We all remember this cover. We all remember the back cover. But do you know about the original back cover? It’s time to, ahem, reveal all!
Back when I wrote the review for the fantastic OiNK Book 1988 during Christmas 2022 I credited Ian Jackson with the plasticine model. Not only had Ian produced model work for the first Holiday Special, this looked like his version of Uncle Pigg and, most of all, I’d been told by OiNK’s co-editors Patrick Gallagher and Tony Husband it was his handiwork! Fast forward to earlier this year and I asked Ian if he still had the model or at least any photos of the infamous original rear. I was surprised to be told by the man himself that he didn’t create it!
Unfortunately, despite months of research the artist responsible for this iconic cover remains unknown, however the person responsible for photographing it is another matter altogether. Meet Ian Tilton, OiNK’s resident photographer. He first met Patrick, Tony and Mark Rodgers when he was hired to photograph the OiNK launch party in a local Manchester pub. The idea was to get a portrait print of the comic’s three editors but this proved more difficult than expected thanks to the amount of booze flowing that night.
Ian told me that once he got a few photos the three of them instantly disappeared back into the crowd and to this day Patrick still can’t remember a thing about the party! Ian has been gracious enough to chat with me on the phone at length about working on OiNK and to send me photos of his original work. Yes, including the original version of this back cover to the first annual. I remember showing off this final published version with great delight to any family friends who visited us that Christmas season.
Ian told me how in October 1986 (well in advance) he was asked to photograph the roughly A4-sized model while leaving enough space for the title etc. He never met the artist and is also unaware of who created it. It was sent to him by the editorial team and the back cover arrived before the face. So he photographed the rear model on its own and took the pictures to the processing lab in Manchester where they knew him well. He left it there and told them he’d be back in a few hours.
The thing is, this original model was different in one way to what you saw on the book. When Ian returned to the reception he could see all the staff in the back looking out at him, which he thought was “a little bit strange”. Terry was the name of the man who did the actual processing and told Ian about the photo, “We’ve been handing these around, so everybody’s seen them… but what is it?” The thing is, Ian hadn’t told them anything and without knowing it was a plasticine model it looked like skin!
So here you go, pig pals, that original rear end that caused all the fuss!
Once he explained it, they were apparently very relieved it wasn’t a real growth on someone’s bum! “Don’t worry, it’s just plasticine!” shouted Terry to the rest of his team from reception. They’d been used to Ian bringing in photos of rock bands, so no wonder there was concern among them! The comic’s team loved it but IPC’s Bob Paynter got straight back to them and, while laughing, told them they’d never get away with it! So in the end the tail was moved to cover up the offending element.
The story is even funnier when you know Ian is a renowned rock photographer. One of his photographs of Kurt Cobain was hailed by Q Magazine as one of the six best rock photographs of all time, another of Ian Brown of The Stone Roses has gone down in history. On the phone he regaled me with tales of Iggy Pop, Nirvana, The Cure and Guns’n’Roses. I’ve said it before, OiNK had the greatest team behind it. This wasn’t Ian’s only OiNK cover either.
Fittingly for the timing of this post Ian also photographed the funny cover to the comic’s first Christmas issue and its iconic imagery of the Queen preparing to cook up a corgi. Ian has kindly shared some of the transparencies with me of the various poses that ultimately weren’t used. These were all taken in Ian’s own kitchen and behind the royal mask was his own personal friend, Sally.
Also above you can see a model that we know was definitely created by Ian Jackson, the one used for the first Holiday Special of a plasticine Uncle Pigg being fanned by a cardboard Mary Lighthouse (critic) on a tropical desert isle. You can clearly see the blue drape used as the background and the simple crumpled up material posing as the sea. It’s fascinating seeing how such an iconic cover was originally created using such cheap but ultimately creative methods. These photos were taken in December the year before the special’s release.
Sally wasn’t the only one of Ian’s friends to appear in OiNK. In fact, they were all enthusiastic to appear and that included Ian’s housemate, Alan Shaw. He appeared as PC Porker in Swindler Sid’s Great Lolly Folly in #7. The photo has been hand-coloured after the fact, although the strip was printed in black and white. Another of the photo stories Ian captured was printed in colour though, and luckily he still has the original.
Starring Marc Riley as Snatcher Sam, Ian hand-coloured the strip using photographic dyes. He’d shown the OiNK editors some record covers and promotional band pictures of The Membranes from the early 80s, thinking the style would be a good fit. He would go on to use the technique on a lot of music magazine covers from 1987 onwards and one such image could take a day-and-a-half to colour. It was a difficult task but I’m so happy he took the time to add some of it to OiNK’s pages. Apparently the OiNK team randomly named his work ‘Glechnicolour’, as opposed to Technicolour.
Finally, here’s a photo Ian took during #30’s OiNK Awards shoot of the late Tony Husband with the Spitting Image Workshop. Ian has kept all of his diaries over the decades and he was able to share the details for this one. It was taken on 18th March 1987 and he’d travelled to London in Tony’s white Ford Capri to meet with Spitting Image, then over to BBC Broadcasting House to photograph John Peel and Steve Wright for the same spread.
What started out as a quick query about the OiNK Book 1988’s cover artist resulted in so much more. It was a wonderfully funny conversation which also included some non-OiNK stories I just can’t share! So thank you so much to Ian for being so open and such great craic. It’s clear from our chat that his enthusiasm for his OiNK work continues to this day and I hope this has been a festive treat for all you pig pals out there.
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