Last summer the editor of the previously cancelled Comic Scene magazine contacted me about contributing to a new project he was putting together. Comic Scene: History of Comics is a new, ambitious partwork magazine series which aims to eventually cover 100 years of worldwide comics history. Hence its name, really. Each 60-page magazine is dedicated to one particular year and the 1986 volume has a certain title mentioned right on its front cover.

I was thrilled to be given the chance to write about my favourite comic in an actual printed publication. But pretty much as soon as I agreed I realised the size of the task ahead. OiNK had a huge range of content over its two-and-a-half year run, from a vast selection of regular and semi-regular characters to one-offs and spoofs that changed from issue-to-issue. The behind-the-scenes shenanigans were just as fascinating too. How was I going to sum this all up within the tight word limit?

I hadn’t made an essay plan since my college days but that was the route I took and even then I went way, way over the word count. It was hard but ultimately highly satisfying to edit my own work to someone else’s specifications, while making sure it flowed properly and retained the casual chatty style I seem to have developed through years of writing for the previous blog. (Well, people seem to enjoy it so why break a habit?)

While I knew people who had enjoyed OiNK as a child (or even more recently) could be among the readers, the main aim of this magazine series is to introduce a vast array of classic and modern comics to the readers and so that was my goal. In doing so, I wanted to include lots of information about the comic’s creation, its life and evolution, as well as examples of the actual humour and cheeky wit. I wouldn’t be doing the comic justice by just reciting facts and figures after all.

So OiNK’s creation, it’s unique team of contributors, its characters, strips and its place in comics history are all covered in just a few pages and I’m really pleased with the final result. Past articles I’ve read always seemed to focus on it being top-shelved in WHSmith or the fact it had some rude jokes. But I wanted to write a proper overview of the whole shebang. I even made sure to put to rest a few myths about the comic too (only to have one resurface in the magazine’s editorial, unfortunately).

It was great fun writing this piece and it’s available now to buy. At the time of writing four volumes have been released (1950, 1977, 1984 and 1986) and I also contributed some images for another author’s article on Transformers from Marvel UK. To purchase any of these just head to the magazine’s online shop where print and digital versions are available individually and in bundles, or as part of a comics club with a monthly membership fee instead.

UPDATE: Well it appears History of Comics was too ambitious because after only a couple of sets this too was cancelled, replaced by a newsletter instead. Oh dear.