This is #76 of Speakeasy, a sort of newspaper about the UK comics industry which began life as a fanzine in 1979 and would go on to become a monthly resource for comics fans and the industry for over 120 issues, all the way through to 1991. Above is the front cover as it would’ve been seen on the shelves, fitting in perfectly with all of the other similarly-sized UK comics. However, that wasn’t its true front page.
I think this was rather neat! It opens out to tabloid size and is printed on similar newspaper stock. With 20 of these huge pages there was certainly plenty to read in the days when we relied on print publications to deliver us our comics news. Bambos Georgiou, who drew Blimey! It’s Slimer in The Real Ghostbusters (after Lew Stringer’s early issues) was editor at one stage, although by now that job was Richard Ashford‘s.
Bambos is credited as the ‘UK Correspondent’ but in reality publishers Acme Press Ltd was the creation of his, Richard, Cefn Ridout and Dick Hansom, who readers of the blog may know better as the editor of Dark Horse International’s Jurassic Park UK comic. The connections with other blog comics continues as Death’s Head/Dragon’s Claws/The Sleeze Brothers editor (and friend of the blog) Richard Starkings designed the logo.
It’s a meaty read and there’s a lot packed onto each page but I did spot this blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reference to Visionaries, although it’s short on details. This issue of Speakeasy went on sale on this date back in 1987 and the American Visionaries comic would launch as a bi-monthly in November, not coming over to this side of The Pond until Spring 1988. Also, the less said about that He-Man movie the better, yes? I still shudder with the memory of the one night I watched it back then!
So anyway, why am I showing you this issue of Speakeasy? Simple, it’s because OiNK gets a mention. This shouldn’t really be surprising news when you spot a page summing up a lot of that month’s releases, however there’s more to it than that as far as OiNK is concerned. It mentions the banning of the comic from the kids’ shelves in W.H. Smith (boo!) and the surprising revelation to me that John Menzies didn’t stock it at all!
I remember visiting a John Menzies in Oban in Scotland as a teen, when we spent summers in a small village in the highlands of Scotland, and I’d spend my hard-earned waiting staff wages on games for my Commodore 64 that was waiting for me back home in Northern Ireland. If I’d known, I’d have went elsewhere. However, as you can see the column here says they were only losing OiNK about 10,000 sales per issue. Yes, it’s not to be sniffed at when you’re the publisher, but when OiNK was selling 100,000 and more per issue I honestly thought the figure would’ve been higher.
I do like the fact Speakeasy calls for its readers to do the complaining now and gives us the address to write to one of the newsagents in question. “Bring Back the Bacon to Where It Belongs!!” Love it! You can check out the reviews for the two issues mentioned here, #34 and #35 on the blog. No mention though of how these two issues saw the transition between original publisher IPC Magazines and Fleetway Publications.
This full-page advertisement for that year’s UK Comic Art Convention stood out to me as well thanks to a couple of photographs I’d already seen that were taken at this very event. You’ll see Tom Thug and Pete and his Pimple cartoonist Lew Stringer’s name on the page as a confirmed guest, alongside OiNK contributors Kevin O’Neill and Dave Gibbons and several of the talented creative team from Marvel UK’s Transformers.
Not mentioned are more of Uncle Pigg’s finest workers who all appeared at an OiNK panel during the weekend. Below are two photographs kindly supplied by Lew showing the team taking questions from the audience with their 80s hair dos in all their glory (and Lew rocking the OiNK t-shirt).
In the first photo (from left to right) we have the panel’s moderator Theo Clark, then Lew himself, Ed McHenry (“swigging pop” according to Lew), David Leach, Davy Francis hidden behind him and Jeremy Banx! In the second photo you can see Ed more clearly and on the far left is Viz co-creator Chris Donald. OiNK was at the height of its popularity at this point, (despite the best efforts of the aforementioned newsagents) having just enjoyed its first anniversary, the release of its first Holiday Special, the first annual was in the can and some of the comic’s best issues were about to hit the shelves.
Also of note to blog readers (and readers of its social media) is a little bit about Transformers and Action Force (G.I. Joe), namely Dave Gibbons drawing the cover to #133 of the former which is worthy of a mention in the news and there’s also a preview of his art. Action Force gets more space here with the announcement of a monthly comic to compliment the weekly, for sale both in the UK and as a way of repackaging British stories into a smaller comic to sell in the States.
The thing is, while it states here that this new comic would be released in a few months, Action Force Monthly wouldn’t appear until the following summer after the weekly had already been cancelled and merged with Transformers. It’s interesting to see it wasn’t originally planned as a replacement for the cancelled weekly but instead fans of Duke, Snake Eyes and Scarlett were meant to have both a weekly and a monthly to enjoy every month.
OiNK may have only got a small mention here but I’m always on the look out for my favourite comic of all time popping up in media of the day. It was nice to see it being taken seriously in the pages of Speakeasy and the call for support to get it back among the children’s comics. Speakeasy itself is a fascinating snapshot of the medium in the 80s and if you’re a fan of the decade’s comics you could do worse than picking up a few issues to see how your favourites were reported on.
The following post was originally written forSunday 22ndbutwas held back afterthesad news of Tony Husband’s passing
Co-editor Patrick Gallagher has a vague recollection of OiNK #68 being held back a bit to better coincide with the publication of the first merged Buster comic. It was definitely a week late when this issue arrived in my local shop in Northern Ireland. Now on rare occasions a comic could be a day or two later getting over here (or up to the farthest areas of Scotland too). According to some in England I’ve spoken to in research for this post they recall receiving their #68s on the Thursday or Friday so this seems to track. When it finally did arrive few of us were prepared for what it contained (unless you had read the previous week’s Buster.)
I certainly wasn’t aware of the merge at the time so, in the early evening of Saturday 22nd October 1988 as the cold, dark night drew in I ran to the newsagent just before dinner for the umpteenth time that week to (hopefully) buy what I thought would be the latest issue. As always, before going to the counter to ask for my reserved copy, I scanned my eyes over the comics shelves. I saw the piggy pink logo… twice. I could see Pete, Tom and Willy peering out at me from behind the new issue of OiNK! What was this?
For a second I thought it was some kind of promotional thing. After all, this and any others I’d begun collecting were all still going and comics my brother or friends read seemed to last forever, such as Beano, Transformers, Roy of the Rovers etc. I’d never seen a comic cancelled before and after two very happy years I just assumed OiNK would go on and on too. It was my first comic, so I didn’t know this kind of thing happened!
I picked up a copy of OiNK from the shelf, its gorgeous Frank Sidebottom cover (one of my favourites of the whole run) in all its glory and I noticed the banner across the top which soon gave the game away. Surely this couldn’t mean what I was beginning to think it meant? I began flicking through it to see if there was any indication inside and lo-and-behold on page four where the letters page would normally be was a message from Uncle Pigg, drawn by Michael Peek.
My heart sank. Our esteemed editor may have been cheery at the prospect of an early retirement and he tried to keep his loyal readers chirper with the news of the Buster merge, the already-released second annual and the promise of a holiday special the following year (a lifetime away for a ten-year-old), but that wasn’t enough as far as I was concerned. So as I went to ask for my last reserved OiNK I also picked up a Buster, hoping for the best. You can read all about what happened with that in its own post also published on the blog today.
Now, 35 years later as an adult this message is all the more heartbreaking because this is actually the best of the monthly OiNKs by far. There’s not a single reprint in sight, the team using up what they could of the leftover material they’d have kept for the following issues. Plus we had our 12th free gift! Stapled to the middle pages was a tiny 16-page preview of Wildcat, so I really came back from the shop with three different comics. The gift was a welcome surprise actually, as the cancellation had distracted me from the news of it on the cover.
OiNK began with IPC Magazine’s first preview comic, so now 68 issues later it felt like things had come full circle. In fact, I’ve described before how this felt like OiNK passing the baton which, after I read this superb freebie, I was more than willing to let Wildcat take up. This was particularly welcome after Buster disappointed me, so something good had come out of this after all, just not in the way I’d initially hoped. Wildcat was a superb comic and I’ve already covered it on the blog, where you’ll find a full review of this freebie.
On page two was a small note that the regular Wildcat comic would have pages the same size as OiNK’s, even though this was mentioned on the back of the preview. Alongside it our final issue starts off strong with some cracker (no pun intended, really) mini-strips such as Kev F Sutherland’s take on another Rotten Rhyme and the first of this issue’s Wally of the West strips by the always funny Ed McHenry.
Only a few of the contributions mention the fact this is the final issue, while a couple more don’t reference it directly but clearly knew it was the end. For example, Chris Sievey’s Frank Sidebottom doesn’t say anything about it but does sign off with details of where readers could see him on TV, listen to him on the radio or meet him in person before saying thanks and that he’ll see everyone soon. Which he did, as he never seemed to be off children’s television at the time.
Taking over a double-page spread Frank really does squeeze in as much as he possibly can into a strip about his school days. There are no less than 33 individual panels across just two pages! Not only that, look at the amount he draws into each of these tiny little rectangles, such as his mum’s kitchen floor, cooker and sink when all he needed to show us was him running out the door. Also, before you read this if you have a pair of old fashioned 3D glasses please do try them on at a certain point here and let me know how you get on! Haha.
We all knew that despite Frank being a superstar he still lived at home with his mum so I love the ending which, intentionally or not, is a callback to an earlier episode of Frank’s which referred to him going to bed at 9 despite being an adult. Having the final caption as a never-ending cycle back to the beginning feels like the perfect way for him to wrap up the final regular contribution to OiNK he crafted.
From one OiNK star to two at once. Two cartoonists decided to create something similar to each other’s, a visual gag only achievable in this medium and one where OiNK was the perfect place to try it. So Charlie Brooker’s Freddie Flop and Brian Luck return for their final appearances and, suitably for the last issue, the randomly-appearing Mr Plinge returns for one last time and with a twin sister in tow alongside (or rather above) a one-off Mr Girth.
Placed nowhere near each other in the issue, the joyous surprise at seeing the same gag played out after enjoying it so much the first time is a delight. It reminds me of that embarrassing moment in the hospital waiting room when I discovered a second Herbert Bowes strip in the first OiNK Holiday Special! Thankfully this time I was alone when reading this.
For their final regular attempt to extort as much money as possible from people the gangsters at GBH pulled out all the stops with a middle-page spread of the ultimate luxury in holiday travel, a cruise. Thomas Crook was a name used already by Simon Thorp in previous Madvertisements but this is surely the funniest of the lot. I love the sheer audacity to list off all of the gags! This kept me giggling for a good while in both 1988 and 2023 and is one of my favourite GBH entries from the entire series. Please take your time and savour every little bit of this one.
My favourite parts of this have to be the lifeboat drill, the scales, the ship’s “washing machines”, where the food is served, the stabilisers(!) and best of all the fact that this isn’t a cutaway, it’s noted that the ship itself actually has a huge hole along its side. Simon’s Madverts were always so packed with little sight gags for us to find and I love how his last one labels them all, making sure no one misses any of them. Still a regular Viz contributor to this day, I’m really going to miss his OiNK pages.
#68 is a fitting, funny and fantastic send off
Fittingly, one of the pages that mentions this is the final issue is co-editor Tony Husband’s Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins in which he laments the end of the comic (as do watching aliens) before he and Mandy decide to cheer up by getting married. Tom Thug’s strip begins with him telling us he’s received some terrible news and we think it’s about OiNK, but actually he’s just been offered a job. A job he ultimately fails at on day one, naturally.
Children’s television presenter and artist Tony Hart and his plasticine pal Morph are the subject of a spoof in the shape of The Amazing Adventures of Murph and in a three-page Pete and his Pimple strip he’s daydreaming about being a superhero called Zit Man. Thankfully his arch nemesis Mister Squeeze trips over his own words, quite literally, in the nick of time and falls into his own death trap. Ingenious stuff.
Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins by Tony HusbandTom Thug by Lew StringerAdventures of Murph written by Charlie Brooker & drawn by Ed McHenryPete & his Pimple by Lew Stringer
Of course it wasn’t the end for two of these characters, however it’s rather strange there’s no Weedy Willy strip in this final issue when he’d join Pete and Tom in Buster.
Meanwhile, Kev F Sutherland must’ve created a lot of content for forthcoming issues because it appears it’s all been collected together here. Just like Ian Jackson and Jeremy Banx before him, Kev’s work is synonymous with OiNK in my eyes and here he has eight strips in total to his name across a whopping ten pages. His Meanwhile… series was always a highlight so I couldn’t let this issue go without including at least one, and it’s one which got a memorable roar of laughter out of me at ten-years-of-age.
It seems if OiNK were to continue one of Kev’s Three Scientists from #66 was going to be making an Alfred Hitchcock-esque cameo in every issue. Did you spot him above? In this issue Kev brings us not only this and the Rotten Rhyme above but also his take on Jack & Jill and Who Killed Cock Robin?, spoofs of 80s car commercials and weather forecasts, and last but by no means least the brilliantly titled The Plop Factory – The Studios of Britain’s top record producers Sock, Bacon and Waterworks.
The final strip I’m going to show you (although not the final image) from all 68 regular OiNKs should really be a large, multi-page affair, shouldn’t it? Some big, grand gesture to round things off with. Nope. One of the biggest laughs in this issue comes from a tiny little quarter-page strip from Ed McHenry‘s Wally of the West. A simply perfect example of the mini-strips crammed into each issue and how OiNK could generate a ton of laughs from content of all shapes and sizes.
With a lack of Uncle Pigg or the plops and very few pig-themed strips and spoofs, would new readers to OiNK Monthly have been confused as to why the comic had the name it did? For seasoned pig pals such as myself these final six issues have each been mammoth specials crammed full of content, with the bonus of some bigger than usual entries for some of our favourites. So if you ever hear a pig pal rubbish these monthlies, I say they should really reconsider them, especially #68 which is a fitting, funny and fantastic send off.
There’s a ton of OiNK content to come on the blog over the next few years at least, I promise
But unfortunately a send off it is. Fleetway’s well-intentioned reboot hadn’t had the effect they’d wished for, but by no means were OiNK’s sales plummeting as much as some have commented. As co-editor Patrick Gallagher recently told me sales were down across the board and OiNK’s were by no means the worst. But with Fleetway having now forced two revamps they called time on the comic, although it wouldn’t be the last to fall as they continued to chip away at the titles they’d purchased from IPC.
If OiNK had continued in its best format as a fortnightly under IPC, who were very happy with the sales figures and the press coverage it was creating for them as a publisher, could it have lasted longer? Perhaps. We’ll never know. For now this final issue wraps up with the first of a new series. Judging by the old OiNK logo this was created by Michael Peek when it was still a weekly and, with this being the last page (save for a Fleetway Annuals advert on the back) Patrick added a little sign-off gag with the speech balloon.
This is by no means the end of OiNK on its own blog! There’s a wealth of extra features for our favourite comic already on here and a ton of OiNK content to come over the next few years at least, I promise. Actually, the read through itself isn’t even finished yet with four more editions to come over the next two years and yes, I’m going to make you wait for each of them, just as I have to wait until their real time release dates to read them. The first of these will be The OiNK! Book 1989’s review which will be published on Christmas Day 2023. Perfect anarchic highlights for reading at about 3pm that day, I think.
This has been the best monthly issue of OiNK yet and feels like it’s really beginning to hit its stride in its new form. Such a shame there are only two more issues to go then! Let’s concentrate on the one right in front of me for now though because it’s a riot. Horace (Ugly-Face) Watkins gets cover status thanks to co-editor Tony Husband, although just like last month I can’t help but feel there should’ve been a different cover star. Horace takes up three pages in a brilliant strip inside but the return of Pigswilla has nine! We’ll get to him in a sec.
On the second page is another artist’s profile, seemingly left over from the recent Holiday Special which contained ten of them. Lew Stringer’s can be found in this issue for some reason and I’ve added it to the ‘Cartoonists’ Profiles’ post with the rest of them as it’s just too good to miss. This is definitely an issue fans of Lew’s won’t want to miss out on with his strips taking up 13 pages, over a quarter of the whole comic! I’ve included them all here as highlights because they’re hands down the very best this issue has to offer, beginning with the return of everyone’s favourite giant robotic pig.
According to Lew this particular Pigswilla strip was originally conceived as a weekly serial but, unlike The Street-Hogslast month, The Perils of Pigswilla had slight tweaks made to it (such as chapter length and the amount of comic violence) to help it work better as one complete strip for the new OiNK. I certainly agreed with Lew when he told me he was very pleased with how it turned out. Certainly, after previous strips of the character’s were double-page spreads, it’s great to see him get the kind of space his frame deserved!
It’s split into three parts of various lengths and kicks off with the British public in awe of their mechanical hero after his most recent victory against some banana people. So far, so normal. But the butchers of the world aren’t happy at all; sales of pork have plummeted in a world where pigs have been given equal footing in society as humans, a topical note that The Street-Hogs strip last issue kicked off with. They’ve only one option: to destroy the perception of Pigswilla in the public eye. How will this reverse the trends they’re unhappy with? Well, to answer this Lew takes a jab at something which is unfortunately still very much prevalent today.
Initially I thought the death of the professor may not have been in the strip if this had been in the weeklies when OiNK was aimed at a younger audience, but then I remembered Jeremy Banx’s Hieronymous Van Hellsong from those issues! Plus I remember this being very funny to young me as well. I love the chaos of the hypnotising panel, it reminds me of the Spirograph toy from the 80s. For the first time we also see the new OiNK logo depicted in one of the strips, confirming this was created for the monthlies while our hero goes on his rampage.
It’s all hugely enjoyable and then I let out a roar of laughter when I saw the TV interviewee, his demeanour, appearance and especially his t-shirt. Showing how fickle the public can be and how easily they can be scaremongered by those with ulterior motives (the butchers in this case) we even see pigs’ homes being bricked to chants of “Sage and onion”. Yes it’s funny but it’s also making a point and very much poking deserved fun at people like that. It’s satire suitable for kids and I think I can say with certainty things like this (and Lew’s previous dig at bigots in a Pete and his Pimple strip) had a very positive impact on me at that age. It’s even funnier to me today of course.
Part one ends with this shocking moment of Pigswilla being blasted by the army and apparently taken offline. He’s got one friend though, his creator Professor Compton Codger’s lab technician Jenny Mercury (always loved the names Lew would give his characters). She climbs inside his giant noggin and begins to tape him back together, taking over the handy manual controls just as the butchers use their dark magical powers to create their own giant robot, formed from the spleens “of a thousand hogs” and scrap metal for yet another Pigswilla enemy.
The butcher robot goes from one pig owner’s house to another, collecting them to chop up later with us humans cheering it on(!) when, with Jenny’s help, the huge swine comes back to life, albeit with one key difference. Never passing up the chance to get some rhyming lyrics into a strip, Lew has made one of the after-effects of Pigswilla’s near complete shutdown a case of accidental rapping! Just when you thought it couldn’t be possible to add another level of absurdity to the proceedings. I also like how we can see out of Pigswilla’s eyes in the last panel of this chapter.
There’s come cracking (crackling?) dialogue as the fight continues and Pigswilla looks ever more defeated. Even a cow gets in on the act. Pigswilla and Jenny work together and eventually overcome his apparent death by tricking the butchers into taking a swing near an electricity pylon with obvious results. We then get a great big chunky written panel explaining how things were all okay in the end, finishing with Pigswilla dancing through the streets but thankfully without the rapping fixed.
That wordy panel is funny for another reason. Maybe I’m looking too deeply into it, but personally the absurdity of how simply things are reversed in the public’s opinion just highlights how absurd it was they turned against him in the first place, in turn showing how ludicrous it is that it can happen so easily in the real world. Even today people fall for it every time! It’s all brilliant stuff and my very favourite strip from the monthlies. The only negative I can think of is the fact he didn’t get the cover to go along with this (although an intended cover was used as the Next Issue promo). I’m sure it would’ve happened if it had been serialised in weekly OiNK as originally intended.
One of the funniest OiNK strips ever and one I’ve been particularly looking forward to revisiting
We’ll come back to Lew in a moment but first let’s have a little interlude for what I described in the ‘Coming Up: OiNK! #66’ post as one of the funniest OiNK strips ever and one I’ve been particularly looking forward to revisiting. While it’s not from his Meanwhile… series it’s just as unique a strip from Kev F Sutherland as you’d expect. I love Kev’s art style, especially in this double-page spread with its great sense of place, the chaotic labs and superb use of shadow, and of course it’s hilarious.
The Three Scientists is one of those OiNK strips which has replayed itself in my head several times over the years, particularly when I’ve been watching Doctor Who and there’s been some neat twist in a plot involving time travel. This is always guaranteed to bring a smile to my face. Back in 1988 it had me creased up with laughter. Its elaborate set up all leading to a quick, simple and perfect gag is classic Kev. Enjoy this one.
Two quick highlights before we return to the Lewniverse and these may be two completely different entries in this issue of OiNK and by completely different contributors but they have a bit of a linked theme. First up is co-editor Tony Husband’s cover star, Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins. In pursuit of a regular, relaxing holiday with no football fans or weird occurrences, they’ve ended up meeting Dracula! Horace’s unique way of dispatching the vampire is just as funny today and leads nicely into the next highlight.
GBHDP is the new political party from OiNK’s in-house mail order gangsters and among the ridiculousness one particular section stood out to me. In recent years there’s been a clamouring among certain types of people, including readers of that aforementioned tabloid, for the return to older so-called ‘Victorian values’. This brilliant madvertisement from Simon Thorp shows that isn’t just a recent thing.
Horace Watkins by Tony HusbandGBHDP by Simon Thorp
In fact, the GBHDP party goes so far as to end their madvert with the slogan, “GBHDP – Together we can make Britain GRATE again.” Even 32 years later that says it all, doesn’t it?
Moving on and it’s clear Tom Thug’s strips are being aimed at the slightly older target audience with what occurs here, although I don’t remember it flying over my head or being in any way less enjoyable when I was still a few months away from my 11th birthday. History is made right here folks, because we have a first for a children’s humour comics character when Tom actually leaves school and moves out into the adult world.
“I’m gonna sign me cross fer a pocketfulla dosh!”
Tom Thug
This would only be a temporary situation of course. When OiNK merges into Buster in a few months the strip would turn back time for more misadventures in school, but for now we get to see him actually sign on and, as you’d expect of him he thinks it’s just a way of getting money for nothing and as much as he wants. Well, he is a pillock after all. The last gag may have been lost on me as a child. It’s topical gag, not something OiNK did much of until these later issues. I probably grinned and laughed at his predicament without realising its topicality.
So yes, we’ve a couple of issues to go to see how Tom fairs in the big, bad world and I’m sure he’ll be even less successful (if that’s possible) than he was when he thought he could lord it over the smaller kids in school. At the bottom is a rare writing credit for someone other than Lew, who told me, “I think Mark wanted Tom to get older and sign on and suggested the basic idea of that but everything else was up to me.” A shame we won’t get to see much of this part of Tom’s life but I look forward to it regardless.
Finishing off his hat trick for this issue, Lew’s Pete and his Pimple gets three pages when a reader suggests blasting Pete into space to save the rest of us from being covered in exploding pus. There are so many great gags straight out of the gate with this strip; the caption giving away why the tanks are drawn that way, XL5’s cameo, the life support and more. It’s not an exaggeration to say there’s a real good giggle to be found in every panel of the first page, and is that a familiar guest star from Pigswilla? As for the rest, it just gets better and better as Pete gets Lost in Space.
I love the design of the aliens and seeing the caricatures of the cast of the 60s show takes me back to childhood Sunday lunchtimes with repeats on Channel 4. The fact one of them is labelled ‘The Boring Macho One’ is spot on (no pun intended) because he’s actually the only one I can’t remember! With some fun digs at the simplicity of 60s sci-fi and the usual description of a UFO being taken literally this is one of Pete’s best. There’s also a censored panel here too!
Lew originally drew Pete urinating on the robot
If you look closely at the first panel on the third page of the strip you may see a shape beside the “old junk”, almost like a very faint silhouette. As it turns out that’s exactly what it is. Lew originally drew Pete urinating on the robot rather than hiding him behind it and you can just about make out how he was standing, looking down at little splashes. It’s been edited, but not very well.
According to Lew’s personal blog, “My original art was censored in one panel! I’d shown Pete (with his back to us) having a wee against the robot but that was too much for [Fleetway]. They stuck a piece of paper over him and changed the tail of the word balloon so it looked like Pete was hidden behind the robot… BUT the paste-over was opaque and with a bit of Photoshop enhancement you can see Pete’s silhouette…”. Here’s the image as Lew presented it to show what he meant. Thanks to Lew for letting me share this.
It wasn’t the first time one of Lew’s strips was edited, although in a previous Tom Thugthe edit made things worse!
There are just the five pages of reprints this time. One is the Johnny the Jet strip from #8 and the others are made up of the final two OiNK Superstar Posters, printed double-sided. Well, one ‘Megastar Poster’ and one simply named ‘Poster’. The latter was deemed a suitably bland title for Mary Lighthouse’s which was also taken from #8, while #6’s Uncle Pigg poster by Ian Jackson was renamed for a bit more grandeur. Naturally. This is actually the poster of him I’ve used in my home office since it meant I could use it without losing any strips on the back.
Without question this has been the best monthly issue so far and really feels like it’s hit its stride. The same thing happened with the weeklies and I get the impression that it could’ve really worked in this format if it hadn’t been cancelled. Of course, OiNK was still at its best in its 32-page fortnightly guise (first 44 issues) with its themes, all of its characters intact and aimed at the original target audience while still suitable (and read by) older fans too. But as a different, older version of the same comic this issue really works.
After all of the lengthy strips I just wanted to round things off with a couple of slices of miniature Ed McHenry nonsense. Ed’s Wally of the West debuted in OiNK much later in the run than I remember and now his mini-strips raise a laugh in every single issue. But Ed wasn’t content with just his regular characters, he’d also create lots of little random one-offs which would be sprinkled throughout each comic’s 48 pages. Here are his best two from this issue.
With Ed rounding things off nicely for this month we’re back to waiting only four weeks until #67 of OiNK, the penultimate regular issue. We may be nearing the end but there’s still so much for this comic to give. This year really has flown in for me and I think part of the reason for that is OiNK. With those weeklies I flew through the winter and spring, and the summer has been one large Holiday Special after another. The next one will be reviewed here on Sunday 17th September 2023. September. Already!
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