I know, these comics and thus this checklist would’ve been released a few days earlier due to Christmas publishing deadlines and shops actually giving staff time off back then. But we’ve no way of knowing the exact date The Real Ghostbusters and The Transformers and Action Force would’ve hit the shelves so I’m sticking with the official date. It’s Christmas Eve!
I always loved snow on the logo of my comics, didn’t you? This was my first Christmas issue of Transformers and as luck would have it the only one with a snowy logo. As an added bonus Slapdash is on Andrew Wildman’s cover; the blue and yellow F1 car was amongst my first Transformers toys that season. After discovering the comic for myself with the festive Winter Special, getting the classic Cold Comfort and Joy tale so soon into my collection was a thrill. As was the news of what was to begin next week! (You’ll find out soon.)
The Real Ghostbusters always went all-out for the season (they’d have a celebratory New Year’s issue every year too) and this was the first of four such years. Behind Martin Griffiths’ cover Peter goes all ‘Fred Claus’ after busting Santa, Spengler’s Spirit Guide is a transcribed dictaphone recording because Egon was too busy with festivities to write it, so it contains loads of funny interactions and things going on in the background the recording picked up, and Stay Puft finally got his own fact-file. Were there other comics worthy of gift wrapping?
Death’s Head 2 and Dragon’s Claws 7 had already been out a few weeks and weren’t themed but they’re two of the best issues of their respective runs, so still special. Action Force may also have been monthly by now but it did mark the occasion with its main story, the return of fan favourite features and, yes, snow on a chilly, blue-coloured logo. Can’t deny Marvel UK had quite the selection for the holidays. Any child would’ve been happy with all of these in their stocking.
There are no new comic adverts per se this week, but I do have something rather unique for you, even if it was technically very late to be running a Christmas competition (the prizes wouldn’t arrive until the new year and most of the readers who’d want Marvel UK annuals would most likely have asked Santa for them). But that didn’t stop Transformers from running a contest to win a set of the three books their readers would have coveted the most.
Both the Transformers and Visionaries annuals from 1988 were superb and I have no doubt in my mind the Action Force one would’ve followed suit, so as a prize I can’t fault this. It’s the question which I find simply hilarious, dressing up characters as Santa and asking readers to identify them. Very simple to regular readers and as a new reader at the time I appreciated the fact they used characters from The Transformers: The Movie, probably so as everyone could enter.
Christmas editions of our favourite comics always helped build the hype so I hope this little glimpse back has you equally excited for what may come for you tomorrow. The Mighty Marvel Checklist will return on New Year’s Day with the biggest news imaginable for one of our comics above.
It’s only a couple of days before Christmas Day, so where’s the special cover? Well, Aliens mightn’t have had the easiest of logos to cover in snow, but we did get a (somewhat) festive themed front page last month instead. In case you missed it, you can go and check out Chris Halls’ second yearly seasonal treat in #18’s review. For now, it’s back to the January edition.
Dave Gibbons (Watchmen, Ro-Busters, Doctor Who) joins the Aliens fold at Dark Horse International with the brilliant cover and as writer on a new strip inside. Of course, long-time blog readers will have seen Dave’s work before on the site in the read throughs for OiNK, Death’s Head and Dragon’s Claws, as well as a post about his autobiography Confabulation, so it’s great to see his work back on the site, especially in this comic. A comic which is very strip-heavy this month.
As you can see the Features side of the contents is rather bare looking and this is mentioned by editor Cefn Ridout. It certainly sounds like they’re going to make up for it next month though. Of course this issue has to kick off with Dave’s story as the headline event. Salvation was an American one-shot comic split over two issues this side of the Atlantic and the artist bringing Dave’s script to the page is just as exciting.
Mike Mignola, whose dramatic and original artwork I enjoyed so much in the comics adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula recently on the blog (also see Hellboy, Rocket Racoon) makes his Aliens debut and these 15 pages are dripping in atmosphere, his art taking an already interesting story and making it absolutely compelling. And this is even before we’ve seen him really handle the aliens themselves. We only see part of one dead xenomorph here but that’s enough to have me anticipating the next chapter.
Matt Hollingsworth provides the suitably subdued colours and Clem Robins the lettering to Dave’s story of the survivors of the Nova Maru, a ship whose company trawled backwater planets looking for people desperate for no-questions-asked work to deliver a cargo to a deserted planet. I think we can all guess what the cargo is. Our main character is Selkirk, a religious cook who is mocked both for his religion and the fact he can’t actually cook.
When an alarm sounds we know exactly what’s happened, we’ve seen and read enough Aliens by now. The captain picks Selkirk at random to pilot an escape craft to get him off the ship, so horrified and scared is he by what he saw in the cargo hold he abandons his crew to die. After the crash the captain starts going insane, thinking the aliens are behind every tree, even suspecting Selkirk of being an alien trick. This leads to Selkirk killing him in self-defence in a particularly tense moment, made all the more so by the pitch black shadows of Mike’s art.
All through this Selkirk’s been praying (more Aliens+religion, there’s definitely been a theme recently) and every time a tiny bit of good luck comes his way he thinks it’s a sign and has occurred only because of his prayers. After discovering a half-submerged dead xenomorph and witnessing a bright light in the sky he deduces the Nova Maru has landed or crashed and will be stocked with provisions. Before heading off though, he’s hungry and needs energy for the journey. Looking at the captain’s body he believes god has provided for him again… and he cooks him.
By the end of this first chapter he’s completely relying on prayers and sees everything as intervention from his god, believing he’s being tested. All of the death, all of the people wiped out, and all because god wants to test him? It’s obviously hard to empathise with this lunatic. I’d be quite happy for him to be impregnated but we’ll see what happens next time in this short two-part tale.
In the Motion Tracker news pages Dave Hughes tries his very best to provide yet more hype for the interactive Alien War experience by reporting on its grand opening night. However, it still doesn’t come across great, does it? I had my doubts when it was previously announced it’d been cut down by half to squeeze more people in each day, and I think I was right. I also think he’s imagining things with the Dave movie poster.
Part 12 of Colonial Marines has a new creative force at the helm. Kelley Puckett (Batgirl, The Comet, Kinetic) takes over as writer and in comes Allen Nunis (Classic Star Wars, Images of Omaha, The Frankenstein Dracula War) on pencils and inker Paul Guinan is now joined by John Dell (Speed Racer, Lobo, Femforce). I do prefer this team for the aliens and layouts but the humans seem to have lost their defining characteristics.
Lt. Henry’s plan is to defend Bracken’s World’s central harbour with its tall concrete walls and one entry point, but this is Aliens and we know us humans are spectacularly bad at trying to outthink them. It’s also not much of a plan, simply sending some of the team out to lure the aliens back into a trap. It isn’t the most exciting of plots. Of course, the aliens are actually already at the harbour entrance, predictably lying in wait under the surface and quickly overpower the marines while the rest are out at sea.
Then the drop ship pilot disobeys orders to protect the harbour and instead, in an attempt to save her teammates, she destroys a huge alien Queen right next to the harbour wall, its acid blood producing multiple holes and weak points, eventually leading to its collapse and leaving the harbour exposed. This is the main bulk of the story and it’s just too predictable to be exciting. However, goings on elsewhere intrigue me.
Again the huge bulking android refuses to fight because of how much he cost to make, so are Beliveau’s comments last month ringing true yet for Henry? They seem to be, because amongst the chaos he orders his tech to hack into the android. That’s a big gamble when there’s a battle afoot but Henry must be thinking it might be worth the risk. I’ll look forward to afinding out more about that at least.
Moving on to the concluding part of Chris Claremont’sRenegade, this aliens-less prequel to the new Predator crossover would’ve been better in Total Carnage and the crossover in this comic, surely! But nope, that other comic would get the main event instead. So it turns out Ash’s big secret is that she’s really an android. To be fair, I should’ve clocked that the moment her name was given last issue. However, throughout the galaxy she’s known as Renegade and here she shows us why.
The Ransome ship’s security spot a small 12-year-old girl on a hill with binoculars watching them and immediately classify her as a threat, despite clearly identifying her as a child. When they take aim, meaning to kill her, Ash takes them all out. I’ll admit, it’s a thrilling read and in places Vince Giarrano’s art is powerful! But it’s all tempered by my original point, that it’s being used to promote Total Carnage to Aliens readers, while we miss out.
Crusade may have been the UK exclusive strip at the time but with everything else included this month it’s been reduced to a measly five pages and it suffers as a result. Foston and Rani try to explain to the Archbishop they need to evacuate the cathedral because the aliens are loose in the city. When he can’t convince them to put their faith in god he finally admits he’s been sheltering the aliens in the tower.
He moves to lead them out the door but the aliens from the sewers are there, waiting to get inside, which they can now do easily and immediately start killing his innocent followers. I’m not saying it’s impossible to tell a good story in five comic pages, but writer Michael Cook usually had more space to work with. The story had also started to become more interesting and involving in recent months, so this quick in-and-out is a bit of a let-down; it feels like it’s getting started when it just… stops.
After all the strip action we can take a breather with the letters page and someone asks if a competition can be run for readers to come up with story ideas that could be turned into strips. The answer is interesting, explaining many readers have already sent in unsolicited material, but everything published in the comic has to be “rigorously approved by 20th Century Fox so that new comic strips and illustrated stories featuring their characters do not contravene the nature of those characters and remain faithful to the Alien films.”
The problem is that sometimes the strips remain too faithful. Last month’s issue was great, this month the strips with fewer (or no) aliens that concentrated on the human element were the most interesting, while those filled with aliens basically retread familiar ground from the film series. There are only a few issues left so here’s hoping the new year brings a bit more balance before the comic is placed in its own chryo-chamber.
There may not be any snow on the logo but #41 of Marvel UK’sThe Transformers is much more festive than last year’s (not difficult). Now with Ian Rimmer as editor Optimus Prime is in full festive mode thanks to Mike Collins (Axel Pressbutton, Doctor Who, Dragonlance) and Mark Farmer (Sláine, Excalibur, JLA) and the insides are full of cheer including the first seasonal strip, a really fun change to the letters page for the week, a huge competition and decorations all over the editorial page. It’s our first proper Christmas comic of the run and this issue celebrates its 40th birthday today!
Of course it should go without saying Lew Stringer got in on the Christmassy feels too with his always funny Robo Capers and on the right the piece about the office party and poor Soundwave is brilliant. I’ll show what that led to below but first up is Christmas Break-er and regular writer Simon Furman takes a (circuit) break as James Hill (Masters of the Universe, Forest, Misadventures of Adam West: Dark Night) writes, William Simpson (Judge Dredd, Hellblazer, Vamps) draws, Gina Hart (Rupert Bear, Rogue Trooper, 2000AD) provides her usual gorgeous colours and friend of the blog Richard Starkings (Elephantmen, Transformers: Generation 2, Nemesis of the Daleks) letters.
Josie Beller aka Circuit Breaker is back and we get a quick recap of how she was almost fatally injured by the Decepticons and left paralysed, only for the genius computer engineer to create circuitry that enabled her to move again (and fly and fire electric shocks of course, this is a comic after all). Some online reviewers have mocked this image of Soundwave, saying it’s riddled with errors but they’ve spectacularly missed the point. It’s clearly Josie’s hate-filled mind recollecting a traumatic, terrifying moment. The embellishments to his face and hands are telling of her mentality and I think it’s a clever way to get that across pictorially.
Josie has clearly become a bigot after her encounter with Shockwave and his troops. Throughout the comic’s run she’d constantly try to kill Autobots, screaming that all robots are murderers no matter how much evidence is shown to her that there are two diametrically opposing sides. This ended up being the first Transformers strip I ever read when it was reprinted a few years later in a winter special (which we’ll get to eventually but for now you can check it out on Instagram) so I’ve a personal fondness for stories featuring this character. We loved to hate her.
But what about Optimus Prime dressed up as Santa Claus? It’s not as ridiculous as it sounds. Buster Witwicky is teaching the Autobots about Christmas and they’re throwing him a festive shindig to thank him for all his help, while also acknowledging everything they’ve put him through! But Prime is subdued, worried about his abilities as leader and endangering this planet and its people. Having him dressed like this while he contemplates only raises the emotion in his scenes.
At this point in the comic’s run we were seeing him develop beyond the simplistic and stereotypical leader we were used to in the cartoon. But Prowl is worried about the party and doesn’t understand why they’re doing it while still at war. Jazz is also confused with humans. For example, Buster talks about how Christmas means charity to him but Jazz questions why Circuit Breaker chooses to destroy with all of her powers instead. Swap out “powers” for “money” and you get the point James Hill is getting across here.
The main plot involves Josie getting a taste of her own medicine when she witnesses a child falling through ice into a frozen lake. She whips off the clothes she’s been using as a disguise and melts the ice with her electrical energy to rescue the girl. Discovering she’s not breathing, Josie adjusts her output to generate a tiny enough electric shock to restart the girl’s heart and save her life.
But the family turn on Josie, yelling and calling her a freak, even accusing her of breaking the ice in the first place despite seeing her save the girl. To me, this shows how we as a race can react to even the best of intentions with hatred just because a person is different or we don’t understand them. No matter what we see, people can still be led to distrust and hate through mob mentality and assume completely the wrong thing. Sadly, this feels very contemporary.
A while later, Jazz almost crashes from driving too fast in the snow and his quick reactions lead to him ejecting Buster and transforming. While he stands over his unconscious friend this is of course when Josie sees them and assumes he’s attacked the boy, despite what she’s just gone through herself. This is also the second time Jazz has been on the receiving end of her shocks. It’s Buster who stops it all, although why he worded his protestations as he did instead of simply saying there are good and bad Transformers is anyone’s guess. It probably wouldn’t have made a difference anyway.
It’s a strip that’s harmless fun but it’s one with a strong message at its core, one that’s perfect for a Christmas read, especially for the younger readers. How people who grew up with these comics have basically turned out as real life Circuit Breakers is beyond me. Back to the issue at hand and the surprise change to the Shockwaves page was that it had become Rat-Chat for one week only!
There were some brilliantly inventive letters sent in by fans over the course of the run (I laughed at the reference to Fame here) and they were so devoted to their favourite characters and the stories being told. Our letter answerers were always funny. Soundwave had no tolerance for Autobot fans, Grimlock liked to tell readers he was their favourite and later Dreadwind was incredibly sarcastic. Here, Ratchet has a good laugh choosing the anti-Soundwave letters and even the Stock Exchange chosen fits with the theme.
Oh, and the “puttup” thing was the phrase Soundwave used when he had to talk about an Autobot. In case it wasn’t clear, a later strip would show him spitting and the lettering in the panel used the same phrase. Moving on and right beside this page are a bunch of potential presents for the readers in the big Christmas competition. It had several prizes up for grabs but the one that stands out for me is the Transformers Train and Battle Set!
It’s such a shame there’s only a teeny tiny, badly reproduced picture of it. During the real time read through of the comic I did a few years back I strained my eyes as much as I could on this but to no avail. Thankfully, I’ve now discovered Transformers Wiki and they’ve got loads of images and information on it. I’d have loved this as a kid! Lots of transforming train parts and the small little robots that came with it even appeared in the cartoon along with the locomotive! Any Transformers fan will want to go and check that out.
The Machine Man of 2020 may not have anything Christmassy about it but it’s still a very special episode because it contains a showdown between our hero and none other than Iron Man. But why are they fighting? Well, this isn’t Tony Stark. This is Arno Stark, The Iron Man of 2020. This was the first story he appeared in before returning in another back up strip of Spider-Man’s. Arno isn’t a hero. He inherited Stark Industries and uses the suit in his role as a mercenary for hire.
The character would reappear on and off in various Marvel titles and his own one-shot special. He’s actually appeared on the blog before in the final issue of Death’s Head when he went up against the Freelance Peace-Keeping Agent in an excellent finale to that series. Aaron Stack (Machine Man) takes a beating before he finally flips the script on Arno, and as you can see the storyline ties in neatly with this issue’s Transformers with its similar anti-bigotry theme.
Written by Tom DeFalco (Archie, Amazing Spider-Man, Thor) and Barry Windsor-Smith (Conan the Barbarian, Weapon X, Solar Man of the Atom) the art in these final fight scenes is just incredible. Barry also drew and coloured all of this, and there’s not a single example of that staple of 80s American comics of solidly colouring whole sections or characters in one colour. Instead, everything here is intricately detailed and looks gorgeous. It’s just a coincidence this is the chunk of the strip that ended up in this issue but it feels extra special as a result and adds to the overall feel of a very special issue.
To round off the review of this 40-year-old comic are a couple of adverts. The first is for the latest Marvel UK specials. I’ve covered the Transformers one as part of the Instagram read through and it’s a lovely thing with its card cover and spine, the last time the Collected Comics series would be presented in this way. Then, taking over the back page were the top-selling toys of Christmas1985.
I’ve never seen an original Megatron toy in the real world (complete with his, um… trigger) but I do remember Optimus Prime. A friend owned him in his original metal form before he was made of plastic. After previous Transformers toys had been selling like hot cakes with brandy cream, the release of the two most popular characters in the UK caused a sensation, with Optimus becoming the number one gift that year.
We’ve reached the end of our second festive issue of the comic but there’s more to come this holiday season. In four days, on Christmas Day itself there’ll be a full review of the very first Transformers Annual! So, while the kids are playing with their new toys you can take a trip back to when Santa brought you everything you could’ve wished for too. I’ll see you then.
Okay, let’s deal with the elephant/panther in the room. No, I’ve no idea what the deal is with this cover. The copyright notice inside shows they used a promotional image for David Hasselhoff’s music rather than Knight Rider (with K.I.T.T. in his new season four Super Pursuit Mode copied and pasted over the top). But let’s not get hung up on that, it’s time for our fourth Knight Rider Annual from 1986. I’ve really looked forward to these every year, given how the show is My Favourite Thing in the Universe and the books have been fun so far. It’s the usual 64-page hardback from Grandreams with two comic strips and what first appears to be three text stories.
On further inspection these are actually three parts of the same tale. So, a meatier prose story this time around? Let’s find out. World Stealers begins with Michael Knight and K.I.T.T. surveilling a hi-tech computer lab. As a huge Knight Rider geek I spotted a mention of K.I.T.T. having two monitors on his dashboard. As fellow fans will know the two small screens were replaced with one large display in the third season. The characters’ usual witty back-and-forth that had developed over the course of the series is certainly there, especially when Michael asks K.I.T.T. to scan the building and tell him what’s happening inside.
However, there are things like the monitors, the limited abilities the car has and Devon Miles’ name still being spelt incorrectly that lead me to believe the writer was still working from an earlier series bible. It reads much like a season one book. Yet again. After all the research David Lloyd told me was put into those first books it’s rather disappointing.
The main guest character is Mary-Evangeline Pedroza who runs a computer security company. Her work force is mainly female, because she needed the smartest people and they just happened to end up all being women. (Can you imagine the online snowflakes today?) The codes they’re supplying to clients are instantly hacked, so Michael plans to cut off the next target from the phone lines and force the thieves to physically enter the building. Little clues laid out along the way for the younger readers are blatantly obvious to the adult one. Is this going to be yet another industrial espionage inside job?
The first strip is called KITTnapped and given how an early season four episode was called KITTnap this kind of confirms the writer wasn’t watching the show they were writing about. It’s a silly story involving a disgruntled former F.L.A.G. (Foundation for Law and Government) employee who overrides K.I.T.T.’s systems far too easily to pull off a bank heist. He ends up captured because he’s too lazy to leave his house to park the car in his garage, instead using K.I.T.T.’s unique and easily traceable radio frequency to control it remotely.
The annual contains the usual mix of puzzles and games that aren’t related to the series at all other than a small picture of a character or a title that tangentially links it to the premise. For example, ‘Bonnie’s American States of USA’ and ‘Bonnie’s US Presidents’ word games. At least in the middle of the book the clichéd board game actually relates to the subject, complete with more art by Jim Eldridge who illustrates the whole book.
In part two of World Stealers, Michael and K.I.T.T. find where the thieves’ jet landed and are told by workers at the airport it was flown by women who then took off in a helicopter. It’s not subtle, is it? The best part happens while the pair are tracking the helicopter. They find themselves on a narrow road in a small village, trapped between two lorries. The one in front is a large articulated lorry with a ramp leading up inside it. (Gee, I wonder if that’s important?) It’s when the lorry behind them starts pushing K.I.T.T. towards the ramp that the really fun moment occurs.
Michael quickly asks K.I.T.T. about the composition of the metal in the truck they’re being pushed towards, as well as the dimensions of the trailer and cab. He then takes a big risk, speeding forward and hitting turbo boost just as they go up the ramp, crashing through the front part of the trailer and over the cab. I’m not sure how the show could’ve done this other than with models so it’s a perfect little action scene for a book to fire the imaginations of the young readers.
After being arrested and then freed by K.I.T.T. in a copycat scene from the original pilot movie they hide out under thick trees all night to spot the helicopter, which leads them to a jungle. The text tells of the struggles of trying to get the Trans-Am through the undergrowth but there’s no dialogue! We all know K.I.T.T. would’ve been hilarious throughout this. In the end they do something else the show just couldn’t have afforded. They find a river that’s just a little deeper than the car is tall and they drive down under the surface (unforgivably not illustrated) to a James Bond villain-esque hideout and find Mary beckoning Michael to a table outside the complex where she’s poured him a drink. Again, very Bond-like.
The four-page K.I.T.T. Fact-file pales in comparison to the features from the previous annuals. Gone are the in-depth looks at K.I.T.T.’s developing personality, the stunt work or the interviews with producers and cast. Instead we get a selection of photos and some random pieces of information, not all of which are reliable. For example, there was never any such stunt planned. The “need to ground K.I.T.T.” was actually something they did with season three a couple of years prior, because it was felt K.I.T.T.’s powers were getting too outlandish and the human characters had taken a back seat. Season three corrected this and produced probably my favourite year of the show’s four.
Part three of our prose story reveals the plot was always to capture K.I.T.T. and hack into him. He’s hoisted up by a crane and dangled in mid-air as it’s (unsurprisingly) revealed it was all another inside job, just like in the previous books. This time, Mary’s plan involves being able to control the world’s computers via K.I.T.T.’s systems and hold governments to ransom. She believes men have screwed up the world and it’s time for women to fix everything. Fair enough, to be honest.
Still no chastising lines from K.I.T.T. while in his predicament but the story soon makes up for that. Scanning the building he tells Michael the room he’s locked in is directly below Mary’s (and even that she’s currently taking a shower) and a plan is formed. Michael will burst in on her while K.I.T.T. uses his turbo boost to free himself. Michael can’t see K.I.T.T. from his window but he can see the crane swinging back and forth as his computerised partner times his boosts to swing further and further until it all collapses and he’s freed. This is fun!
As you can see, K.I.T.T. finally finds his voice! From here on the banter back and forth between them is spot on. (Where has it been?) My favourite moment comes when Michael is literally about to kick down Mary’s door to capture the villain when he suddenly stops to ask K.I.T.T. to scan and see if she’s decent first. I did laugh at that! It ends with a physical fight scene between them, something we’d never have seen between a man and woman on TV at the time. In fact, the show does have a scene where Michael jumps out of the driver’s seat window to land on top of a runaway woman, but in the 90s when Knight Rider was repeated ITV cut the stunt out. (It’s always there in repeats today.)
Anyway, while World Stealers may have been rather predictable in its plotting, the action scenes were imaginative and well written. Also, when the writer took the time with the dialogue between man and computer it really worked. So whoever wrote this was obviously capable. (Although, they did have Michael use the word “babe” at one stage, which is not him!) It’s also felt more like a full episode, rather than the fourth act of previous stories, so there’s definitely good and bad points. If I’d read it at the time I think I’d have been thrilled by it.
We finish off with another simple strip. In Rallying Cry the World Rally Champions are under investigation for cheating. Michael, (regular character and cyber technician) Bonnie Barstow and K.I.T.T. enter the race, with Devon telling them they’re not allowed to win (possibly a nice nod to them accidentally winning during such missions in the show). Once neck-and-neck with the lead car they’re run off the road and over a cliff. Of course the villains didn’t reckon on a Trans-Am capable of jumping back up again. Soon our heroes track them to where they’ve hidden their car and taken a helicopter to an identical car further along the race. Ridiculous, isn’t it?
Michael, Bonnie and K.I.T.T. easily catch up with the helicopter and with all the proof recorded they just need to stop the men from winning again. The strip is really just an excuse to have K.I.T.T. use his most popular physical abilities, such as ski mode to drive on two wheels to overtake someone on a tight stretch of road, and of course the turbo boost! This is used to jump over the cheaters’ before K.I.T.T. comes to a dead stop, the other car crushing up against him. As a nine-year-old I’m sure I would’ve loved this.
Finally for this year’s review, we can’t have a Knight Rider Annual without some 80s pin ups, can we?
Here we have Michael (David Hasselhoff), Bonnie (Patricia McPherson) and Devon (Edward Mulhare) posing with the new convertible version of K.I.T.T., David alongside one of the computerised design images of K.I.T.T.’s new Super Pursuit Mode and on the inside back cover the full season four cast, including new addition Peter Parros as RCIII. Because no stories were written with the newest season (or apparently anything beyond the first season) in mind, this is the only time we see RC in the whole book!
In conclusion then, if I’d collected these in the 80s when I was a child in awe of the show (let’s face it, I still am) I’d have read and read and read this until it was falling apart. Nowadays, after the first three superb annuals it’s lacking in certain areas, while in others it’s just as much fun, so I can forgive it. Get past that front cover and fans will have lots to enjoy here and, if you’re like me, reading it at this time of year will really bring out the kid in you.
I can’t believe we’ve only one more book to go. The time has Super Pursuit Mode’d in! (That really doesn’t work, does it?)
As I mentioned last time there wasn’t an actual checklist in The Real Ghostbusters and The Transformers and Action Force this week, but we’ll try to make up for that with two things.
The first of those is this Martin Griffiths cover to the former which I remember made me laugh when I picked it up from the shop as a kid. With stock images of Winston, Egon and Peter there’s not much here by Martin. It’s a bit pants but that feels deliberate and the gall of having this as the cover to their top-selling comic is what made it really funny to me. On the other hand, The Transformers has something all the more dramatic.
Anthony Williams’ and Stephen Baskerville’s cover refers to an incident in the continuing story set millions of years ago, so regular readers wouldn’t have been too perturbed by this image. It’s still eye-catching but then again Stephen’s inks always were. But the most exciting thing in this comic today is the Next Issue promo. Don’t get me wrong, this is a great issue, but with me covering the Transformers festive issues and annuals every year on the blog I was extra excited to see the promo for what was my first Christmas issue.
Here’s that special advert I promised you last week. It’s yet another of those one-page strip stories and eagle-eyed readers will notice it says “fortnightly” when the comic was weekly by now. I’ll admit, I’ve had to cheat this week. There was no checklist and no comics ads I hadn’t showed you already so I trawled my collection to find this in the pages of an earlier comic from before the checklists began. It also turned up in the first annual which I just so happen to have written about already this Christmas, where you can check it out as an individual strip with its credits intact.
The first time I saw it was in #3 of the Ghostbusters’ comic when it was drawn by a comics fan who had been the recipient of a “Surprise, Surprise” by Cilla Black and Bob Carolgees. (Ask your parents if you don’t know.) Using the commercial from the film with the characters from the cartoon was a clever way of summing the comic’s humour up and remains memorable for fans to this day. Certainly this fan anyway.
That’s us for this checklist-lite edition but join me again in seven days for the Christmas Eve special! Expect details on all the seasonal editions of your favourite comics, a couple of snowy covers and a ridiculous annuals competition page!
It’s been a long time coming but finally it’s time for the next instalment of Transformers at Christmas, my yearly look at the Yuletide issues of Marvel UK’s epic G1 comic on their 40th anniversaries. Well, it’s almost time. There are still seven days to go but first let’s take a look at how 1985’s special issue was promoted in the previous one. In fact, this issue includes its own holiday highlights on the editorial page.
Jeff Anderson’s exciting cover leads to a bit of a damp squib inside, the build up over the weeks to this confrontation leading to an anti-climactic one-page fight where Optimus Prime simply tosses Shockwave into a deep swamp. There’s a neat double meaning on the cover though; for a few weeks Shockwave had had Prime’s head separated from his body, so the headline made me chuckle. The Christmas fun kicks off with an early celebratory Robo-Capers by Lew Stringer and a quick Hasbro Q&A for the kids before Santa brought them their latest (or first) Robots in Disguise.
There’s nothing else marking the season until we get to the final pages and that all-important Next Issue Promo with a jolly-looking, fully costumed Optimus promoting the very first Transformers Christmas strip. Plus the return of Circuit Breaker! PLUS the Iron Man of 2020! Then there’s Prime dressed up as Santa Claus! What’s not to look forward to?
When I read this as part of the blog’s real time read through on the blog’s socials (now restarted on the blog) this promo really had me hyped as it took me right back to discovering the comic myself as a kid via the upcoming story, albeit a few years later in a Winter Special reprint. Even Prime’s choice of costume, while seemingly silly to begin with, adds a surprising amount of depth to the character. I’ll explain all next week.
But that’s not all this year. There’s something else coming this Christmas, namely the first Transformers Annual. Not appearing until the comic’s second festive season, the exciting arrival of the comic’s first annual was met with zero advertisements and only one mention in #37’s editorial at the end of November.
Soundwave was the letter answerer at the time and he’d written the announcement for the book, sounding suitably unimpressed. For fans though, the introduction of the Insecticons and just the news of the book existing would’ve been more than enough! Although I’m sure they’d have known about it long before then. With the way our newsagents would’ve had tables or shelves crammed with annuals every year, the lack of promos wouldn’t have had much of an impact on such a hit property. You can actually check out the adverts for all of the Transformers annuals in a special post from earlier this holiday season.
That’s us ready for Christmas 1985 in the world of The Transformers. So #41 will be right here in just seven days on Sunday 21st December 2025, my 48th birthday! (It originally went on sale on my 8th. Eek!) Then just four days later on Christmas Day itself the first in-depth review of a classic Transformers Annual. Don’t miss either. They’re both fantastic!
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’sOiNK 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.
Bambos Georgiou brought us his first full cover for this week’s The Real Ghostbusters. He’d taken over from Lew Stringer on the Blimey! It’s Slimer strip but I’d forgotten all about his other contributions to the comic. Across the way Art Wetherell and Stephen Baskerville brought us the latest Transformers and Action Force cover with the trademark Marvel UK stippled background they used so much across their range at the time.
Inside, Bambos’ humour strip had grown to a full page as the green glob’s popularity continued to soar. Through this comic, Marvel Bumper Comic, It’s Wicked and his own monthly he soon became something of a mascot for the publisher, despite not being their property. This is one of those unique issues when the strips and prose story form part of a larger tale. Despite the somewhat simplistic cover, it’s also one of the better issues from the early days of the run.
There’s more travelling back to an adventure from a millennia ago to add previously unknown backstory to Optimus Prime and Megatron in their main strip this week, and ol’ Megs finally gets his own A-Z page to mark the occasion. Elsewhere, a Transformers torch is advertised. It doesn’t actually transform, unless you count it alternating between being lit up and not being lit up as a transformation! What else was on the menu this week?
Apart from what we’ve already covered above and in last week’s checklist the only other entry is the latest issue of the now-fortnightly Thundercats. The previously epic-sounding storylines we’d read about in the checklists seem to have been permanently replaced by ones with somewhat lesser stakes for the characters.
Last week the Marvel Bumper Comic advert hinted at content relating to two recent cinema releases, namely Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Willow. Fans of the latter had more to celebrate this week with the news of a full comics adaptation of the new movie starring Val Kilmer, Joanne Whalley, Warwick Davis and the brilliant Jean Marsh.
Believe it or not I’ve never seen the film! It’s one of those childhood fantasy movies I always felt I’d missed out on and in recent years I’ve been correcting that (I saw Labyrinth fully for the first time just two years ago) and having seen enough clips of Willow when I was a child, and with such a stellar cast, it’s about time I added it to my Christmastime movie marathons. No, it’s not a festive film but it’s the perfect time of year for such childhood movies, isn’t it?
There’s no checklist next week but don’t fret, it’ll be back just in time for us to reminisce about those special Christmas issues we always looked forward to so much. But first, next week there’ll be another fun one-page strip advert, this time for one of the main comics from this checklist series and it’s a good one. So be here for that in seven days. That’s just enough time for you to get through your third packet of mince pies.
Buster is back on the OiNK Blog. It makes a change seeing this comic’s characters guest star in something OiNK-related rather than the other way around. Just like last year this is another hardback volume of 112 pages, made up of a mix between regular matte and higher quality stock, this time alternating between the two. It means we’ve a bit more colour but only a bit, a lot of these pages are still black and white or two-tone and there’s no change to the length of the strips.
It still feels like several issues bound together but at least more of them have been printed on better paper. Our first OiNK star (of which we’re now down to two) is Lew Stringer’sPete Throb in the shorter-titled Pete’s Pimple. Pete had already said goodbye to regular Buster readers by the time this annual was released so it’s strange to see it’s more of an introductory strip than anything. In fact some elements are very similar to his first Buster strip.
These annuals could be brought by Santa for kids who weren’t regular readers so it wasn’t unusual for some strips to read this way. There’s a nice little cameo from Tom too but I can’t help feel a little underwhelmed by him in the last panel. I’m so used to these characters in OiNK, Tom should be covered in pus and discombobulated on the floor, not mildly upset in the corner of the panel. Regular blog readers will be familiar with the reasons behind this though when I covered the initial merge. Lew also informs me the colouring job was done in-house by someone at Fleetway, hence the somewhat subdued colours in comparison to his previous OiNK work.
Weedy Willy is no longer with us. He just didn’t click with the readers of Buster and so Mark Rodgers’ and Mike Green’s strip didn’t last long. However, the stand out star was back. A huge hit with Buster fans, Lew’s Tom Thug would sometimes even get a colour page in the weekly, which was at a premium in Buster as opposed to OiNK. However, while his Skooldayz strip may be on one of the higher quality pages like Pete’s, he remains in black and white here.
Did you ever play conkers as a child? I could never get on with it. For someone who loves their videogames today I must’ve had rubbish hand-eye coordination back then and I could never hit anything… apart from the occasional friend’s hand. Kids in comics always seemed crazy for them and those in Tom’s class were no exception. Maybe if this had been an OiNK strip we’d have seen Tom inflict the cricket ball on himself after trying to harm someone else, but the strip still raises a smile.
These aren’t all from Lew in this annual. In fact, OiNK’s co-editor Mark Rodgers created and initially wrote the following characters. Unfortunately, by this stage his illness precluded him from doing so anymore. Lew then took over sole responsibility for The Vampire Brats. First appearing in June 1989 they enjoyed nearly two-and-a-half years in Buster and from comments on social media and Lew’s blog they’re very fondly remembered. I’ve read the occasional strip on Lew’s blog before now but this is the first time I’ve owned anything with them in it.
They were Vampires of the same age as the readers, so despite being undead they still had to learn. In their own unique way, of course. While they may not have a strip in the annual, they do get pride of place with their version of a school’s ‘ABC’ wall chart as the double-page spread that rounds off the entire book. It’s a fun and imaginative entry and in particular I laughed at U, V and W and really any that follow on from the previous letter. With this little sampling I do hope I can get to read some of their actual strips next year.
Next up is another character who (much like Gums) continued on in the pages of the Buster Books long after they’d disappeared from the weekly. Despite winning a Cartoonist Club of Great Britain award, Wonder Wellies only lasted two years in the long-running comic, ending in 1985. According to Lew and John Freeman, these Fleetway annuals could sometimes use reprints to fill out their pages so there’s always the possibility that’s the case here but I can’t confirm. Written by Roy Davis this stood out to me because it was drawn by OiNK cartoonist Dave Follows.
Accidentally created by Professor Krankpot, the wellies belong to Willie (of course) and they’ve called themselves Lefty and Righty, names which could probably mean something rather different today. They were stubborn and had the power to walk by themselves, morph and fly, sometimes taking Willie along with them without his say-so, with enough autonomy that they’d not always do as he wanted or come to his rescue.
Young Arfur is back and seeing as he’s drawn by fellow OiNK cartoonist Pete Dredge I had to include him again. UPDATE: Not only that but OiNK co-editor Patrick Gallagher helpfully left a comment (below) on this post to let us know he wrote it! It was a hard choice between his strips but this one just pips the others with its neat twist on the usual formula; instead of talking his way out of something he gets his teacher to do it for him. Arfur disappeared from the pages of Buster in 1987 so either he continued with new yearly strips for fans or this could be another reprint. My money is on the former because he has pride of place on the higher quality pages in the book.
He’s a lovable rogue, a phrase which could be used to describe certain brothers in a BBC sitcom that starred David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst, characters that were definitely not inspiration for the next strip. Nope, not at all. Actually, I think the word “inspiration” is being rather kind and that’s why it stood out. A Buster original drawn by Gordon Hill, Rodney and Dez lasted only one year in the comic around the time of this annual’s release.
Perhaps it was too on-the-nose even for the young ‘uns!
They bring this year’s look at the Buster Book 1991 to a close. Chances are there’ll be no Pete and his Pimple… sorry, Pete’s Pimple next year so fingers crossed Tom Thug’s superstardom has kicked in with the readers and he’s afforded more space next time. Until then, this annual can sit proudly on my shelf with last year’s while I await the Buster Book 1992 and continue to stretch out the OiNK love just that little bit more.
Dare I say it but could this year’s Beano Christmas Special actually top last year’s? One glance at the supposed author name along the bottom of the cover almost had me convinced before I even opened it! Inside, the lack of more funny gift tags is disappointing but that’s really the only negative I have in all honesty.
Dennis is lumbered with reading a bedtime story to his little sister, Bea as Christmas Eve draws to a close and his mum hands him A Christmas Carol. But of course Dennis is never going to have the attention span to read a whole book so he leaves bits out, retells existing bits and adds completely new parts to liven it all up.
Just like last year, the special is one long story told over various strips starring a collection of the comic’s fan favourites. Dennis, for example, is not only Dennis Scratchit in his retelling but also the first of the ghosts. He’s the narrator and in charge, and it’s Dennis, so of course he’d do this and it’s hilariously brushed aside in the story. Although for me the real star of the piece isn’t Dennis or even Mayor Brown as Scrooge, it has to be Rubi.
Rubi’s Screwtop Science pops up several times across the issue thanks to her dad’s time machine invention. Oh, and her dad is H.G. Wells so you can guess what the machine looks like (and it comes complete with a certain Doctor Who sound effect). You see, the ghosts are all a bit useless and need Rubi’s help in order to carry out their plan to make Scrooge learn the error of his ways and the true meaning of Christmas. But this is the modern day Beano and it all goes completely nuts and utterly chaotic very quickly!
If you thought last year’s tale didn’t let up you haven’t seen anything yet. The team have really outdone themselves. What a team, too! The complete list of writers and artists for this special reads like this: Danny Pearson (who featured in a previous festive OiNK post), Andy Fanton, Nigel Auchterlounie, Laura Howell, Emily McGorman-Bruce, Nigel Parkinson, Barrie Appleby, Steve Beckett, Shannon Gallant, George Cant, Ned Hartley, Mel Prats, Hugh Raine, Alan Ryan, Leslie Stannage, The Sharp Bros. and Wayne Thompson. Phew! Talk about a who’s who of comics talent.
Don’t be expecting this to follow the classic tale that closely. There are moments when it pays its respects but then you’ll turn the page and find the Ghost of Christmas Present has brought Scrooge to the present day of the reader instead of Scrooge’s own timeline, or another has taken him to witness the Bash Street school of the far sci-fi future for no apparent reason, or Bananaman trying to infiltrate a prison before it’s built! Why? That would ruin the surprise.
Every instance of time jumping sees us back in Rubi’s lab and every time this happens she gets more and more frustrated at the ineptitude of the ghosts. Her thunder is almost stolen by the wonderful Dangerous Dan strip and its completely random ending, there are also some lovely nods back to classic Beano years for the older readers, and a delightfully timey-wimey head-spinning Angel Face Investigates. But Rubi easily manages to hold the crown as her pages made me roar every time she appeared.
It should be clear how much I’ve enjoyed this and I’m not even the target audience. Alongside the whopping 48 pages given over to the story there are also a multitude of quality puzzles, games and activities for the kids, all festively wrapped up in a 76-page special (even bigger than last year’s) printed on exceedingly good quality paper with a card cover. There’s no need to balk at the £7.99 price tag either, by the time you’ve absorbed the amount of gags in here and your kids have laughed and drawn and pranked their way through it all you’ll see it for the bargain it is.
It should be readily available in your local shops and supermarkets. I ordered mine from DC Thomson directly through the Beano’s website shop. It’s available there as a single issue or as part of various bundles with the Beano Annual, Dandy Annual and the traditional special Dandy/Beano book. Also, if your child would like to join the Beano fan club they’ll receive this, the summer special and the annual as part of the club! I’ll say it again: bargain.
Grab a couple of slices of boozy fruit cake and a big glass of your favourite festive tipple but be ready to spurt them out several times while you read this. In other words, you should buy it. The only way it could be improved upon is if they’d included more of those tags! Yes, I’ll die on this hill. Hey Beano, maybe next year? Or put them up on your shop. I wouldn’t be alone in buying them, I’m sure. In the meantime folks, grab yourself a copy of the Beano Christmas Special 2025 and you’ll feel like a big kid even more than usual this holiday season. Guaranteed.
