The decorations are up and Christmas on the OiNK Blog has well and truly begun, and part of the season’s line up is no less than half a dozen Mighty Marvel UK Checklists, including one full of seasonal joy. First up though, fun stories and a… um, summer holiday.
In The Transformers and Action Force, Club Con begins. It’s another much-mocked storyline but again I found it fun and imaginative. The Decepticons have built a tropical island on top of their submerged base and they end up blasting into space with Buster Witwicky on board. This was the first time I’d seen the Seacons on this Bob Budiansky and Kevin Nowlan US cover and as a lover of everything aquatic I thought they were brilliant, even if the squid one did look daft in hindsight.
Anthony Williams and Dave Harwood provide the cover to The Real Ghostbusters and, talking of imaginative, the stories include Janine and Egon on a date and Janine’s pissed off voice shouting in frustration at a ghost actually busts it, and then we find out Slimer pretends to haunt somewhere for his friends when jobs and income are rare! What else did Marvel UK conjur up for us this week 37 years ago?
The Captain Britain trade paperback may have been on sale for a couple of weeks already but that didn’t stop it from taking the big spot. A bit of a blow to the new comics released this week? Not really, there was a promotional signing coming up at, you guessed it, Nostalgia & Comics. I’ll also assume the new Action Force Monthly would’ve been the one not to miss last week if we’d had a checklist, especially with that collection of talent producing it.
The new-look fortnightly Thundercats seems to have taken a leaf out of The Real Ghostbusters’ book if this issue’s contents is anything to go by. Speaking of comics aimed at slightly younger readers, I’ve commented before about the lack of strip information in the checklists for Flintstones and Friends and the annual’s advert seems to highlight that further. Less a comic book and more an activity book? Well, maybe it kept its readers in bed with their stockings a while longer.
I have to say the adverts for the Action Force annuals always made them look just as exciting as those in the Transformers’ series. Why I never asked for any of these books when I was enjoying the back up strip in Transformers is beyond me. Maybe it’s something I should look into for the blog in the future? I’m really loving the Skybound box set and I’ve wanted to see more of the UK content since reading the few issues of their weekly when they crossed over with the robots. Who knows. This advert definitely has me thinking about it.
We move into December itself next week and there’ll be details of some of Marvel UK’s monthly offerings for the festive season. They may not have had snow on their logos but that didn’t mean they weren’t just as special. See you then.
Around September time back in the 80s my local newsagent would bring out a huge table to began displaying that year’s annuals. I remember this being really exciting and I’d flick through the ones I’d already asked Santa for, impatiently waiting to get my hands on them on the morning of 25th December. For those three months I’d drool over that table (figuratively speaking only, don’t worry) and we couldn’t escape them at home either, with a plethora of adverts appearing in our comics. The Christmas hype had begun. With the Annuals section of the blog well under way now, I’ve decided to take a look at all of the adverts relating to them I could find in my collection.
1984
As a kid I only started buying comics toward the end of 1986, so any adverts before then are from my now complete Transformers Marvel UK collection and I’m surprised to see only one amongst the issues from 1984. The heading may be awkwardly placed but it’s a wide range from the publisher, including everything from Culture Club (“Karma, karma, karma, karma, Karma chameleon”) to The Fall Guy (“It’s only hay, A-hey-hey!”) via the BMX craze, the short-lived Manimal and, erm, the S.A.S.?
I do remember watching Fraggle Rock early Saturday mornings and my vocal impression of Roland Rat was always awful but that never stopped me from annoying people with it. For blog readers the obvious point of interest here is the Knight Rider Annual, the second in a series of five. It was reviewed a couple of years back and I’ve even interviewed its artist, David ‘V for Vendetta‘ Lloydon the blog too. In fact, the fourth edition will be here a fortnight from today, on Friday 19th December.
1985
Speaking of coming up on the blog this year, in 1985 the first Transformers Annual appeared in shops exactly one year after the debut of the comic. Strangely, this momentous occasion wasn’t marked by any adverts at all, just one brief mention in #37 on 23rd November. It doesn’t say much either, however it does mention the first story to feature the Insecticons, which would’ve been enough for young fans to get frothing at the mouth.
The Transformers at Christmas 40th anniversary posts return this year for their second outing and in fact that’s the very reason for the post you’re reading now. Marvel UK’s Transformers had seven annuals altogether and they’re very fondly remembered. They’ll be taking prime position on Christmas Day every year with a full review. This post marks the occasion of these books joining us, they feature predominantly and many of these ads have been taken from the pages of said comic.
1986
Moving on to 1986 and Marvel finally began to take the importance of advertising these books to their young readers seriously. With other successful comics to plunder for the Christmas market the Transformers weren’t alone anymore, joined as they were with legendary Marvel stalward Spider-Man, his co-stars the Zoids (Spider-Man and Zoids was the oddest combination comic yet somehow it worked) and newest hot toy and cartoon franchise, those Thundercats.
These ads were also broken up into half-pagers to be squeezed in wherever they could across the publisher’s range. It was a huge step up from previous years. Although, I must admit when I was reading Transformers for the blog’s real time Instagram read through and I came across this advert I did a bit of a double-take and had to check if this was the right image, it’s not that much different than the previous year’s Transformers Annual.
1987
All Transformers Annuals after that would have very different, stand out covers but surely no annual stood out as much during 1987’s final months as OiNK’sfirst book. I can remember the teases of that fantastic image all summer during 1987 and the final reveal was hilarious, never mind seeing it in its shiny glory in the shop for the first time. There’ll be a special post on Thursday 8th December featuring that cover, when I’ll be speaking with photographer Ian Tilton about the original back cover and what happened when he went to get the photos developed.
On the Fleetway Publications side there was nothing of comparison cover-wise, although the Big Comic Book’s shear size made up for that. More impressive were the covers for Marvel’s lot, with Action Force (G.I. Joe) joining Thundercats and their top-seller, Transformers. However, it’s only now I realise they were quite a bit more expensive (for the time) than the Fleetway books, despite having fewer pages (Fleetway’s had 112 pages, with 84 for OiNK and 256 for BCB, Marvel’s had 64). Well, they were licenced I suppose, and as kids we never felt short-changed with the amount of stuff crammed into them.
1988
This was the biggie. 1988 was a huge year for comics in the UK, even if a lot of the new titles released didn’t last that long. Nevertheless, it still meant a bumper crop of annuals were produced for that holiday season and the vast array of advertisements, particularly across Marvel UK’s range, reflected this. But we’ll begin with Fleetway again and the second (and sadly final) OiNK Book. A fantastic J.T. Dogg cover almost made up for the reduction in pages to 64, which was all the more disappointing when the comic had 48 pages in every monthly issue by that time.
Their group advertisement from the back page of the last OiNK is a rather different mix of books compared to the previous year’s. Buster is conspicuous by its absence and then there’s the addition of annuals you’d assume would’ve been more Marvel UK’s bag (such as SuperTed and Maple Town).
This was the year Marvel really went to town on their promotions. In 1988 group advertisements were accompanied with full-page promos for individual annuals and I’ll begin with the two that bring back the most memories for me, The Transformers and The Real Ghostbusters. Having only just started collecting the former with its Christmassy Winter Special in mid-November this was my very first Transformers Annual, and as for Dr. Venkmen etc. 1988 was the year they arrived in the UK and I had been swept up in it all.
I have so many fond memories of that Real Ghostbusters Annual. You ever own something that just takes you right back to your childhood when you see it in front of you? I was obsessed with the cartoon, comic and toys for a few years and I remember this book surprising me with just how fantastic it was. Would it live up to that now or is it best to reminisce? We’ll find out on Thursday 4th December when The Real Ghostbusters join us for an annual read through for four Christmases. I’ll admit I’m excited at the prospect of this one!
Another book that brings back plenty of childhood memories is the Visionaries Annual. The comic had already been cancelled by this stage so it didn’t get its own advert but it was a part of a group ad and a special page in The Transformers, featuring the annuals relating to it and the two comics that had merged into it at different points. The main strip in the Visionaries book may have been a reprint but as I hadn’t known there’d been a comic it was all new to me and a huge surprise to receive that Christmas (and the next, because my newsagent also sold it the following year and my parents bought me it again thinking it was a new book).
The Real Ghostbusters were grouped in with the lighter-hearted annuals such as Count Duckula. The Marvel Super Heroes didn’t have their own comic in the UK but there were always various Spider-Man and Hulk comics now and again. Finally, The Flintstones comic must’ve been more popular than I gave it credit for because its annual got its own promo too.
1989
In contrast, the following year Marvel only ran one advert for their entire range, which is a shame because that Transformers book was superb and there are some fantastic covers here that should’ve been shown much bigger (although the Indiana Jones cover seems to be phoning it in). I never knew there was a Dino-Riders annual! I only had one or two of the toys but I did see some episodes of the cartoon (I think one was packaged with a toy?) and enjoyed it. They joined a league of potential obsessions for me that never played out because they weren’t around for long.
1990
In 1990 a whopping 22 annuals graced the shelves from Marvel UK, featuring a mix of ongoing comics, cancelled titles, original nursery books, licences and a few characters who appeared in anthology comics given room to breathe in their own publications. It was also the first time G.I. Joe’s annual was given the proper international name after Hasbro’s relaunch of the brand, and a few years after their TV show was cancelled I was surprised to see Hannibal, Face, B.A. and Murdock make a reappearance.
Spider-Man fans were in for a treat too with his usual appearance in the Marvel Super Heroes Annual and his own book. Over the next year or two he’d also get his own UK comic again after a lengthy hiatus. Transformers and G.I. Joe also got their own joint ad which had a good idea behind it but not exactly the most exciting of executions. Oh well, at least they got something this year I suppose.
1991
We move into our final year. Not necessarily the last for annual adverts but it’s the last for those in my comics collection (after this year it’s all Dark Horse International comics on my shelves who didn’t publish annuals) and Marvel UK came up with an overall look for a handful of adverts of various sizes. With a few ads to fill they could’ve made each genre-specific but decided not to. The first one is fine and G.I.Joe got to enjoy some space with annuals its readers could also have been interested in. I can’t say the same for Transformers, The Real Ghostbusters and Thundercats though, who seem to have been given something of a raw deal.
Perhaps the person responsible for the adverts weren’t au fait with the titles they were being asked to market? These were the last annuals for some of these licences (definitely for those covered on the blog) so it’s a bit of an ignominious end for a few, but for those already reading the comics these ads were always going to be exciting; we easily ignored the books we weren’t interested in and concentrated on those Dinobots!
There we go, a trip down not one but eight Christmas memory lanes all in one post. I’m so glad I decided to do these yearly (re: slow) read throughs and these adverts have me hyped for the years to come. There’s more love for comics annuals/books on the blog this Christmas too, with no less than six up for review, including on Christmas Day and Boxing Day! Keep an eye on the Annuals menu, the Christmas 2025 introduction, or the blog’s socials for updates on when they’re published.
“We wish you the merriest, the merriest, The merriest, yes the merriest, We wish you the merriest, the merriest, The merriest yule cheer.”
So sang Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Fred Waring and The Pennsylvanians in a song I discovered while Christmas shopping recently, added to my seasonal playlist and now can’t get out of my head. Another new addition for me this year is Smudge. Regular blog readers will know all about the little cat I’ve been cat sitting for years who’s now living with me. He’s made my home feel even warmer and cosier. Everything’s set for the best Christmas ever, including here on the OiNK Blog.
As each post is published it’s name will turn into a piggy pink link below
Including what you’re reading right now I’ve 26 posts in total planned over the holiday season, more than any previous year and it’s going to be a blast! If it wasn’t fun to write this site I wouldn’t do it, so when I’m putting so much into Christmas 2025 I hope you’ll enjoy it just as much as I am writing it. I obviously want to provide for my fellow OiNK pig pals in particular every year and this time is no exception.
OiNK’s resident photographer Ian Tilton took the pictures of that famous OiNK! Book cover, which had an original rear (pun so intended) that the publisher just couldn’t allow. That’ll be revealed alongside other rare photos and info from my chat with Ian in A Tail to Tell on Thursday 11th December 2025. The behind-the-scenes goodies continue in The OiNK Scrapbook, a collection of photos taken by members of the OiNK team which’ll be published on Sunday 28th December. This shares the void week between Christmas and New Year with the first of a new series looking back on the OiNK letters pages. This begins with a Grunts Celebrity Special (that’s what happens this time of year on TV after all) on Tuesday 30th December.
Annuals are just as much a part of the blog over Christmas as they were to us as kids. Usually our first post-introduction post is the Big Comic Book but this year I’ve a special treat before that. On Tuesday 25th November you can peruse all the classic adverts for all of our annuals from Marvel, Grandreams and Fleetway in Yuletide Yearnings. Then Fleetway’s Big Comic Book 1990 will make its grand entrance on Saturday 29th November with even more classic comics than before. One of those classics was Buster, and continuing our OiNK love-in we follow Pete Throb and Tom Thug into the pages of the 1991 Buster Book on Monday 8th December.
We’ll take our fourth shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist (and his talking car K.I.T.T., of course) in the Knight Rider Annual from 1986 on Thursday 18th December. This year also sees the start of a new yearly real time read through as we take our first Christmas trip to a firehouse in New York with The Real Ghostbusters Annual from 1988 on Thursday 4th December. If the inclusion of these books tickles you, you’ll definitely not want to miss the Big Christmas Competition on Monday 1st December, trust me!
Another annual series also includes an annual for the first time this year. Confused? Last year I began reviewing the Christmas issues of Marvel UK’s original Transformers comic. You’ll see a preview of this year’s offerings in Coming Up, a post covering 1985’s promotional material on Sunday 14th December. This year’s edition of the weekly is properly festive (Optimus Prime dressed as Santa? Check!) and the comic’s first hardback annual promises to be a feast to rival your turkey dinner. You can compare for yourself, as Transformers #41 will be on the blog on Sunday 21st December (nice of the Cybertronians to celebrate my birthday) and the Transformers Annual will be up on Christmas Day.
Another comic series with a triple helping of goodies this holiday season is Beano. Beano #272 from 1945 was the first million-selling issue and is up for review as part of the 80th Anniversary Box Set read through on Thursday 27th November, the issue’s actual 80th birthday! We come right up to the present day with the Beano Christmas Special 2025 and if last year’s was anything to go by it should be another laugh-a-minute experience with plenty of highlights to choose from. That’s on Saturday 6th December. Then it’s back to the 80s on Boxing Day to take the first look in decades at a childhood favourite book, The Dandy and The Beano Fifty Golden Years.
Rounding things off are the latest entries in two ongoing series. Aliens #19 brings the frosty chills on Tuesday 23rd December, and check out Aliens #18 which is already up on the blog with its seasonal cover. There’ll also be no less than six Mighty Marvel UK Comic Checklists, published every Wednesday with details of special issues on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. These will share the Eves with my usual personal Christmas Message and New Year’s Message too, wrapping everything up in a big bow.
I’m really looking forward to this Christmas in my personal life and I wanted to go all out to have the blog match that level of anticipation. I think I’ve done it because I can’t wait to share all of this year’s treats. You can follow along here using a WordPress account or by subscribing via email (see links to the right on desktops or below the post on mobiles), or via socials on the blog’s Instagram and Facebook feeds and my own personal Bluesky so you don’t miss a thing across the holiday season. Christmas 2025 starts now! (Oh, and if you’re wondering if a certain OiNK Blog tradition continues this year, the tree is below.)
All that remains is for me to wish you all A Very Merry Christmas and Very Happy Holidays!
Ah, Saturday 19th November 1988. My parents and I were about to travel by bus somewhere and I asked if I could get the latest issue of The Transformers after my mum had bought me the recent Christmassy Winter Special while I was off sick from school. Luckily, my newsagent hadn’t sent back the unsold copies of the previous week’s yet so on this date 37 years ago I very happily read both of my first weekly issues.
Andrew Wildman’s cover was so exciting to me after reading the issue leading into it and it revealed my friend’s mammoth Scorponok toy as the villain behind the scheme. That was so much fun. Even though it’s a small scale story compared to others I’d end up reading, it felt so much more grown up than the cartoon with its gritty human characters and what felt like a real threat to the Autobots. Ca$h and Car-nage! remains a favourite to this day.
Brian Williamson’s cover to The Real Ghostbusters introduced us to an issue that contained haunted tongues but no checklist. Yup, unfortunately both our comics were just too packed to make room for our weekly shopping list, even though it was listed on the contents page of Ghostbusters. Instead, the Dragon’s Claws strip advert was in its place and in the pages of my second Transformers I was introduced to someone else via a similar page.
Written by Simon Furman as always, with art by Death’s Head regular strip artist Bryan Hitch and coloured by Steve White, every Marvel UK fan remembers this particular advert. It perfectly sums up the monthly comic. Action, adventure and a mean looking protagonist, all undermined by a ridiculous scenario and a hilarious sense of humour. If you haven’t seen this before I hope it makes up for the lack of a checklist this week. I’m sure it does.
It wasn’t the only one-page strip advert the Freelance Peacekeeping Agent received and you can check out the other one at the link below. The checklist returns next week when there’ll be snow on the blog’s logo because we’ll be in full Christmas swing, so appropriately enough there’ll be a couple of annuals adverts too. See you then.
What’s this? A ChristmasChris HallsAliens cover? Am I late in covering the blog’s logo with snow? Nope, that’ll happen on 24th November (six days from the day of writing) as per usual, in this case Dark Horse International editor Cefn Ridout must’ve mistimed the chilly seasonal cover somewhat. Yes, it’s the December issue but last year Chris’ superb art and pun-filled headline were part of the January issue released on 24th December. This year there’s another issue after this one just before Christmas Day.
Despite this, Cefn still takes the opportunity to wish us all a Merry Christmas and since mine starts as soon as the Christmas tree goes up in a few days I’ll take it! Anyway, there’s your obligatory editorial page with the full credits for this month’s issue.
Contrary to the blurb on the cover, the latest chapter to Michael Cook’sCrusade isn’t seasonal. The alien Queen trapped in a cathedral tower gave Chris a reason for the frosty cover and its church iconography, but in these eight pages we don’t see any aliens. From the ‘previously’ page we learn Channon is the leader of the Minecorp marines and Foston is the male company man, not that the strip itself has ever made these clear. The last survivor of the crashed survey team is Foston’s wife, hence why he’s risking it all even though he’s out of his depth.
Channon has been captured by a tribe who have constructed a whole village out of old vehicles because they don’t know what they are. Sounds interesting but unfortunately it’s just a mess on the page. The ‘jail’ is a camper van with a padlock and inside she finds Foston’s wife. They hot-wire the van and make their escape back to the survey ship where they stock up on heavy weaponry and take off down the egg-infested Thames in what is definitely too small a boat. It just feels right to have two kick-ass women in an Alien story, doesn’t it?
I certainly didn’t expect to get a huge laugh from the Motion Tracker news section! There’s a competition for a box set of VHS videos and it would’ve been right up my street. It’s a shame we don’t get a decent photograph of it, I’d really liked to have seen it closed with the face hugger wrapped around it. The comic also corrects (without mentioning it’s a correction) its previous error of stating Aliens wasn’t filmed in widescreen and I really laughed out loud when I got to the end. I hadn’t paid attention to the photo so hadn’t realised who it is until I read the question!
The 8-page first part of Renegade is written by Chris Claremont (Batman Black and White, Gen13, Wolverine), drawn by Vince Giarrano (Haywire, Terminator: Enemy Within, Manhunter), lettered by Tom Orzechowski (Thor, Ghost in the Shell, Spawn) and coloured by Greg Wright (Deathlok, Ghost Rider, The Punisher) and is taken from the American Dark Horse Comics anthology. It’s a prequel to Deadliest of the Species, a new Aliens/Predator crossover story. This is actually a little bit of Aliens history right here. Because it doesn’t feature any aliens, characters or names from the films this has remained the property of the writer and artist so it’s never been reprinted or collected since.
On a planet rich in resources lives Caleb Deschanel and his daughter, and along with Ash Parnall they’ve built a community at one with nature and it’s making a profit. In lands Commander Javier Milan and EO Moira Delgado of the Descartes Indigenous Self-Defence Forces, protectors of the natural resources, according to them. Their motto is “Unexploited resources are wasted resources”, so defending the planet means exploiting it. The broad smiles and flirting is accompanied with straight-to-the-point statements; they must stand aside or face elimination. The fact the force’s spaceship is called Ransome is a bit on-the-nose.
Caleb is ill and frail and asks Ash to deal with this given her history, whatever that is. In fact, during a conversation Javier asks her how she knows so much about military weaponry and tactics and her response is just as mysterious as this strip; she had a misspent youth and they’ve a well-stocked library. This is the second strip of the issue and the second one with no aliens. A bold move or a poor decision? Truth be told, they’ve both been interesting to read so I’ve no complaints in taking a breather for more character moments.
In the concluding half of Cargo, writer Dan Jolley and artist John Nadeau continue to play to their strengths with a superb atmosphere, even if there’s a key part of the plot that doesn’t make sense. Surely even a criminal such as Vasco wouldn’t endanger the entire planet by importing an unsecured alien just for a bit of revenge? The fact it all happens on an abandoned cargo ship far out at sea doesn’t excuse things, it would eventually run aground or be found. But that atmosphere is palpable, so let’s just go with it.
Having Gerald as the lone human on a huge vessel with one alien has the makings of a truly terrifying tale, so it’s a shame this is a short 16-page strip in total with no time to build suspense. But that’s not where this falls foul, it’s in its overly simplistic ending which amounts to tricking the alien into the mag tube, filling it with water and then electrifying it. Now, that might not sound simplistic, but the fact it all happens in less than two pages makes Gerald’s escape seem very easy. A shame, as the tension in the build up was great.
Extra Terrestrial is a four-page feature written by Terry Jones detailing the cut scenes from Ridley Scott’s original Alien movie. Ridley has never released a director’s cut, he was very happy with the finished film, although he’s released an alternate cut with some scenes and moments replaced by others. The only scenes in this feature that really would’ve added anything new to the film are those above, which for obvious reasons (after the release of Aliens) can never be put back into the film. Ridley has said he never would because James Cameron did such an amazing job with the sequel’s explanation of the eggs.
Colonial Marines is our final strip for the month, coming in at a meatier 11 pages. On Bracken’s World the kelp beds are mysteriously disappearing across the planet and we see this lovely detailed opening of a colony hub on the agricultural world by Tony Akins, Paul Guinan and Matt Hollingsworth. Lt. Henry has explained the situation to the council but they’re angry with his team for upsetting their order, only half-believing him about the aliens.
Still, they demand he help but he can’t without orders, or at least that’s what he says. He’s playing something very close to his chest since the firefight last issue but even his sergeant can’t get it out of him. He won’t tell the council he can’t establish comms with HQ, and just tells his sergeant neither the council nor she need all the facts. This is out of character for him. All we know is that he saw “something” during the fight.
We get more questions than answers when he confronts Alphatech’s supposed “glorified accountant” Beliveau about the bug men having Alphatech weaponry. Aha! He’s convinced Beliveau is a bigger player than he’s been letting on, however Beliveau counters by asking why a new multi-million dollar synth prototype has been assigned to Henry’s babysitting team. Henry has no answers. Conspiracies abound. Intriguing.
Henry buys black market remote bombs and when asked by a different council member to help even though they can’t afford it (the capitalist future of the Alien universe in full effect), Henry says that they’re there until morning, they’ll help until then. This is an interesting, suspenseful and now a mysterious story with great characters and it’s back to full strength after getting lost in a sea of too many characters at once and overblown fight scenes.
There are some moments that hint at aliens attacking ships but otherwise this is again alien-free, concentrating solely on the humans involved in fighting them. So that means three of the four strips have no visible aliens in them whatsoever. In an Aliens comic. You know what? I didn’t even notice until I went back over the issue to make notes for this review. The Alien universe has always been about more than just the xenomorphs, as the brilliant Alien Earth has been expertly proving.
On the letter’s page there’s a brief mention of a new RoboCop comic in the new year, beginning with an adaptation of the upcoming third movie. It would never appear, what with DHI going out of business a few short months later. Marvel UK had also announced a RoboCop fortnightly in the pages of Transformers back in 1990 but that never happened either. He’d eventually pop up on these shores in the pages of Havoc. However, definitely coming next month is a cover drawn by and a strip written by the legendary comics star (and one-time OiNK contributor) Dave Gibbons.
It may have been released a month too early for the Christmas-inspired cover but #18 of Aliens has been a delightful surprise. The fact the stories didn’t need much in the way of alien action for the issue to be compulsive reading (their presence always felt) has ironically made it a highlight of the run so far. I’m intrigued to see what we have in store when the first post-holidays issue hits the blog before the Big Day on Tuesday 23rd December 2025.
On this day back in 1988 the 23rd edition of Marvel UK’s The Real Ghostbusters and the very special 192nd issue of The Transformers and Action Force were unleashed upon the younger members of the public, their covers by Anthony Williams and Stephen Baskerville respectively.
Why was the 192nd Transformers so special? Okay, I’ll admit it was special for me. This was the very first issue of the weekly I bought back at the time after reading that year’s Christmassy Winter Special, although I didn’t get it until the following week alongside #193. As a first issue this one had a fascinating story for young me involving Headmasters disguised as humans and actual human bounty hunters tracking down Autobots. It also featured one of the toys I’d end up with that Christmas, Sizzle, who produced sparks out his rear end… um, I mean out of his exhaust in car mode.
In The Real Ghostbusters there was a massive moment for fans of two of the characters involved. Sort of. Janine finally got a snog off of Egon, which of course was really only part of a haunted dream. Humour comics giant John Geering was also the main artist for the issue, which only added to the overall laughs. Meanwhile, in this week’s checklist the Thundercats comic certainly doesn’t sound like the relaunched comic for a “younger audience”, with what appears to be an epic showdown.
But the two biggest highlights for Marvel UK followers surely had to be the humungous Captain Britain paperback and that premiere issue again. Captain Britain never appealed to me as a kid as I incorrectly saw him as a poor man’s Captain America. In recent years I’ve heard nothing but good things though. His entry also reminds me of those days when it felt like the entire population of the UK only had Nostalgia and Comics to go to for any comics-related events.
Finally for this week’s checklist, and finally in the eyes of fans who had long awaited it, there’s Death’s Head own monthly comic. I know what you’re thinking, didn’t he get this coveted ‘Don’t Miss’ spot last week? Indeed he did, but if anyone deserved it, he did. Or perhaps he ‘advised’ Marvel UK he wanted another week at the top of the league. This made me go and buy it with my pocket money that week (this was my first checklist) but for whatever reason it was months before I read it! The entire run has already been covered on the blog and this first issue was one of the very best of his ten issues.
No adverts this week (none I haven’t already covered anyway) so all that’s left for me to say is if anyone had been lucky enough as a kid to check off all five titles this week they must’ve been very happy indeed!
I really do enjoy this series, a lot of the advertisements featured so far have taken me right back to my youth (which was a long, long time ago now), but I’ll admit the promotional pages contained in this fifth part didn’t result in any purchases or gifts for me in the 80s. That’s not to say they don’t bring back certain memories, though.
In the 80s there was one teeny, tiny little thing that made a huge impact on our daily lives, despite the fact we rarely saw it. From toys to VCRs, from washing machines to the explosion of home computers that entered our homes. It could even be found resting on our wrists. That little, unassuming thing that hid inside more and more of the devices we used was, of course, the microchip.
It’s something that links all of our adverts, too. Beginning with Casio’s watches containing those elaborate stopwatches! Don’t laugh, I remember being very jealous of a friend who had a digital watch that recorded lap times, even though I’d no need for such a feature. Remembering my own basic watches of the time and seeing Michael Knight talk to K.I.T.T. through his, every time I use my smart watch today I feel like I’m living in some sci-fi future.
It’s not only the passage of time and the leaps in technology compared to the 80s that’s making me feel old. I think the fact the next item sounds so absolutely horrific is because I’m now a boring old fart. As a kid I may have gotten about ten minutes of fun out of a keyboard that used sampled sound effects from around the house to produce “music”, but as an adult I can think of nothing worse than this thing.
As it’s nearly Christmas, I’m reminded of a scene in my favourite Christmas movie, Fred Claus. At one point Santa’s brother, who is desperately trying to avoid anything to do with the season, is subjected to a taxi ride with a radio station playing nothing but Jingle Bells with the notes replaced by cat meows and dog barks. It’s horrific! That’s essentially what this keyboard is.
Much better for the kids would’ve been a real keyboard on which they could learn to play actual music and up stepped Yamaha who ran these next two ads over a handful of OiNKs. The Starmakers would’ve appealed because the reason behind it is right there in the name; let’s buy our child this so they can learn to play proper music, become famous and support us later in life. Well, maybe not. But you get my point. I do like the ads though, especially the guitar-shaped one, it’s so very 80s.
I remember a friend of mine in high school was incredibly talented musically. He could literally listen to a tune once or twice and play it back on a piano. He also had two huge Yamaha keyboards in his bedroom and I sat in awe one day as he spent no more then three hours one Saturday afternoon turning the Airwolf theme tune (which wasn’t sampled, he played it from scratch) into a dance track. He should’ve released it!
In the later weekly editions of OiNK an advert appeared for a new computer game and its release confused me at the time. I was aware of The Three Stooges and I think we all saw the odd live-action or animated clip growing up, but I always felt their humour was too old-fashioned for me. So I didn’t understand why they were suddenly appearing in a computer game for us young ‘uns.
I must’ve been an outlier though because apparently the game was very popular, doing well enough to be adapted to consoles such as the GameBoy Advance in the next decade. Throughout the 80s VHS collections of their TV shows were also released and an arcade game was revealed in 1984, followed up with this for home computers. In the game the Stooges had to partake in odd jobs to raise money to save their local orphanage.
Given how outdated I personally felt their humour to be as a young boy I was even more surprised to see some gloriously illustrated strips appear in two issues of OiNK. Co-editor Patrick Gallagher has confirmed these were exclusive to OiNK and were made to tie in with the release of the game. It’s not the comic’s fault I never got on with the Stooges’ humour, a lot of people loved them and I’m sure many enjoyed the strips so I’m glad these little oddities exist, especially as they give us a reason to enjoy some more art from the incredible Malcolm Douglas (aka J.T. Dogg).
The final advert for an electronic piece of entertainment wasn’t an advert in the traditional sense but rather a promo OiNK pieced together to tell us about the free comic sitting inside the pages of Crash magazine on our newsagents’ shelves, as well as the comic’s own computer game of course. You can check out the free comic, the special feature inside that issue of Crash and the game itself in a special section of the blog devoted to the game.
The rise of the microchip and computerised technology in the 80s was a wonder to be a part of, especially at such a young and impressionable age. I’ve stared in wonder at my friend’s very young kids and how quickly they’ve grasped iPads and iPhones and I think I now know how my own parents felt four decades ago!
Right, so we’ve only one more part of this series to go, in which I’ll be rounding up the leftover miscellaneous ads from the pages of OiNK. Look out for that in 2026.
I always enjoyed stories with Janine Melnitz at the centre of them in Marvel UK’s The Real Ghostbusters, but as much as Brian Williamson’s and Cam Smith’s cover excited me when I picked it up from the newsagent as a kid, right now that Art Wetherell and Stephen Baskerville cover to The Transformers and Action Force is the business!
Skullgrin battling his outer Pretender shell? What’s not to enjoy here? A much maligned story by fans took things up a notch and even included the return of my favourite human character (as in, the one I loved to hate), Circuit Breaker. This was also the final issue before I originally became a reader. What an issue to miss out on. Well, that’s been rectified now, that’s what counts. But it wasn’t like The Real Ghostbusters were slacking for ten-year-old me this week.
For the only time in all of Ghostbusters mythos we got the origin story of Slimer thanks to some time travelling on Peter’s part. It seems the green spud was a food-loving (surprise, surprise) King who beheaded jesters who didn’t make him laugh. Although, Egon does say this is only one of his past incarnations, just in case the cartoon ever had their own version (they never did). There’s also a very Fleetway-like strip that sees a baby ghost transmogrifying the team into toddlers, drawn by John Geering no less.
But the big news this week was clear for all to see. The first of many yellow boxes pointing out the big comic for the week was given to the premiere issue of Death’s Head, of course. It was a superb debut, full of action and plenty of comedy. I have a distinct memory of this issue and reading it in bed while off sick from school, such was the impact it made even my greying memory cells remember that. But he wasn’t the only highlight this week 37 years ago.
Action Force had returned to The Transformers and #6 of their own comic was “still on sale” (a space to fill on the checklist?) and I never knew the UK comic had their own exclusive prequel to the cartoon movie. I must check that out sometime. There was also plenty of drama in Dragon’s Claws #6 for Tanya (Dragon’s wife) and Mercy, so it’s unforgivable neither of these brilliant female characters got any mention in the checklist.
As you can see Death’s Head had certainly arrived! The front cover to his first issue made for the perfect advert across much of the publisher’s range and Transformers even ran a little extra half-page featurette. However, judging by the introduction the advert was probably meant to have been the strip version, a brilliant one-page tale you’ll see soon in this series.
Finally, celebrating 25 years of Doctor Who? The series I watched the 60th anniversary specials of a couple of years ago? Oh man, talk about feeling old! I do love writing this blog. I know it’s dedicated to classic comics, but ho boy there can be times when it suddenly hits me just how much time has passed. The fact it’s a Doctor Who advert that’s the culprit this time is not lost on me. I think I need a lie down. See you next week!
One month ago I gave you the chance to grab a rare piece of UK comics history, the preview issue of Fleetway’s Super Naturals comic. A perfect prize for Hallowe’en, wouldn’t you say? Well I hope Ralph Burns of Mossley, Ashton-Under-Lyne enjoyed the atmosphere within its pages over the past few days. Thanks for the photo, Ralph.
Now, with the fake spider webs still up on the front of all those houses on your street how’d you like to get your hands on six comics filled with more ghosts, goblins and things that go bump in the night? Only this time, what if they were served up with a good dose of comedy?
The Real Ghostbusters was a massive hit for Marvel UK when it was first launched in 1988 and its readership grew and grew, quickly becoming their top seller. Taking a different approach to their other licenced comics, it was back-to-back British strips to begin with (with American imports coming later as back-ups), with between three to five stories every issue that leaned heavily towards humour rather than action or adventure. Talent in these issues includes the likes of John Carnell, Andy Lanning, Dan Abnett, Anthony Williams, Dougie Braithwaite, Anthony Larcombe, Louise Cassell, Stephen Baskerville, Lew Stringer and Bambos Georgiou.
These are so enjoyable you’ll be haunted by the memory of missing out on them if you don’t enter the competition. So you have 14 days to scour the blog for the answer to the following question:
Q – Which OiNK cartoonist drew the first handful of Blimey! It’s Slimer strips in The Real Ghostbusters?
When (you think) you’ve got the correct answer you can either email it to me at oink.blog@icloud.com(all emails are deleted after the winner has been selected, I’m not fancy enough to have a newsletter or stuff like that), or use the contact form you can find on the right-hand side of your desktop screen or under this post on mobile. Your entry must be with me by midnight on Friday 14th November 2025.
After this date I’ll contact the winners to ask for their postal address. Unfortunately, due to rising postage costs the competition is only open to UK and Ireland readers. If you win I’ll ask if you could take a photo of you with your prize. You don’t have to, but you do get to show off if you do.
For transparency, these doubles are in great condition apart from a tear on the cover of #41 where a free gift was removed decades ago and the cover to #6 has come away from the spine.
Good luck everyone! Don’t end up with slime on your face, get your entries in now! Then, on Monday 1st December come back for the Big Christmas Competition. What will the big prize be? Well, you know what they say about the season: It Comes But Once A Year.
Have I got a special treat for all you Super Naturals fans this Hallowe’en! One of the highlights of the short-lived comic for me was the incredible art by Alan Langford in stories Mount of Athos and The Curse. Alan brought a mature, horror-centric style that made the battle between good and evil feel truly epic and the evil characters feel properly horrific. His art really showed the potential of the franchise in my eyes.
Finding anyone who worked on the Super Naturals comic has been difficult, finding those who remember doing so has been near-impossible. Even Barrie Tomlinson, while he mentions it in his book Comic Book Hero, wasn’t sure it was definitely his title. Thankfully Alan remembers it well and he very kindly agreed to a chat about contributing to this underappreciated comic. So today, on the 38th anniversary of the premiere issue, here he is!
A full-time member of the Society of Equestrian Artists, today Alan produces truly stunning pieces of art with the graceful, beautiful animals at the centre of each one rather than holographic action figures. Given how elaborate his contemporary work is on his website I was curious how he found working on a licenced comic. In the Adventure Book we saw Sandy James’ character studies which the comic stated other artists used as reference when beginning work. Not so, according to Alan.
“I recall receiving a parcel full of all the Super Naturals models and their extraordinary vehicles to use as references for the comic scripts I had to illustrate”, Alan told me. “Of course they were of invaluable assistance when sketching out my roughs and depicting the finished artwork.” Above are examples of the action figures themselves (in this case, Thunder Bolt) and one example each of the intricate holographic images for Skull and Snakebite that Alan so expertly translated to the page.
As far as this particular licence was concerned, its characters are what stood out to Alan the most. “Well naturally you have to follow the flow of the script,” he explains. “But it was always interesting if the script conjured up imaginative imagery that you felt compelled to draw. I particularly enjoyed depicting Lionheart and his macabre nemesis [Skull], since they were both larger than life, extraordinary characters.”
Indeed, Alan’s depictions of the two in battle were truly memorable. More than any other strip, Mount of Athos gave us a sense of the epic nature of the battle between the supernatural elements of good and evil battling across time, mainly thanks to Alan’s art. The first page in #1 (first strip image above) is all the proof you need. With Alan’s style seemingly leaning more towards horror, especially in his depictions of the evil characters, I was curious if the genre was a favourite of his to draw.
“I’ve long been fascinated by horror since my teenage years when Hammer movies were the regular unmissable attraction at the cinema. Christopher Lee’s portrayal of Dracula was particularly convincing. However, when it came to depicting horror in comics, there was only one real master of the genre and that was the extraordinary fantasy artist Frank Frazetta, whose cover art depicted in oil paint on board illustrated the covers of Eerie and Creepy magazines.”
“A more competent and helpful editor would have been hard to find”
Alan on Barrie Tomlinson
Indeed, regular blog readers may recognise a couple of names there. In Dark Horse International’sDracula comic from 1993 (originally a tie-in with Francis Ford Coppola’s movie), from #4 onwards classic Vampirella stories were pulled from the archives to act as the back up strip. These were originally published in Creepy in the 1960s, and #5’s additional Creepy classic, Werewolf was stunningly illustrated by Frank.
“Beautifully painted,” Alan continues. “Excitingly composed, remarkable masterpieces that drew the eye in an instant and had you searching through your small change to purchase the exciting mags whose cover art was so instantly recognisable. There was no doubt about it, Frazetta was an extraordinary genius, who has left an indelible mark on fantasy and horror art.”
With his influence well and truly established, we headed back into the world of the Super Naturals. The idea behind the Tonka toy licence was that these characters could show up in any place or time throughout history to cause havoc. The Curse was set during a Victorian Christmas, which seems to have been right up Alan’s street with its horse drawn carriages and the like. Alan agrees. “Yes, particularly as you suggested, because I enjoy drawing equestrian scenes. I particularly recall the opening splash page with children climbing into the Hanson cab.”
Above is one of the “extraordinary vehicles” as Alan puts it, expertly inserted into this Victorian Christmas tale. It’s great to finally talk to someone who remembers working on the comic. As such, I just had to ask him if he could clarify if legendary British comics editor Barrie Tomlinson was indeed the editor of Super Naturals and if he recalled the names of anyone else that contributed.
“Yes, Barrie was definitely the editor of Super Naturals. Unfortunately that is the limit of my knowledge [in regards to others who worked on it]. Save to say he was a most obliging and encouraging character. I believe that most of us worked as freelancers under the direction of Barrie, a more competent and helpful editor would have been hard to find. I had worked for him before on a one-off story of Doomlord for the Eagle Summer Special. He has now retired and publishing his memoirs of his long career in comics, most notably his involvement with the famous comic character Roy of the Rovers in his book The Real Roy of the Rovers!”
I hope you’ve enjoyed this rare insight into the making of what was a superb licenced comic, an anthology that deserved to run and run. Of course, when a comic is licenced a lot rides on the popularity of the brand and unfortunately the high quality toys just didn’t take off. The preview, nine regular issues and two specials are well worth tracking down, especially those featuring Alan’s strips. You can find highlights of them all right here on the blog, of course.
Alan’s website is well worth checking out for his watercolour, oil on canvas, and pen and ink work. It’s all stunning! There’s also a book available of his equestrian art. However, even more excitedly for comics fans Alan has produced his very own graphic novel, The Secret of the Aesir. Writing and illustrating it himself over three years, the 132-page book is set in the 8th century in the icy wastes of Scandinavia and tells the story of a long and arduous viking journey and the discovery of an ancient mystery.
I would just like to thank Alan for taking the time to chat with me about his time on Super Naturals, a time which unfortunately for us all was cut short but which still produced incredible artwork for a comic with much potential.
Thanks also to Brett Nutto of the Super Naturals Facebook group (of which I’m a member) for the images of the toys and holograms.
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