly man down her chimney and in the meantime I hope you’re all having as good a holiday season as I am. The blog is jam-packed with content this month and it’s nowhere near over yet! Check out this post for more details (including a special make-your-own OiNK Christmas Angel from this issue), then the review for The OiNK! Book 1988 will be here on Christmas Day with #44 quickly following on Boxing Day.

iSSUE 42 < > THE OiNK! BOOK 1988

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CHRiSTMAS 2022

Interviews, Ring Raiders

RiNG RAiDERS: A TOY COLLECTOR’S ViEW

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Back in 2018 in the days of the old blog I chatted to Dom Blanco, a classic toy collector who had begun sharing his collection on Instagram, particularly of more obscure 80s and 90s toys. He was enthusiastically researching and buying up the entire Ring Raiders collection, a toy range I was obsessed with as a kid and the comic of which I’ve covered on the blog already. In fact, that comic and toy range remain as favourites from my childhood to this day.

I was just waiting for Dom to send me photographs of his collection before publishing the interview, but he never did and he even stopped updating his social media. I’ve tried to reach out since (including just recently) but unfortunately it appears he’s moved on. Because of the lack of photos I didn’t publish the interview on the old site but I’ve decided to go ahead and do so now with the two Ring Raiders photos still on Dom’s (apparently abandoned) Instagram and others from this blog to illustrate what we talked about.

With the comic’s real time read through now complete and interviews with editor Barrie Tomlinson and writer James Tomlinson (who wrote under the name James Nicholas at the time) now up too, I thought Christmas was the perfect time to discuss the original toys. So if you’re interested in finding out more about the Matchbox range which inspired the comic here’s our chat from four years ago, published now for the first time. (The image below taken from c4petoys’ blog.)

OiNK Blog: Hi Dom, thanks for agreeing to do this interview about your Ring Raiders collection. You’re relatively new to Instagram (at least your domblano80 account is), I see it goes back to March of last year (2017 – Phil). Can you tell us a little about yourself by way of an introduction?

Dom Blanco: I was born in 1980 which was the golden age of action figures and associated media. I love toys, they have so many great memories for me. Collecting has always been a form of stress relief, my wife can actually measure my stress by the amount of boxes that arrive. I have a very good memory for action figures, more so than anything else. I can normally go through a box of accessories and pick stuff out (which is very handy). I’m not sure if or when my collection will ever end, but it really is my passion.

OB: As far as your collections go, how long have you been collecting retro toys and videogames?

DB: I’ve been collecting on and off for 25 years. I have sold up a few times, but always came back. Thankfully over the years I have had some great toys and met some amazing people that have become very dear friends all over the world.

OB: Is there anything in particular that draws you towards a certain toy line? Or are they all ones you remember from your youth?

DB: Everything from my early youth I have or have had. The 90s for me was when I became a teenager. I collected vintage Star Wars at that time, but the 90s toy lines I was just not interested in. Now as an adult I have learned to appreciate them and see them like a cornerstone of my collection as the action figures industry evolved in the face of the rise of video games. As far as being drawn to a line I have developed a love for the more obscure ones. There’s plenty of info out there for the major brands, but there’s a ton of very cool stuff most people don’t realise exists. I keep finding stuff that I never knew about and that is a big part of the appeal.

OB: On to the subject at hand then, the Ring Raiders. You’ve stated in a comment on Instagram that you’re trying to document all of the variations in the range so there’s a complete guide out there. What drew you to Ring Raiders originally, either as a child or an adult?

DB: I had one Ring Raider as a kid and that was the A10 (one of my favourite planes). As an adult an auction lot came up with the Air Carrier Justice which you don’t see very often. From that I just started looking into what else was out there and discovered there were a lot of unknowns. There are plenty of lines from the early 90s that have a lot of grey areas around what was actually released.

OB: So what do you have so far in the range? Any particular favourite purchases you’ve made or pieces you’ve hunted down?

DB: I currently have about 75% of the line. The new stuff from Series Two is definitely my favourite, as it’s all very new to me. The bombers are great and some of the Skull Squadron decos are very cool.

OB: The toys were moderately successful here in the UK but unfortunately not so much worldwide so only lasted about a year or so as far as I remember. However, there were still a few different series of aircraft and bases etc. Do you have any idea how large the collection will be once complete?

DB: After a lot of digging I believe the line has 72 basic planes, 13 chrome variants, six medals and 12 bombers. As far as play sets there are two small Ring Raiders play sets, one medium play set for Skull Squadron and the Air Carrier Justice. There are also two Battle Blasters and a display stand. I’ve just found a Series Two packaging card with a carry case, but I can’t confirm that it made it into production. There were also two mobile assault bases that I have parts from, but nobody has seen them before so how many made it out is an unknown. I would not be surprised if other stuff surfaces in the future.

OB: For anyone thinking about collecting them, how difficult is it to track them down these days in comparison to other toys you’re collecting?

DB: It depends how deep into a line you want to go. I’m a completist so I get it all. I’m not collecting everything packaged or the variations as most planes were packaged in multiple ways. The main issue is the fact most people don’t seem fussed by this line and there is virtually no information out there about what a complete collection looks like.

OB: I’ve covered the comic here on the OiNK Blog. It was my favourite (non-OiNK) comic as a child and holds up brilliantly today, but you didn’t know about it until you saw the blog, is that right?

DB: I didn’t know it went for as long as it did. Same with the TV show, I just saw the one on VHS, but there are still episodes I have not seen as they don’t exist on the net or DVD.

OB: It seems every time we think we’ve seen everything the range had to offer, something pops up we weren’t aware of before. The comic is a good example for you, for me I’ve found out about a lot more merchandise than I ever saw as a kid, as well as some of the toys you’ve obtained. Clearly Ring Raiders were designed to be the Next Big Thing, but unfortunately that wasn’t to be. Why do you think it is that we’re still finding brand new things after all these years? How can that be for a toy line which didn’t seem to last long?

DB: The development cycle on a lot of toy lines is currently 12-18 months, back then it was longer because pre-internet communication would have been harder between all the various components of bringing a brand together. Star Wars changed merchandising forever. There are also so many lines that were planned that never made it off the ground. By the time wave one is in the stores, wave two is normally at prototype stage and wave three is in concept, just in case they have a hit on their hands and need to keep it rolling. It’s strange they went to the level they did with additional merchandising for Ring Raiders, but like you say somebody had a lot of faith in it and Matchbox didn’t have many other properties at that point, so I guess they had more reason to be all-in.

OB: Can you give us a quick run down of what else you collect and the same question there about favourites or rare pieces you’ve tracked down?

DB: I collect anything 80s or 90s that’s action figures. I am not actively collecting major brands, but more the niche stuff. I’m about halfway through Street Sharks at the moment, which is a great line with awesome sculpts. There are a lot of lines from the 90s that had stuff released in Europe that never made it Stateside due to cancellation so we got some great stuff that is now very rare there. I just love the hunt and talking toys with people, being an adult on a full-time basis is just no fun.

Thanks to Dom (if he’s reading this) for sharing his thoughts and some interesting nuggets of information on Ring Raiders. It’d be great if he returned to Instagram to continue updating us on his searches, although sadly it looks like he may have sold up again.

On the subject of the toys, watch out for a future post in which I take a look at a very special piece of Ring Raiders history, one which I doubt fans will have seen before and which should interest anyone who collected franchised toys in the 80s or 90s. You’ll have to wait until then to see what I’m whittering on about, but don’t forget about the comic’s coverage on the blog in the meantime!

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CHRiSTMAS 2022

Christmas, OiNK Comic Promos

COMiNG UP: OiNK! #43

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Coming up on Monday is my very favourite regular issue of my very favourite comic of all time. How’s that for hype? After a year-and-a-half of covering OiNK the best issue the team produced is here at last! Of course, as regular blog readers will attest I am a huge nut for Christmas and that might have something to do with it. That’s right, #43 is our second (and unfortunately final) Christmas issue and it’s stuffed with goodies.

Promo drawn by Ian Jackson

We’ve got a traditional (sort of) Christmas perfume advert from Burp the Smelly Alien, the comic’s take on the most popular toys of the time (Transformers) and Channel Four‘s yearly broadcast of The Snowman, plus OiNK’s Nasty Christmas Carols! This one isn’t to be missed so make sure to click that ‘Follow’ button or do so over on the blog’s socials and I’ll see you here, eggnog and a mince pie in trotter, on Monday 12th December 2022.

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CHRiSTMAS 2022

OiNK Merchandise

THE OiNK! 45: THE ViNYL FRONTiER

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Back in 1987 a unique piece of merchandise for a comic was announced in the pages of OiNK. In issue #37 we were treated to this full page advertisement featuring Marc Riley as petty thief Snatcher Sam and Chris Sievey in his role as celebrity superstar Frank Sidebottom. They’d come together to record The OiNK 45, a single-sized vinyl record available only through mail order in the comic.

Back in the premiere issue OiNK had launched itself onto the unsuspecting public with a free flexidisc, a floppy piece of pink see-through plastic containing two songs, namely the imaginatively titled The OiNK Song and The OiNK Rap. Marc produced and performed both and they proved a hit with the kids and an annoyance to the parents of said kids, which I’m pretty sure was the idea. Now they’d been rerecorded at Drone Studios by Marc and Frank with engineer Paul Roberts, alongside a brand new song.

When I saw the advert for the first time I immediately begged my parents to write a cheque for the record. I remember the agonisingly long wait for it to arrive and then my mum and dad wished it hadn’t. I played it almost non-stop for a few days, being told several times to turn it down. Let’s just say it wasn’t to everyone’s taste. As I said, annoying readers’ parents may have been the idea behind the songs in the first place.

I’d missed out on the original flexidisc first time around so had no idea two of these were new versions of previous songs. I remember loving The OiNK Psycho Rap (as it was now called) as a kid on The OiNK 45, written by Tony Husband and Marc, and when I finally got my hands on #1 decades later for the blog with a mint condition flexidisc I’ll admit I was confused as to why I’d liked it so much! The answer is that the newer version here is completely different and a whole lotta fun. The words are almost the same but it’s more professionally put together. While I’m still not going to blast it at get togethers with friends, it may find its way on to my HomePod.

Fortunately for my parents, but heartbreakingly for me, just a few weeks after it arrived back in 1987 I ended up playing it for the very last time. I’d taken the record out of the hifi in my room and placed it on my bed without its sleeve while I listened to something else. It ended up being a sunny day so off I went outside to play with friends for the afternoon. When I came back I found out to my horror what happens when a vinyl record sits under a skylight on a day like that.

It was badly warped, looking like a disused napkin someone had tossed aside. I was crushed. My parents refused to buy me another, telling me it was a lesson to learn (in reality it had brought peace to the house once more) and, having not yet made a cassette recording so I could take the songs outside with me, that was the last I listened to it. Only now have I been able to hear these versions (and the third song) for the first time since then, 35 years later.

This past summer I was finally able to track down a copy of the record and I’ve waited until now to listen to it as a special festive treat for pig pals. This should be interesting with my now-adult ears! First up, the cover art was compiled by Marc Riley and the photographs on the back and on the adverts were taken by OiNK’s resident photographer John Barry under co-creator/co-editor of the comic and co-designer for the project (alongside Marc) Patrick Gallagher’s direction.

There’s a reference to Mike Gallagher brewing the tea too. This was Patrick’s brother who played sax at the studio sessions (he was also in Frank’s Oh Blimey Big Band) as well as making the refreshments, clearly. Patrick tells me altogether they recorded roughly 50 takes of all three tracks but ended up using the first of each! All that remains now is to place the vinyl carefully into my record player and crank the volume up. We’ll start with the new versions of The OiNK Psycho Rap and The OiNK Song (written by Mark Rodgers and Marc). You’ll be glad to hear the latter is still sung by high-pitched pigs.

The OiNK! Psycho Rap written by Tony Husband and Marc Riley

The OiNK! Song written by Mark Rodgers and Marc Riley

Lyrics page from #1 by Patrick Gallagher

Unfortunately there were no lyrics sheets with the record so young me had a hell of a time understanding those piggies, however the lyrics were printed in the first issue. Only a few words have been changed here and there for the rap, so feel free to use that photo above to follow along.

Apologies that I have no fancy equipment to record the songs in lossless quality (or whatever it’s called), you’ll have to make do with my video recording it with an ever-tiring outstretched arm.

“What the heck you think you’re doing, you?”

Frank Sidebottom, The OiNK Get-Together Song

On the B-side is the brand new song, The OiNK Get-Together Song. Chris sings along with Marc in the previous songs and Frank even makes a small guest appearance in The OiNK Song when he realises he’s on the wrong track and asks the listener to turn the record over. This next song is twice as long and sees him in his usual place as lead singer, with Little Frank constantly asking when he’ll get to contribute. It’s billed as a song starring characters from the comic, however the reality is much different (and funnier) than you might expect.

The OiNK! Get-Together Song written by Frank Sidebottom (Chris Sievey)

In my head this song had included various impressions of characters but instead we’re introduced to them playing instruments or making lots of loud background noise. Of course it would be this! Highlights include it descending into chaos on more than one occasion, especially when Billy Bang and the Street-Hogs get involved, Frank and Little Frank’s arguments getting more and more aggressive and there are cameos from some long forgotten characters such as Billy’s Brain and ‘Ed Banger.

My own personal favourite moment is when Frank messes up and just readily admits it right there in the song!

It’s a genuinely funny record and I’d heartily recommend splashing out the few quid it costs on eBay when it pops up, but let’s just say I think I can understand where my parents were coming from when they refused to buy a replacement once they’d escaped it. Brilliant stuff and very typically ‘OiNK’. No other comic could’ve done this. If you do decide to buy it for yourself just be warned, the sax in The OiNK Get Together Song will be stuck in your head from now until the end of time, whether you want it in there or not.

Above you’ll see Mike Gallagher as part of Frank’s band in a photo Patrick sent me, alongside an image of the original test pressing of the vinyl shared by Tony Husband on the OiNK Facebook Group. The final photo features the children of the studio owner and a very tanned/rosy/burnt Marc Riley and Patrick Gallagher, who may have just come back from holiday according to Patrick himself.

The OiNK 45 and the mug were the only pieces of merchandise I had as a kid so it’s great to own them both again. This has genuinely been a whole lot of fun to revisit. It was another contributing factor to what I refer to as the Golden Age of my very favourite comic of all time.

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CHRiSTMAS 2022

Book Reviews, Eagle, Ring Raiders, Super Naturals, Wildcat

COMiC BOOK HERO: BARRiE TOMLiNSON BOOK REViEW

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Firstly, I should say I do not like football. I sometimes go see our local ice hockey team here in Belfast and every four years I become obsessed with the Summer Olympics, but aside from those I’m not what anyone would call a fan of sport. (Unless it’s Nintendo’s.) It’s important to state this before writing about this book because you’ll see there are a lot of sporting references within it which might put you off if you don’t like sport. But trust me, it shouldn’t.

Lion, Tiger, Roy of the Rovers, Top Soccer, 2000AD, Battle, Speed, The New Eagle, Scream, Mask, Super Naturals, Wildcat, Hot-Shot, Ring Raiders, Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles Adventures, Toxic Crusaders, The Big Daddy Annuals, The Geoff Boycott Annual, The Suzie Dando Annual, Johnny Cougar’s Wrestling Monthly, Scorer, one-off specials, magazines, World Cup poster magazines, sports quiz books, greetings cards, Ladybird books… this is a career which could take up several volumes.

Barrie Tomlinson is a giant in the world of British comics. Readers of the blog will be familiar with the name already due to coverage of three of his titles, namely Ring Raiders, Wildcat and Super Naturals. I remember some friends being obsessed with his Mask comic and later we all collected the Turtles together. These were only the tip of the iceberg of comics Barrie created and edited, and this hardback book sees him take us on a very personal trip down memory lane.

For any UK comics fan Comic Book Hero is an essential read

Reading Comic Book Hero is like having Barrie sitting next to you, having a casual chat, reminiscing about his creations, his colleagues and friends, the personalities he met and all the fun he had along the way. The structure of the book adds to this cosiness, with no chapters as such, just the occasional comic name as a title here and there, which lends a personal diary feel to the proceedings. It’s a unique way of writing a book and it’s the perfect choice for Barrie’s particular style of storytelling.

And what a story he has to tell.

Barrie’s work with Fleetway Publications began in 1961 and this book covers everything he worked on right up to 2011 and his retirement. A large portion of the book is taken up with Tiger, the sports focussed action comic, but not before we’ve had some fascinating insights into how the comics of the day were edited thanks to Barrie learning from the likes of Bernard Smith. Even in times of high work volumes and obvious stress, Barrie is completely respectful and understanding of those he worked for and it’s refreshing to read a book which doesn’t relish in sordid tales or bitching in order to sell. 

I found it fascinating to read how loved and respected Tiger was in the world of sport, with big stars contributing to Barrie’s comics as regular writers, in exclusive photos, meeting competition winners and appearing at the Tiger Awards events. The photos of these gatherings in particular are fantastic and it’s amazing to think of how all these celebrities, including personal favourites Morecambe and Wise came together in such a way for a children’s comic.

It’s sad to read how some of his contemporaries accused Barrie of only wanting to further himself by involving big stars, but as he explains it was all for the comics. It worked a treat too! Comics like Tiger and Roy of the Rovers enjoyed long lives and huge circulation figures and the exposure these guest stars brought certainly wasn’t to be sniffed at. But the book isn’t all about the glitz and the glamour (although a story about a naked radio interview has to be read to be believed), there’s plenty of insider comics information.

Of particular interest to me were Barrie’s personal thoughts about Ring Raiders‘ short lifespan, taking the helm of the Turtles juggernaut in the UK and some wonderful insider knowledge on the creation of Wildcat. This takes the form of some Ian Kennedy sketches and the original synopsis for the script of the preview comic. What really surprised me was how much the creation of the sports comics interested me and I found it particularly fascinating to learn about Storm Force.

I’d seen adverts for the strip’s Battle comic debut in the pages of other Fleetway publications such as the piggy pink one this blog was named after. I knew it was a big deal to the publishers at the time but didn’t know why until reading this book. The contract to create Action Force comics had come to an end, with Hasbro taking over the toy line to relaunch it as the British version of G.I. Joe, the comics licence also moving to Marvel. In response, Storm Force was created to fill that void. In Comic Book Hero we see some lovely design sketches and get plenty of insights into how it came about. I also agree with Barrie when he states the characters would’ve made for good toys themselves.

This book covers a lot of comics from the 70s and early 80s, before the likes of OiNK came along, but even if you’re of the same vintage as me I can promise you’ll find this an interesting and hugely entertaining read. I didn’t discover the joy of reading comics for myself until #14 of OiNK towards the end of 1986 so I want to categorically state that if you collected any comics from IPC or Fleetway in your youth you’ll love this. For one, I can almost guarantee you Barrie had a hand in what you read and even if you didn’t collect many of his titles you’ll love the insights into one of the biggest UK comics publishers, including the creation of the new Eagle and Scream!

It doesn’t stop there. Comic Book Hero covers the formation of Creative Editorial Services when Barrie and his team worked freelance at home creating comics for Fleetway. To know favourites of mine such as Ring Raiders were created in the comfort of his own home makes me insanely jealous of Barrie’s job at that time! Also in here are the later publications Barrie created when he moved on from weekly and fortnightly comics, right up to the final episode of Scorer in the Daily Mirror in 2011 after it ran for an incredible 22 years. That in itself is a huge achievement. Indeed, the last section of the book is simply called ‘What A Life!’ and I couldn’t agree more.

From chatting with Barrie about the comics he worked on I can honestly say he’s an absolute gent. He’s always really open about his work and puts the fans first even to this day. This attitude and his friendly demeanour and devotion to the craft comes across on every page of this wonderful, personal book. For any UK comics fan Comic Book Hero is an essential read and since you’re reading this blog I’m going to assume it’s a safe bet you’ll love it too.

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CHRiSTMAS 2022

Annuals, Big Comic Book, Christmas

BiG COMiC BOOK 1987: STOCKiNG FiLLED

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As a child one of my regular orders at the newsagents was for Fleetway’s Big Comic Fortnightly, which I collected from #1 for a couple of years after receiving a giant book the previous Christmas (the 1988 volume). Only when deciding to collect the books for the blog did I discover there’d actually been another the year before; when it had hit the shelves originally I hadn’t even discovered OiNK (my first comic) yet. Now I’ve been able to complete the collection of eight huge tomes that make up the Big Comic Book series, released between 1986 and 1993.

While they’d have been available since the end of the summer, it was Christmas Day when most of us would’ve received these so I’m going to cover one each festive season. (At least you know the blog will be about for a bit now.) While OiNK was more in tune with my sense of humour than more traditional humour comics, that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of smiles and a few chortles to be had here. With 256 pages it’s a cliché to say it but there’s something for everyone. Here are a few of my own highlights.

I can’t remember these first characters from the fortnightly or books as a kid, but that’s probably more a lack of memory on my part. Happy Families is drawn here by Dick Millington and I’m sure it can resonate with many of us around this time of year. The Happies are made up of Mum, Dad, Grandad, Sharon and the twins Vicki and Dicky and the scenario is much like the rest of the book’s comic strips, a simple but effective one; a small disagreement over something very unimportant would escalate until the whole family was at war with each other.

As with much of the contents in the book this is only one of several Happy Families strips, although most of the others end up so rowdy the police get involved. The stories can vary from them all being at each others’ throats by the end, all of them being punished in some way, or one or two of them getting sweet revenge on the rest of the family. Yet at the start of each new strip they’re back to loving one another again. Families, eh? These strips may even have been somewhat cathartic for some readers’ parents or older siblings on Christmas Day.

Regular blog readers will know I’m a sucker for a comical shark in the pages of OiNK due to my obsession with the creatures. This stems from my favourite movie of all time, Jaws, which inspired teenage me to read up on the real fish and decades later I’m still fascinated. In fact, my favourite ever page of OiNK was a parody of Jaws in #4 but even the top comic of all time has to take a bow to the following star of Monster Fun.

When I started collecting Big Comic it would still be a couple of years before I’d see the best film ever made but I always loved Gums. I was reading this funny strip very obviously inspired by that movie before I saw it. After I did eventually watch Jaws I just enjoyed this toothless version even more so as a result. Gums was originally created by writer Roy Davis and artist Robert Nixon. The above strip is taken from Buster after Monster Fun folded and is drawn by John Geering (who also contributed to a handful of OiNKs).

To me he was always a Geering character. John gives such fantastic, expressive gestures to Gums who thought he was a terrifying monster of the deep, but the cast of recurring characters who lived with him weren’t exactly quaking in the depths. The best thing was that Gums would sometimes triumph in his schemes which kept things fresh. With quite a few strips in this one book, it’s clear he was a fan favourite. Our next character also originated in Monster Fun.

Kid Kong’s original artist was also Robert Nixon, although this Buster strip is drawn by Rob Lee and alongside Gums he lives on today in Rebellion’s new Monster Fun in new stories by new artists. Originally an escapee from a zoo and much larger, he was shrunk down to make it easier to write stories in a family home setting, although still having to stoop down to fit inside Granny Smith’s house. Granny was chronically short-sighted and hard of hearing, mistaking Kong as her own.

As enjoyable as these have been so far, not all of the contents hit the spot as much as these examples. Some haven’t aged well, in fact some hadn’t even aged well by the late 80s. But whether it was the latest book or the fortnightly comic there was enough content to ensure plenty of enjoyment and the odd chortle from a favourite character. The sheer size of Big Comic meant every reader would have some favourites and get a lot from each volume. Just don’t be expecting OiNK levels of guffaws. Unless you’re reading Gums, of course.

In recent years Ken Reid’s Faceache has had something of a resurgence, from a gorgeous hardback collection to new strips alongside the two stars above. Created for Jet comic but (yet again) a later star of Buster, Ken’s style is instantly recognisable and upon first glance may seem very traditional, very DC Thomson-esque to the uninitiated. But you soon realise these are very different to pretty much everything else in this book.

Ken’s work really pops, really stands out, which is no small feat in such a huge book

The humour has a different feel to it, not least thanks to the creative ‘scrunges’ Faceache pulls off. This juxtaposition works, the strips feel fresh even today with a unique art style. Ken’s work really pops, really stands out, which is no small feat in such a huge book where everything is black and white on cheap paper stock. However, if you’re scanning through a Big Comic Book these really do stop you in your tracks.

I’ve happy memories of the following family from my time with the fortnightly comic and they’d often be the first strip I’d read, the endings almost always guaranteed to raise a laugh. The Bumpkin Billionaires originated in Whoopee and told the tale of a family of Beverly Hillbilly types who had won billions of pounds on the pools (the family-friendly weekly sports betting which predated the lottery, kids – Phil) but who hated the lifestyle changes the money brought. Every story would show us another hare-brained scheme of Ma, Pa, Billy and Daisy‘s to get rid of all their cash, much to the disgruntlement of their bank manager.

Mike Lacey brought these loveable rogues to life and the physical comedy of the main characters was always funny. Most of the time the family’s plan would fall apart in the final frame or two and they’d somehow end up with even more money than they started with. I’ve included the one above because it was one of those rare occasions when things actually worked out in their favour. Well, I’m assuming these were rare occasions, I certainly can’t remember this happening regularly and I’ve fond memories of trying to work out what was about to go wrong for them.

Do you remember CBBC programme Grange Hill? My siblings watched it but I never did, although the theme tune is still seared into my mind. Whizzer & Chips came along with its own interpretation, Strange Hill, which as a name I absolutely love. Teech was the poor sap trying to educate the wee monsters who in this case actually were little monsters; a class full of spooks, ghouls and tiny versions of famous Hollywood creatures. I thought this particular example would be a good one to include on this blog, can you tell why?

Tom Paterson, who brought us a few ingenious early OiNK strips is the perfect choice for these manic pages with such a varied ensemble cast and his trademark smelly socks, little squigly creatures and descriptive word bombs are all evident by the bucketload. These little extras always made his strips classics for me and his were the only ones I read in my brother’s Beanos.  I’ve always said it’s unfortunate he was too busy to contribute more to OiNK where surely his work was a perfect fit.

Drawn by Sid Burgon, Lolly Pop was an entrepreneur with an endless range of businesses and an equally endless supply of money. However, while his businesses thrived the same couldn’t be said of his relationship with his son Archie, who was a regular kid after a regular life, who just wanted to play and spend time with his dad. With his dad being so preoccupied with his factories, Archie’s unsupervised attempts of leading a normal life and wanting to win his father’s attention would inevitably lead to a variety of disasters.

It also didn’t help that despite being an obvious millionaire Lolly Pop was rather miserly to say the least, preoccupied with saving his wealth, leading to Archie being somewhat neglected. Although to be fair it was only attention that Archie felt starved of. Originally in Whoopee, Lolly Pop is one of the stronger series in this book and there are stories involving Lolly Pop Toffees Ltd, Lolly Pop Movie Studios, Lolly Pop’s Garage, Pop’s Tyres, Lolly Pop Wood Products and Lolly Pop’s Record Company over five 2-page strips.

“Ha! No playpen can hold Sweeny!”

Sweeny Toddler

To finish the review there’s one perennial favourite surely everyone loves no matter which generation they’re from. Another character appearing in new strips today, even illustrated by one of his original artists, Sweeny Toddler was the tearaway baby who would cause havoc in not only his own home but all across town, with his ever faithful canine friend Henry by his side. Sweeney was originally created for Shiver and Shake comic and drawn by Leo Baxendale, then through mergers he’d go on to star in Whoopee, Whizzer and Chips and (of course) Buster.

There’s a reason Sweeney lasted as long as he did. Quite early on the brilliant Tom Paterson took over drawing duties and OiNK’s very own Graham Exton became Sweeney’s writer in the early 80s. They made the perfect team and during that time the strip rose to ever greater heights. The strip below is drawn by Tom but is before Graham’s time with the character. When Graham joined Tom’s style had developed to include all those lovely little sight gags he became synonymous with, like those in Strange Hill.

Overall, the first Big Comic Book is a success. Financially it was a huge success! It (and its fortnightly spin-off) cost next to nothing to produce since Fleetway owned the rights to all of the contents (we would never have seen any OiNK material as a result since most of it was creator-owned) and used cheaper paper stock, enabling the books to be much thicker with a retail price similar to a regular annual.

While some of the strips haven’t stood the test of time as well as others, there’s not really any that won’t at least raise a smile, making it a very pleasant reading experience. Needless to say, if you see this on eBay or in a second-hand charity store snap it up. With this amount of silly comics stuffed inside you should find plenty to keep you amused no matter your tastes.

GO TO BiG COMiC BOOK 1988

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CHRiSTMAS 2022

Christmas, More OiNK

CHRiSTMAS ON THE OiNK BLOG (2022)

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Have a close look at this photograph. Spot anyone familiar?

Links to all of this year’s festive
posts are in piggy pink below

I love Christmas. To be honest that’s a bit of an understatement. It really is the most wonderful time of the year. Christmas is all about feasting, friends and fun, lighting up the darkest days of the year, warming us during the freezing winter. To me it’s for thanking all my loved ones for the year just gone, and this year I’d also like to thank all of you fantastic blog readers for your support. Since this OiNK Blog was launched in the Spring of 2021 you’ve been amazing with your feedback and I hope this Christmas I can thank you with the best month yet!

So, did you spot who was on top of my tree?

The biggest blog highlight for me will be OiNK reaching its second Christmas Day, the day most of us pig pals got our trotters on The OiNK Book 1988, my favourite OiNK of all and my favourite childhood book to this day. It’s backed up with the best regular issue which just happens to be this year’s festive edition, and there’s the Hogmanay issue as well. There’s the start of two new, albeit very slow real time read throughs with the first in both the Big Comic Book and Knight Rider Annual series.

The former of those two I went on to collect the fortnightly comic spin-off as a kid and the latter I’m particularly looking forward to because the show it’s based on is (with no exaggeration) my favourite thing in the whole universe. I had this first Knight Rider Annual when it was first released, but what I never realised until recently was that the interior art was by David ‘V for Vendetta’ Lloyd! This will be a real treat for comics (and talking car) fans.

Not only that, David agreed to have a chat with me about his time on the books so watch out for that exclusive interview over Christmas, and an interview with a retro toy enthusiast who gives us an insight into collecting blog stars the Ring Raiders from Matchbox. There’s a review of Ring Raiders comic editor Barrie Tomlinson’s book Comic Book Hero just in time for you to throw a Christmas gift hint to someone, and a look at a fantastic gift I received a few Christmases ago when I took a trip to Beanotown in a personalised Beano comic!

I think it’s about time we started to cover the unique range of OiNK merchandise on the blog too, don’t you? The OiNK 45 record was about as unique as you could get and I’ve permission from OiNK’s editors to publish all three songs here on the blog. That’s a nice Christmas bonus! We’re not done though. Finally, over on the blog’s Instagram our Robots in Disguise reach the seventh holiday season in their read through! So watch out for the Christmas issue and the latest annual over on social media (plus #300!). Also, how about a Transformers/OiNK crossover you probably never knew happened?

I’m really looking forward to sharing all of these with you and remember you can leave any comments you wish under each and every post, or on the blog’s social media on Instagram and Facebook. Things are shaping up for a good Christmas on the blog, beginning of course with the OiNK decorations! Not only is Tom up on my tree as is tradition in my house, check out these Christmas cards above from Davy Francis I’ve received over the years.

No need to look on enviously though, below is Tom Thug’s page from #43 of OiNK by Lew Stringer. Just print it out, stick it to some thin card (I used a mince pie box appropriately enough), cut him out and soon he can be scowling at you from atop your tree too. Thanks to Lew for allowing me to grab this from his own blog since the page doesn’t actually exist in my issue anymore!

It all kicks off tomorrow with The Big Comic Book 1987 review (and of course the suitably icy new logo at the top of the blog if you’re reading this at the time) so get the mince pies warmed, the rum and raisin ice cream scooped, the Schloer poured and the Tayto Turkey and Stuffing flavour crisps in a bowl (that’s just for the Ireland readers that one) and settle down for the OiNK Blog at Christmas.

Merry Christmas to all for the next month-and-a-bit and watch out for extra bits of OiNK content on both Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve!

2021 < > 2023

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OiNK Comic Reviews

OiNK! #42: FASHiONABLY FUNNY

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The always brilliant J.T. Dogg kicks off the latest issue of OiNK, the Fantastic Fashion Issue. This was one of the most memorable covers for me as a kid. While I wasn’t overly enthusiastic about Michael Jackson my siblings were, but I did love Weird Al Jankovic’s parody and OiNK’s tribute was right up there in my opinion, as you’ll see below. Just a couple of quick notes about the issue first though.

OiNK seems to have settled into a set title banner, making it more visible on the newsagent shelves and inside on page three there’s a slight mistake in the copyright banner, the bit where it says OiNK was devised by OiNK! Publishing Ltd and published by Fleetway, can’t be sold for more than the cover price etc., that sort of thing. Instead of the usual “Published every fortnight” it says “every Friday” which I remember spotting as a kid and getting so excited for the new year and the promise of twice as much OiNK!

Let’s get straight to the headline act and Mark Rodgers’ rewording of one of Michael Jackson’s earliest hits, Bad. Change Jackson to Jaxham and ‘Bad’ to ‘Mad’ and you’ve got a sure-fire hit on your trotters. To enjoy this fully is to read it to the original tune, so make sure you have that firmly in your head before you start. The lyrics are just as mad as the titular character and to go alongside them is his new hit music video, also drawn by J.T. Dogg.

As you read, the daftest parts of the song are hilariously brought to life by Malcolm’s beautiful, colourful art and I remember showing this off to lots of my friends at school at the time, due to many being huge fans of the real singer. As a child I thought it was brilliant that OiNK was taking on a real worldwide megastar and he wouldn’t be the last. A perfectly judged piece of parody.

Never underestimate OiNK’s ability to pull the rug out from under the reader

Despite being the cover star, Michael Jaxham isn’t the biggest thing to appear in this issue, not by a long shot actually. That honour goes to the spectacular five-page(!) conclusion to The Spectacles of Doom vs The Monocle of Mayhem, Tony Husband’s take on all those hugely enjoyable but completely ridiculous 80s fantasy films, drawn in exquisite detail by Andy Roper. After two pages of black and white strip we’re treated to this simply stunning (and of course very funny) spread of the battle we’ve been promised for weeks.

There’s so much going on here it benefits from taking your time to really look at the small details. The tiny, sweet looking bird with the flame breath, the tickly hand creature, the jet being stopped by a giant cactus and in turn its flame engines taking out one of its own. There’s even a plop in the midst of it all. I love the way Endor seems to have called upon his friends from other pages of the issue too, including Mr Big Nose and the two Franks, little and large.

According to co-editor Patrick Gallagher the person on the right with the glasses is most likely one of Andy’s colleagues from Cosgrove Hall called Clint Priest (also an animator on the OiNK team’s Round the Bend series). Clint is just gingerly waving hello to the reader and not getting directly involved. Smart move. The strip carries on for another colour page but how could they top that to finish? With something you’d never have seen coming (much like our hero doesn’t). Never underestimate OiNK’s ability to pull the rug out from under the reader.

Despite the ending Endor would be back once more in The OiNK! Book 1989 in an even more impressive spectacle (no pun intended, honest). How do they bring him back after this? Some elaborate, hilarious resurrection? Nope, they just ignore this ever happened and carry on with another adventure! Beginning in January the weekly OiNKs are quite partial to ongoing serials so watch out for a selection of them too.

Both of the above highlights are in the first handful of pages of this issue. Talk about a strong start. But how can the rest hope to follow? Well, how about the promise of a new prize for Grunts page contributions in the shape of a piggy pink OiNK binder for your precious comics, Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins making the goal that would win over reluctant footy fans, Harry the Head realising he’s not cut out for going for a dip and Roger Rental he’s Completely Mental giving himself a ‘pat on the head in the fashion stakes.

Grunts compiled by Patrick Gallagher
Horace Watkins by Tony Husband
Harry the Head by Marc Riley
Roger Rental written by Davy Francis, drawn by Ian Knox

As you can see this issue of OiNK is chock full of what we’ve all come to expect by now and it continues with one of the most popular characters, Pete Throb whose strip gets renamed this issue to Pete and That Trendy ol’ Pimple of His. Lew Stringer takes aim at the ridiculousness of ever-changing fashions and, let’s face it, the 80s kind of deserved it. From the very first panel I was laughing at the shoulder pads, the dress sense and the “easier to draw” new hairdo.

This is the perfect example of this issue’s subject. Really, do kids care about fashion? So Lew swipes at the way people can jump on bandwagons so easily and yet be so fickle as to jump to the next shiny thing that comes along, no matter how dedicated they had been to what had come before. It reminds me not only of my own older siblings at the time but also of an episode of Knight Rider when K.I.T.T. got rather confused at the idea of new fashion seasons. (“Did last year’s clothes not perform their function?”)

It’s this that I found particularly funny as a kid because Lew, and the issue as a whole, was a way for us readers to have a good laugh at the older kids, as well as our own brothers and sisters and the way they’d act and dress. Of course, later in all our teen years we’d end up just as guilty. Also, it’s always fun to see an example of an OiNK cartoonist drawing another’s character for their own strips. Little cameos like Frank’s and Rubbish Man’s here always felt a bit special, no matter how fleeting.

Surely no one screams stardom, sets trends or could be accused of being a fashionista quite like Frank Sidebottom. A hip and happening photographer couldn’t ask for a better model (is this Chris Sievey’s depiction of his own official photographer John Barry?), although it appears Frank’s most defining features aren’t the reason he was hired. Even in black and white Chris’s work is lovely, the pencil work on the fabric of his shirt textured just right.

When I was young there were certain things I didn’t like to do, just like any other child and the more I was told to do them properly the more I wanted to skip around them somehow. Brushing my teeth was one of those things. I don’t know why, I think it may have bored me, but it was just something I hated doing back then. In the mornings before school I had no choice, but I always did them as quickly as possible and never brushed them before bed if I could get away with it. (This is obviously not something any young readers of this blog should copy!)

That all changed with this issue of OiNK and this next strip, Trendy Wendy. Written by the master of comic lyrics, Lew Stringer and drawn by fellow Northern Ireland resident Ian Knox I can remember clear as a bell reading this in my Aunt May’s house (who I’ve mentioned before). I was casually enjoying it, giggling away to myself as I had done for the previous 21 pages until the final panel.

This might sound silly to you, that a daft strip like this could hit me quite hard but it certainly did. Getting a point across with comedy is a tried and tested formula in many things I’ve read and watched as an adult, but it was a surprise a month before my tenth birthday. I can’t remember the exact thought process that went through my head but from that moment on I brushed my teeth at least twice a day, every day.

OiNK taught its young readers a thing or two along the way, things we actually listened to thanks to the method of its messages

What I do distinctly remember is once in my early 20s coming home from a night out, a little worse for wear and just wanting to collapse into bed and hope the room didn’t start to spin. But Wendy popped up in my head and I found myself trying (and possibly failing) to drunkenly brush my teeth before retiring, even though it had been years since I’d read any of these comics! I’ve said before how OiNK helped form my sense of humour but it also taught its young readers a thing or two along the way, things we actually listened to thanks to the method of its messages.

Before we move on you’ll want to warm up your printer. We’ve had some cut out figures before in OiNK but this is by far the best of the bunch. David Leach’s Psycho Gran appearance in the fashion issue had a little bit of crafting for the young readers to attempt. Of course, these are very intricate drawings for youngsters to cut around so I wonder if anyone actually did? I particularly like the Judge Dredd option which seems to suit her perfectly given the form of justice she could dish out.

In 2018 David would reprint this page in his Psycho Gran Versus #2 comic. The whole issue was dedicated to Charlotte just as this page above was. Charlotte was David’s sister, Charlotte Claire Gurtler (Leach) who sadly passed away in 2018. Preferring to go by the name Dot, David said she would’ve made a great Psycho Gran herself. Maybe there’s a little of Charlotte in Psycho’s new comics today.

Just before we finish off, this issue saw the introduction of what has possibly gone on to be the most sought after piece of OiNK merchandise today. It’s rather fitting it would be announced in the fashion issue, given how it was a super trendy sweatshirt with the OiNK logo emblazoned on the front. The slogan down the left side of the hip hog (drawn by Mike Taylor) is just as well remembered as the sweatshirt itself.

Unfortunately I never ordered it and to this day all I’ve seen of it is one photo from a pig pal. After finally being able to get hold of my beloved OiNK mug and a mint condition OiNK 45 record (the only two pieces of merch I owned originally) this is surely the one I have to get next! However, the chances of finding one are next to none, never mind one in wearable condition. But a pig pal can dream. Are you listening, Santa?

Speaking of the jolly red-suited man with a bag, the next issue of OiNK is our second (and final – boo!) Christmas issue. It has a lot to live up to because from memory this is my very favourite (definitely my most memorable) regular issue of OiNK. From its classic Ian Jackson cover to its Tom Thug Christmas Angel it’s a festive treat not to be missed. Speaking of Tom, watch out for a special Christmas blog preview post in a couple of days.

The jolliest issue of the funniest comic ever will be up for review right here on Monday 12th December 2022.

iSSUE 41 < > iSSUE 43

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