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Annuals, Buster, Christmas

BUSTER BOOK 1991: PiGGiNG OUT?

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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’s Pete 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.

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OiNK! SMOKEBUSTER SPECiAL!: RARE FUN

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Not many pig pals will have seen the OiNK Smokebuster Special before and until last year neither had I, apart from the occasional photo of the cover as part of a heavily overpriced eBay auction. Then last year someone finally listed it at a sensible amount and I was able to snap it up. It’s been sitting in my OiNK collection between #46 and #47 ever since and now (after 35 years) I’ve been able to read it at last. I can’t tell you how excited I’ve been at the thought of reading a brand new OiNK all these years later! Was it worth the wait?

A little background first. Co-editors Patrick Gallagher, Tony Husband and Mark Rodgers teamed up with Project Smoke Free to produce this special 16-page edition to give away to school kids in the north western region of England. I have to say it’s good to have the logo on glossy paper again and inside we get mostly all new strips which don’t hold back in their messaging. In fact, I’m quite surprised at just how hard-hitting some of the humour actually is, such as the very first strip called A Tale of Two Sisters by Tony.

In fact, all three of OiNK’s editors (and Chris Sievey aka Frank Sidebottom) smoked at the time but they still wanted to try stopping the children who looked up to their characters from making the mistake of starting themselves. One cartoonist who never started the habit and was more than happy to contribute was Lew Stringer and Tom Thug seemed the perfect fit. Tom was someone who liked to present himself a certain way and would be stupid enough to think being seen smoking cigarettes would help with his image.

“I remember being commissioned to do an anti-smoking story for Tom Thug,” Lew told me. “I’ve never been a smoker and hate the damage it does to people so I didn’t hold back. I enjoyed doing my page and hopefully the comic had the desired effect on kids. Comics shy away from such things now but anti-smoking strips were commonplace in the comics I grew up with.” This strip is also notable for featuring a girl who actually fancies Tom… for a whole three panels.

Lew also told me the word “moron” was changed from the original “plonker” by the editors for reasons he’s unsure of. In Lew’s own blog post about such strips from the 60s he mentions one which featured a character telling the reader what they could afford to buy if they weren’t paying for cigarettes. That’s exactly what Frank does with his page and between him and Tom they cover the lighter end of the spectrum of content. More of it deals with the ultimate consequence of smoking. In fact about half of the comic drills home the fact that smoking leads to death. Like I said it doesn’t hold back.

Jeremy Banx certainly doesn’t either with his double-page Burp strip, particularly on the first. Starting off with a silly little panel of Burp hoovering the lawn it soon gets very serious indeed. Yes, he’s talking to his lungs who are having a crafty smoke behind the outside loo but the actual words Jeremy puts into Burp’s mouth are very serious indeed. They’re even accompanied by factual captions giving more context, something you don’t expect in a children’s comic.

Then again, this was an OiNK created to be supplied to schools so ideally it needed to educate the kids on the dangers of smoking alongside the laughs, and Jeremy really went to town on teaching the pig pals (and potential pig pals) about the background to the nasty habit. Of course, the second half sees it descend into more typical chaos and we get yet another weapon creation of Burp’s (remember the tractor beam?), this one producing a somewhat accurate result, at least until the men set themselves on fire.

Finishing off with the internal struggle (literally in his case) that comes with being an alien with sentient organs this is the main highlight of this special edition for me. Not that it’s lacking in others of course. Mike Peek brings his unique art style to a quiz overseen by an equally unique version of Uncle Pigg that I just love, and a smoking taxi driver gets a shock when he asks his passenger why they think smoking is unhealthy in Dead Fred written by Tony Husband and drawn by Eric ‘Wilkie’ Wilkinson.

Even though this issue never made it into the hands of the larger OiNK audience there’s still a Grunts page with reader contributions and there are a couple of reprinted strips from the regular comic which fit in perfectly. The first is Plopeye the Sailor from #9 in which he ends up wheezing and exhausted trying to look after a baby because of the pipe he’s forever smoking. The second is a Pigg Tale from #15 called Up In Smoke, written by Mark Rodgers and drawn by Dave Follows.

It begins with young Pete learning what a conscience is, imagining it as a little elf character who lives inside his head telling him what the right things to do in life are, and which things are wrong that he should never do. As he grows up the elf becomes more to him though, developing into an imaginary friend who’d continue to represent his inner thought processes, whether he liked it or not. The stage is now set and we see Peter as a teenager and under a bit of peer pressure.

Yep, like all good lengthy OiNK one-offs it was a set up for perfectly atrocious pun. I have to say when I was a teenager I didn’t see any of this sort of peer pressure. None of my closest friends smoked and I must’ve lived in some form of personal bubble because only when meeting up years later with many of those friends did I find out it was more common than I’d thought. Even though this was a reprint it could just as easily have been created for this schools special.

Towards the back of the comic is a madvertisement for a spoof cigarette brand with a skeleton as their mascot and in Addict!! a young woman tells us all the reasons why she smokes, showing us how contradictory her reasons are; smoking to relax but also when she’s stressed, when she was happy and yet when she became ill she smoked more because she was worried. She ends up at the pearly gates begging St. Peter for a fag. Just before this is a quick Health Warning drawn by Les Barton (Lezz).

There’s a little copyright notice on page two which states this issue of OiNK was published by Project Smoke Free at the North Western Regional Health Authority. In fact it was printed by the OiNK editors themselves and thousands were handed out to schools free of charge. Patrick told me it was such a success that the school boards wanted it to go national and requested up to one million copies for distribution! There was no way the OiNK guys could handle that amount so they approached OiNK’s publisher, Fleetway.

The press were on hand that day and even Junior Health Minister Edwina Currie showed up

Fleetway told them to leave it with them and then nothing happened. The reasons are unclear. But what a wasted opportunity! Imagine the publicity a million free copies throughout schools in England would’ve brought to the regular comic. Imagine the sales spike. But nope, the success of the Smokebuster Special ended there. If it had gone nationwide imagine the shock of those in the press and those pressure groups who criticised OiNK for being a bad influence on children.

A funny story is linked to this issue. In #46 of OiNK we saw Frank Sidebottom with a bunch of pig pals promoting their anti-smoking message. The press were on hand that day and even Junior Health Minister Edwina Currie showed up, as shown in #47. However, once the kids were on their trains home the OiNK team all lit up! The press was still there to catch the moment too. I don’t think Uncle Pigg would’ve been too happy with that funny moment, do you?

This Ian Jackson image makes up the back cover and rounds things off nicely with a nice, subtle message from our real editor. It’s been great to finally get my hands on this 35 years after the fact and to have some new OiNK material to read. I didn’t expect that in 2023! Check out #46 and #47 for more on this and if you’d like to see another special free issue of the comic there’s also the Crash magazine edition from 1987 to check out.

iSSUE 46 < > iSSUE 47

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OiNK! #15: NEW PiGLETS

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It appears I jumped on to the OiNK train at the right moment back in 1986. Last time I shared the memories of my first issue and just one week later came a kind of soft relaunch as the theme. OiNK had established itself, publishers IPC Magazines were happy, the readers were happy and it was proving to be a success, so the team decided to celebrate by bringing in a whole bunch of brand new characters.

Let’s not forget the fantastic free gift, the first of three Ian Jackson posters which combined into one giant calendar for 1987 featuring The 8th Wonder of the World: Mount Rushboar. I can remember pouring over all the little details in the swarm of people running across Harry the Head and Burp the Smelly Alien carved into the rock face and even the little bits of rubbish left behind on this apparently reverential site. How typical of us humans and a funny swipe at British tourists in particular.

On page two we find out how this glossy comic could afford such extravagances, with staff reduced to working naked, cartoonists and accountants alike shivering in the cold as Uncle Pigg looks on, wearing his Hawaiian shirt to boot. Christmas was coming early for him with all the money OiNK was raking in, and it was coming early for us too because the calendar poster freebies would continue up to the first festive issue.

Mary Lighthouse (critic) is back with her strip on page three. Normally this would be a way of introducing the subject matter of the issue but here it’s quite clear it has a bigger job to do. It’s introducing new readers to the character and the overall irreverence of the comic. Thanks to writer Mark Rodgers and artist Ian Jackson it’s genuinely funny while also reinforcing the way the comic is reintroducing itself now that its readership is growing.

Coming on board just before this issue is probably the reason why I always assumed certain characters were in OiNK right from the beginning, when in reality this was their first appearance. Two such examples are Davy Francis‘ Greedy Gorb (He’d Eat Anything) and Jeremy Banx‘s wonderfully surreal and often very rude Hector Vector and his Talking T-shirt. The latter actually gets a proper origin story when a magical genie appears from Keith Disease‘s (I never remembered him having an actual name!) packet of crisps, but Keith is rude to him because his snack is gone. Poor Hector happens to be passing and Keith is forever confined to be a “tasteless print” on his t-shirt.

I remember his strip being one of my favourites so expect to see them at some point. The only reason I’m not including them here is because there’s just too much I could include that I had to leave some real classics out. But I was always going to show you the beginning of OiNK’s second spoof adventure story. Hot on the tails of The Street-Hogs comes Ham Dare: Pig of the Future, also stunningly illustrated by J.T. Dogg and this time the multi-part serial is written by Lew Stringer. IPC’s very own Eagle and 2000AD hero Dan Dare was the subject of OiNK’s style of parody, complete with sidekick Pigby and arch nemesis The Weakun‘!

This was my first exposure to J.T.’s artwork and it looked like nothing I’d ever seen before. Possibly because of this, as much as I love The Street-Hogs now, Ham Dare remains my favourite of all the OiNK serials. Lew’s script is fast-paced and packed full of gags, both for fans of the original space adventurer or those like me who weren’t that familiar. I especially love how Sir Hogbert has to show our heroes such a basic drawing to describe Earth being pulled out of orbit. Ham Dare may not be the sharpest pork scratching in the packet but he looked dashing as the hero and that’s what was important to him (and we loved him for it).

Elsewhere this issue Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins‘ own serial continues and a lot of the humour comes from the narrative by Tony Husband. Fan favourite Pete and his Pimple makes his debut after being the footer gag to a Tom Thug strip in #6. Hyperactive Harriet is the fastest girl in the world and a not-so-subtle take on The Beano‘s Billy Whizz. Then Billy Buzz gets the same ‘New Character’ treatment as the rest, but his saccharine personality annoys Uncle Pigg so much he swats him by the end of the strip and that’s the last we’d ever see of him!

Horace Watkins by Tony Husband
Pete and his Pimple by Lew Stringer
Hyperactive Harriet written by Mark Rodgers, drawn by Lezz
Billy Buzz by Philip (not me)

Billy might not have made the grade but the next new addition certainly did. She quickly became a childhood favourite, so much so that I was certain she appeared in almost every issue I had as a kid. But surprisingly Psycho Gran was only in 20 editions of OiNK altogether including specials and annuals. Despite this, she became a true OiNK legend.

Created by David Leach (Brain Damage, Toxic Crusaders, Spongebob Squarepants) she was originally submitted as a one-off strip, so when OiNK’s editors introduced her as a new regular character in this issue it was a bit of a surprise for David. This explains why she doesn’t reappear until #21 because he hadn’t made any more! David tells me the guys would send him a list of upcoming issue subjects and he’d submit Psycho Gran strips for whichever ones he had an idea for. He never had a Psycho strip turned down and as a fan I can see why.

This one might look familiar to anyone who has purchased the new comic series from David in recent years because he reproduced this as a full colour strip for the cover of the first issue. In fact, between contributions to Aces Weekly and Psycho’s own comics, David has now produced more work for the little old dear in the years since OiNK than during her time in her debut comic.

There are certain Psycho Gran strips, as well as individual jokes and images that stayed with me long after childhood was a distant memory. Whether she’s randomly throwing people into the ocean, making military preparations to pick her pension up at the Post Office or adorning a Wild West Wanted poster, she could terrify many in her little world but she was adored by pig pals.

“‘Sammy is getting old and worn out! I’ll have to replace him with a new engine,’ said the Controller.”

Sammy the Steam Engine

Two new characters are up on the next page together, namely Sally Scowl (Her Temper’s Foul!) and Fatty Farmer (He’s A Whole Lot Calmer). Their titles may have rhymed like so many traditional humour strips of the time but that’s where the similarities end. Both were written by Mark Rodgers (of course) and drawn by Dave Follows and Weedy Willy‘s Mike Green respectively.

Both are enjoyable, even if we do already have a bad tempered youth in the shape of Billy Bang. But unlike Billy, Sally’s temper builds until she uses it to her advantage at just the right moment. She’s a lovable character and after that hilarious first panel I can’t blame her for being in a bad mood all day! She was also that rare occurrence indeed, a black character in one of our childhood comics. So why does Sally disappear after #16, totalling only two appearances? So much for a new regular character! What a shame and a waste of a great idea.

The message was clear, don’t let the bullies get to you

Fatty Farmer was a larger than life country man who’d often come up against bullies and small-minded individuals making fun of his weight. However, he’d remain chilled out and deal with them calmly, often proudly using the very thing they were laughing at to get his own back or to ignore them. The message was clear, don’t let the bullies get to you. He’d go on to be a bit more successful than Sally with 11 strips in total, appearing in every issue for the first few months and then on and off during the rest of the fortnightlies.

Back in #3 artist Ralph Shepherd drew OiNK’s brilliant take on The Transformers. As I said at the time, the comic would often take the hand out of the things we readers loved and for me there was nothing I loved more than the subject of this next strip. It was so funny to see this as a kid. This was really the first many fans of the show would’ve seen a spoof of it (and it was even several months before the official comic finally launched). Over the course of the two weeks I had to wait for my next OiNK I reread this several times, laughing and loving the fact OiNK had its own version of Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends.

Looking at this issue as a whole I can see I was clearly spoiled as a kid with this as only the second comic I ever bought. Whether I realised that at the time is another matter. I got to experience the gorgeous work of J.T. Dogg for the first time, got to meet lots of new characters including many who would become lifelong favourites, the subject of my top book series and TV show was given that unique OiNK makeover and then on top of all that was one of only five Tom Paterson OiNK strips, Mister Cheese! It even came complete with his trademark smelly sock and funny descriptions of other characters that have no bearing on the story whatsoever.

What a lovely surprise it was to come across this page when reading the issue for this review. Written by Mark Rodgers it’s already a funny script, but when it’s in the hands of Tom you just know there are going to be many more laughs added before he’s done with it. This would unfortunately be Tom’s final full page story for OiNK. After this his work would only pop up once more in a tiny quarter-page strip in The OiNK Book 1988, which I won’t be reviewing for another 13 months! Just as well this is so jam-packed with Tom’s trademark sight gags to keep us going. Tom was just too busy to be a regular contributor and that’s such a shame because I believe he and OiNK were the perfect fit, perhaps more so than any other comic he contributed to.

Before we wrap up with the back page, here’s a little bit of news about the next issue. While this edition may have introduced a wealth of new characters, #16 brings with it a true superstar, a megastar, a “fantastic” new addition to OiNK who I remember waking up to every Saturday morning on No.73. His creator sadly died back in 2010 and it was the news of his passing that brought me back into the sty after decades away. Next issue sees the start of his contributions which really have to be seen to be believed.

I’m definitely looking forward to the next issue. For now, I’m going to finish off with this full colour back cover from Lew Stringer. We got a glimpse on the Grunts page (at the top of this review) of what it was like to work in the OiNK offices. Uncle Pigg may have had all the right words to say to the readers but the reality behind them was somewhat different. Here’s Lew’s inside scoop on the real behind-the-scenes of creating the funniest comic ever produced!

According to Lew, the writer and artist in panel two getting whipped by Uncle Pigg are based on Mark Rodgers and Lew himself!

For a much younger me these two issues were a strong start. How could it possibly get any better? Be here on Monday 29th November 2021 to find out.

iSSUE 14 < > iSSUE 16

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