Yes, I’m taking a pair of scissors to a treasured issue of OiNK! No, I’m not still upset (35 years after the fact) with the 5p price rise this issue brought, #25 was the Toys and Hobbies issue and inside was a trove of activities for readers to cut out and make. One of these was Frank Sidebottom’s “zeo-trope” (sic). Back as a kid I never cut anything out of my precious comics, but I’m an adult now and can just go and buy a replacement on eBay, so I’m giving this a shot.
The correct spelling is ‘zoetrope’ and it’s a device which the dictionary describes as, “a 19th-century optical toy consisting of a cylinder with a series of pictures on the inner surface that, when viewed through slits with the cylinder rotating, give an impression of continuous motion”. This was a revelation in the days before film and something fun for viewers of various children’s art shows in the 80s to make.
Franks’ alter ego, Chris Sievey decided to try his hand at creating one so let’s see how good it is, shall we? We begin by gluing it to a piece of flexible card. I used a cereal box and the very second I glued it to the blank interior I realised I’d already made a mistake. With the brightly coloured cereal design on the side I’d be looking through to see the animation it would be too distracting when spun. I should’ve made sure the blank side of the cardboard was on the outside. So I glued it on to another piece of the box, blank side out, meaning it was rather more stiff than it should’ve been. Oh well.
Of course, this made cutting out the slits all the more difficult, what with having to slice through two layers of card and glue, and with 12 slots to cut out as neatly as possible this did result in some sore fingers with indents from the ridges of the knife, but that was my fault, not Frank’s. Only as I was doing this did I realise he’d actually numbered all of the slots too. Chris’ work in OiNK was always so intricate, beautifully coloured with felt tip pens and colouring pencils. Co-editor Patrick Gallagher told me he was always amazed at the amount of time and work Chris would put into his pages and the dedication he had for his OiNK work.
Carefully bending it every couple of centimetres I was able to finally get it into a circular shape. (Again, if I’d used one sheet of card this wouldn’t have been so fiddly.) Once glued together a little final squeezing and stretching to get it into as perfect a circle as possible was all that was needed. As instructed by Frank a record player is needed at this stage and luckily enough I have one of those. So it’s now time to see if this works. After all, some people who tried it out as a kid have told me it was pretty rubbish or didn’t work at all! Time to find out.
You have to focus your eye on one of the Franks but I think it works a treat, especially for a cut-out freebie in an old comic.
I remember as a kid those art shows would show zoetropes and we’d only see one of the images animating, making it look like an old-fashioned cartoon animation from the early days of film. Maybe if the device had different dimensions (larger device with smaller holes? I have no idea) it would look more professional but I still think the effect is great, with a group of Franks all strumming away and tapping their feet. I did try to play the OiNK flexidisk while it spun but due to it being only slightly larger than the zoetrope the player’s head hit it and kept skipping after a few seconds. So your ears have been spared!
If you want to give this a try for yourself you can usually pick up #25 of OiNK for no more than a few quid on eBay and this really is easy to put together. This isn’t like the impossible-to-build Road Hogg from #11 (although that didn’t stop one pig pal as you’ll see in that issue’s review). The zoetrope now sits alongside my OiNK collection on my comic shelves, looking like the most unusual little piece of merchandise you ever did see.
(Special thanks to my mate Kevin O’Prey for his help with YouTube. Kevin runs an ASMR channel called TheWhisperCorner which you can find here.)
Usually with comics the special anniversary issues would mark the beginning of the next year of publication, on sale over the date of the first issue. OiNK decided to mark the end of the first year instead with their celebratory issue actually due to come off the shelves two days before the date of #1‘s release the previous year. Instead, #26 celebrated the launch of the preview issue, bundled inside other IPC comics on 26th April 986. That free issue gets several mentions inside.
Patrick Gallagher‘sUncle Pigg and that shiny golden logo welcome us to the celebrations and inside it’s party time. If memory serves the second anniversary would be marked by nothing more than a passing mention on the letters page and unfortunately there wouldn’t be a third, so I intended to enjoy this one. Thankfully it wasn’t to let me down, starting off with this brilliant Pete and his Pimple from Lew Stringer in which he’s been invited to sign copies at a newsagent for the anniversary.
I did laugh when Pete felt he needed to elaborate on his comment about how it was a good thing he didn’t put the cream anywhere else. Lew’s background characters are as eclectic a bunch as you would expect and is that Wilfrid visiting from Bash Street in the doorway? Well no, that’s just a coincidence, but in asking Lew he pointed out someone I did miss. Standing in the doorway just behind him is none other than Lew’s spoof superhero character Brickman who, after the (temporary) end of his strip in 1986, made disguised cameos (without mask, coat on top of his costume) in other strips in the Lewniverse. I can’t be the only fan who’ll find this surprising and funny in equal measure. (At the time one young reader did spot him and sent Lew all of the panels she’d spotted him in!)
At this point in the review I must issue a Reader Advisory before you scroll on down to the next strip. Those with a nervous disposition or a tricky tummy right now may want to skip past this next section. Don’t blame me, blame David Leach. What’s a party without a cake, and what could be better than a surprise cake? Well it all depends on who baked it I guess.
While David’s modern day Psycho Gran comics are much more adult than her antics in the pages of OiNK it’s very much the same sense of humour. In fact, this strip wouldn’t look out of place in one of her new comics, even if David might push the cringe factor more in that final panel. She had made her debut in #15 before disappearing again until half a dozen issues later (David was told very last minute they’d like her to be a regular character) and by this stage she was appearing in almost every issue, quickly becoming one of my favourites.
“I’ve picked some prime porky pranks from my readers to help celebrate a year of OiNKin’ good fun!”
Uncle Pigg
OiNK was a lot more interactive with its audience than most comics of the day. Marvel UK had those fantastic, fondly remembered letters pages and IPC Magazines would feature something similar in their humour comics, with reader jokes and sketches thrown in. Closest to OiNK would’ve been editor Barrie Tomlinson‘s comics which were always known for their highly original ways in which readers could take part (see Wildcat, Ring Raiders and Super Naturals for example).
Compiled by co-editor Patrick Gallagher, OiNK’s Grunts page could contain rude jokes for Nasty Laffs and Specs, celebrities given a piggy makeover, photographs of readers with their homemade OiNK cakes and models, pig-related newspaper clippings (and those relating to the comic itself), messy bedroom competition entries in the early days, readers updating us on the latest sightings of terrifying butchers from Jeremy Banx‘s Butcher Watch series, drawings and even a personal problems column in which Uncle Pigg‘s answers were of no help whatsoever. For the birthday issue we got a double helping so that twice the amount of pig pals could receive “a piggy prize”.
I had no idea who the StreetHogs were when I read this originally but I’d soon be finding out. Above was also the first mention of the book to come. Now that was exciting! I never did write in and I’m not sure why. I had drawings published in Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends and Barrie’s Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles Adventures, then when I moved on to computer games magazines I was always writing into them. But for some reason I never took the time to contact Uncle Pigg or the other OiNK characters. The comic was always asking readers to get in touch one way or another, the most memorable example being when Lew Stringer‘sPete asked readers to send in pimple busting cures.
For the birthday issue, three readers got the ultimate piggy prize when they appeared in a photo strip alongside Snatcher Sam (Marc Riley) and Frank Sidebottom (Chris Sievey). This had been the star prize in a competition run on Radio Manchester in conjunction with Casio Electronics (hence the product placement) and the three lucky winners got to star in their favourite comic and also went away with their own keyboards. Not too shabby at all. The pig pals we were very jealous of were Ruth Salts, Paul Pike and Paul Rafferty.
I love how they’ve touched up the photographs with these garish colours, making it feel more like a comic strip, adding to the ridiculousness of it all. Obviously the Casio keyboards are the central plot device here and it works, with Frank struggling to think of new lyrics for a song. The inspiration in the end is brilliant, or “fantastic” as he might say and I genuinely did laugh out loud when what Sam starts yelling just happens to be the lyrics to a famous song. It’s completely daft and so uniquely ‘OiNK’. Great stuff.
Time for a quick glance at some of the other highlights of the issue. Dead Fred gets a full page to himself for his Happy Death Day, it’s a happy ending for Hector Vector and his Talking T-shirt much to the annoyance of said garment, GBH got in on the birthday action with some highly collectible memorabilia, Frank Sidebottom‘s own strip has one of the best captions in comics history and there’s that stance and glare again from Hadrian Vile‘s mum (see theHoliday Special for more on that).
Dead Fred by Wilkie Hector Vector and his Talking T-shirt by Jeremy Banx Frank Sidebottom by Chris Sievey Hadrian Vile written by Mark Rodgers, drawn by Ian Jackson
A little change happened with one of the above strips this issue, namely The Secret Diary ov Hadrian Vile – Aged 8 5/8 (yearƨ). Eagle-eyed readers would’ve spotted he’d jumped from 7 5/8 in the past fortnight. A nice little touch and he’d remain this age for the rest of the year. As the comic continued we’d see his mum become pregnant, eventually giving birth to a new baby sister for Hadrian, who he then took under his wing! Seeing him and his family develop in real time was subtle but a unique point of interest. If OiNK had continued longer than the two-and-a-half years it was published for would Hadrian’s age have continued to increase? Who knows. But it’s interesting to imagine.
There’s a special poster in the middle of the issue which I’m going to sign off with, but first I can’t let this issue go by without showing you a very special strip indeed. This issue’s Tom Thug stands out for a few different reasons. First up, I always enjoy it when characters break the fourth wall, to coin a phrase. Basically, when they refer to being in a comic. Tom does this here to great effect when explaining to Wayne Brayne why he’s trying to duff him up when his bullying ways are brought into question (the panel is completed with an automatically-appearing sticking plaster). However, the main highlight happens when he trips over his untied shoelace. Obviously he never did learn to do that properly.
“How do you get nostalgic about a comic that’s only a year old?”
Lew Stringer
Tom is becoming worried about his constant failures as a bully. It’s his whole reason for being and yet he hasn’t yet managed to do it successfully. Of course, we loved his strip because of his constant failures and that was the whole point of it, for the bully to fail. But Tom thinks Uncle Pigg is going to toss him on the comics scrapheap if he can’t manage to successfully cause some bovver. It’s this scrapheap he imagines which is the main highlight, as he places himself next to all of the forgotten comics characters of yesteryear, each drawn by Lew very much in their original artists’ styles.
I think this was a wonderful idea. As Lew asked on his own blog when discussing this anniversary story, “How do you get nostalgic about a comic that’s only a year old?” They’re all classic IPC characters, then several years later some were sold off to Egmont while others were kept by IPC, meaning they could no longer appear together, making this an even more unique page than it already was. Nowadays, Rebellion owns them all and I think it’s time for a reunion, including Tom. The strip ends with Uncle Pigg demoting him to half a page. With so many regular characters now the editors had decided to do this, and this was an original and clever way of actually working the decision into the strip (although due to his popularity he’d return to full strength very quickly). It kept him in every issue when others had to skip some, so it was for a good reason in the end.
One final note about that strip. In the second panel a little plop is holding up a sign saying hello to a reader by the name of Ben Gibbons. This is actually the son of comics artist Dave Gibbons. Ben was a regular reader of OiNK and Dave himself would contribute to an issue with the very funny artwork for The Superhero’s Day Off written by Lew. We’ll get to that eventually. It’s worth the wait!
This has been a great celebration of the first year of what is still my favourite comic of all time
We’re at the end of another review and it’s crazy to think I’ve been at this for a year already. The blog itself relaunched before this time last year, when Visionaries was the first comic to begin its real time read through (I didn’t want to wait another year for the sake of a few weeks before the blog’s namesake began). It’s been a blast and the best is still to come as far as I’m concerned. The latter months of this year especially.
This has been a great celebration of the first year of what is still my favourite comic of all time. The next issue of OiNK will be themed around the world of pets and you’ll be able to read the review from Monday 2nd May 2022. But first there’s one more thing I want to show you and that’s the OiNK Anniversary Portrait. Drawn by Ed McHenry it’s full of all of the main characters including those no longer in the comic. I was happy to see Sally Scowl received an invite to the party after her funny strips were unceremoniously dropped after only two issues! (I’m still hurting about that.)
Coming up Monday on the blog is the very first OiNKHoliday Special, a 48-page feast of summery goodness featuring the return of old favourites, absolute classics from regular characters and some extra special one-off strips to make it that bit more special. This was a huge deal for pig pals. Preview issue aside it was the first extra edition of OiNK beyond the regular fortnightly and from the moment eyes fell upon the unique Ian Jackson cover fans were not to be disappointed.
These promos for the Holiday Special are taken from issues #25 to #28. The first three were all put together by co-editor Patrick Gallagher (the Tom Thug panel taken from Lew Stringer‘s strip), the final one by Chris Sievey as Frank Sidebottom. The special was released on the same date as #25.
As well as the very best Sekret Diary ov Hadrian Vile yet and the long awaited return of Pete’s Pup, look out for the most unique OiNK character yet whose strips in this edition resulted in a rather embarrassing moment in the hospital for me(!), and 2000AD fans can look forward to the brilliant The Game is Greed which is incredibly drawn by none other than Kevin O’Neill! Yes, you read that right.
The first OiNK! Holiday Special comes to the blog on Monday 11th April 2022.
What’s this, a price rise? It had to happen eventually, but it’s crazy to look back and think about our comics costing only 35p for all of that hard work that went into them. OiNK was already more expensive than its peers and as the likes of Buster and Whizzer and Chips went up 2p each to 26p, our piggy publication went up by 5p to the grand sum of 35p. OiNK was independently produced, contained a lot more individual strips from more contributors and was printed on lovely large, glossy paper, all of which made it more expensive to produce but they also made it worth every extra penny.
This is the Toys and Hobbies Issue and it’s full of interactive elements for the young readers. By that I mean things to cut out and make. In fact, there’s so much here the comic would be nothing but a pile of twisted paper if the reader did them all! I’ll show you one further down the review. To kick things off, apparently for Hadrian Vile and his artist Ian Jackson the theme has conjured up an image of voodoo experiments. As you do. The surprises continue inside with a memorable strip involving killer playthings and the insane artwork of Jon Langford in The Terrible Toys.
Written by Mark Rodgers, this should conclusively show that even such a safe topic could be completely turned on its head by OiNK. Jon’s art always made an impression and this is no exception, especially the fang-toothed Santa Claus at the end. (This wouldn’t even be the scariest Santa we’d see in OiNK!) His use of thick, heavy lines, as if he’s leaning furiously on the page as he draws, and a lovely loose freehand style bring complete chaos to anything he crafted. You can also just about see a couple of edits around copyright names, the most obvious being “Borbie Dolls” where the ‘O’ has been changed. I’m not sure what Hasbro would’ve said!
Back in #20Lew Stringer introduced us to a new character called Specky Hector, the Comics Collector by way of a funny three panel strip. I was delighted to see his return in this issue with a full page all to himself, in which he shares his tips for what he sees as the correct way to collect and store comics, complete with ink stains and finger prints which are very unbecoming of someone who prides themselves on their mint collection. After this I looked forward to future instalments from Hector in whatever form they would take but unfortunately the character never returned to this comic. However, for pig pals who followed some of the characters to the pages of Buster after OiNK folded he would pop up on occasion and you can even read this previous blog post to find out how he’s doing today.
There are a lot of great gags here and I particularly like the front cover of The Beany. Look closely and you’ll see the strip has someone ask for credits and the star of the strip says, “Jings! We don’t run credits!” This was a dig at the comics which never credited their writers and cartoonists, something else which set OiNK apart from the very beginning. This was a specific point of difference for its creators Mark Rodgers, Tony Husband and Patrick Gallagher, that everyone should receive on-page credit for their work and it was a hot topic in the UK industry at the time. So I particularly liked this joke.
“I’m even giving up my old hobby of collecting squashed hedgehogs!”
Tom Thug
Just as a point of interest, I don’t personally protect the comics I collect and read for this blog in carded plastic bags or store them away out of sight. Mine are all proudly displayed on shelves around the small office in my house (I say office, it’s the spare bedroom with a desk instead of a bed) and can be picked up and instantly flicked through. I remember a friend years back would go to painstaking lengths to keep his comics and novels pristine and the way he’d hold them while reading looked so uncomfortable. To me, a bookshelf full of novels with cracked spines shows they’ve been loved. The same goes for my comics. Don’t get me wrong, I look after them, but comics are for consumption, to be read over and over, and most importantly loved. I don’t think Hector would really disagree with that sentiment.
Also in this issue is the second part of that Tom Thug story which began last issue. To recap, Wayne Brayne tricked Tom (not difficult) into thinking he was seeing his older self as a decrepit pensioner spending his last days in prison and it terrified him. Determined not to end up that way we saw him reformed, prancing down the road barefoot with bunches of flowers and a shiny halo above his head. Originally I’d thought it was just a funny ending for that issue and things would be back to normal this time. But that’s not the case and the strip kicks off with his dad getting the shock of his life.
This is a great strip, from the question mark beside the title, to his idiotic attempts at being nice and his eventual return to form. There’s even a quick reference to a hobby for the theme. I particularly like the panel where he swings at Wayne and punches the tree, the exaggerated punch and the pain in his eyes are perfect. In the end he hasn’t even returned to his normal thuggish ways out of his own choice. Instead he’s once again been manipulated by Wayne, this time at the encouragement of the locals and even Tom’s own dad. It’s a great end to a very funny two-parter.
In the pages of OiNK Wayne always reminds me of a younger version of Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye and team captain on Have I Got News For You. Interestingly however, when Tom’s strips became regular full-colour pages in Buster we found out Wayne is actually black, which was sadly a rare thing in our comics at the time. Speaking to Lew, he tells me he imagined Wayne as being black at some stage before the colour strips, however at one point OiNK gave him pink skin when someone at the office did the colouring.
Dead Fred written by Mark Rodgers, drawn by Wilkie Hadrian Vile written by Mark Rodgers, drawn by Ian Jackson Rubbish Man by David Haldane Blow Peter by Tony Husband
Here are some of the other highlights of the issue, with Dead Fred taking on a handy new hobby, in The Sekret Diary ov Hadrian Vile the young lad’s completely normal pastimes get him into trouble, Rubbish Man uses some of his memorable superpowers to great effect and in the strangely named Blow Peter co-editor Tony Husband takes aim at the very random things the programme would’ve built and encouraged their young viewers to copy.
On the front cover we were told there’s a “fantastic cut-out zeo-trope” inside. It’s a name that flew over my head as a kid but when I saw the page I instantly recognised the device used to produce basic animation. The fact it was billed as “fantastic” could only mean one thing, that this was going to be on Frank Sidebottom‘s page. I wasn’t wrong. Chris Sievey‘s imagination and ability to come up with unique ideas for his character’s pages never ceased to surprise.
I remember versions of this on children’s television at the time. The correct spelling is “zoetrope”, originally named when its inventor William E. Lincoln took the Greek words meaning ‘Wheel of Life’ to describe his new toy, which produced animated drawings before the days of film. As Frank explains, once assembled and spun the user looks through the holes, each one flicking by to show the frame on the opposite side, one by one. When spun quickly this gives the illusion of motion and it’s surprisingly good, as I found out when I built it recently.
With the zoetrope, a cut-out stage and finger puppets depicting Uncle Pigg, Snatcher Sam and Mary Lighthouse, as well as a DIY Harry the Head which involved cutting out his features and gluing them to a pink balloon, there wouldn’t be much left of this issue if we’d actually created everything included. I don’t remember doing any of them, or indeed any of the board games or other models which required cutting my precious OiNKs. I may not have stored them in big plastic tubs away from sunlight, but I didn’t cut any of them up! Well, apart from coupons for the merchandise, of course.
Always a great character with consistently funny strips, Jeremy Banx‘s Burp was hitting a stride about this time in OiNK’s run that would continue without faltering all the way to the end of the weeklies when he’d disappear from the comic. Between now and then he’d even get a few two-page strips and some stories so surreal they could make Jeremy’s other regular character, Mr Big Nose look positively sane (almost). This issue’s strip is a favourite of mine and shows just how out of control things can get in a Burp story.
My favourite part is the large panel showing our planet zooming through the cosmos, the speech balloons at various points in its trajectory conveying the speed at which we’re hurtling about, culminating in Burp’s brilliant line, “You’re brutal, you are!” This broke me. In an issue of OiNK it’s always going to be very difficult to point at a page and say it’s the funniest, but even though it’s a closely run race as always, this had me in stitches. It’s even signed upside down to match the final panel. Simply brilliant stuff.
Written by Tony Husband and drawn by Clive Collins, Maggie Pie Collector of Weird Things had been a semi-regular in the early issues of the comic but her most recent appearance before now was back in #14. She would only appear a few more times (twice more in the comic and once in the first annual) and given how the theme includes hobbies she just had to be present in this one. Not only did she get her usual (well, unusual) story page, she also presented us with this guide to stamp collecting.
There’s some special news in the middle of the comic
I particularly like the Penny White and the Latverian ‘Big Brother’. At ten-years-of-age I wasn’t really aware of any world events and had never been bitten by the stamp collecting bug, but enough of my friends collected them and I’d seen enough episodes of The A-Team freeing villages that I still found these funny.
There’s some special news in the middle of the comic. Throughout its life (and after) OiNK would produce a variety of holiday specials, books and special editions. The first of these was the 1987 Holiday Special and it went on sale along with this issue as the advert below by co-editor Patrick Gallagher announced.
This was really exciting as a child! I also have some very distinct memories of that particular edition, both from my childhood and from later on in life and I’ll share these with you when I review it in just seven days from now. But this wasn’t the only reason for pig pals to get excited and I’ll explain that right after our final highlight of the issue.
Drawn by Steve Gibson, Watch the Skies takes inspiration from the Highway Code’s road signs to create a symbols guide for airplane spotters everywhere. Reading just the first two had me laughing. This is the final interior contribution to the issue (the back page had a script to go with the finger puppets I mentioned earlier) and was just below the Next Issue promo, which is where the further exciting news could be found.
The next issue of OiNK is the birthday issue! That’s right, can you believe it’s already been almost a full year since this read through of the world’s greatest comic began? The issue marks the end of the comic’s first year rather than the beginning of the second as would be traditional (typical OiNK), and marks a year since the release of the preview issue. This might seem strange at first but remember the preview wasn’t a shrunk down, miniature sneak peek of what was to come, it was a full-sized issue and worthy of celebration.
But wow, a full year has passed already. There’s still plenty to look forward to over the next year-and-a-half of OiNK and next up is that Holiday Special on Monday 11th April 2022, followed swiftly by #26 on Monday 18th April. Extra rashers all round. See you all soon.
This review was due on 21st February, click here to find out about the delay. More catch-ups to come this week.
After all our characters became so loved up in the Valentine’s issue it’s time for them to face adventure, danger, fantasy quests and newly discovered Egyptian tombs in back gardens in Timperley. The 22nd issue of OiNK is the Magic and Fantasy Issue and kicks off with a gorgeous Andy Roper cover that ties in (sort of) to the first episode of The Spectacles of Doom inside. Not only that though, but this is that staple of 80s and 90s UK comics, a wraparound cover poster. Have a look.
So how does it only sort of tie in with the strip? Well, that figure on the front is clearly modelled on main character Prince Endor but he’s actually the dimwitted hero of the tale, whereas above he’s portrayed as a vicious butcher, complete with apron and sausages wrapped around his neck. That’s certainly not who he is, so I’m not at all sure why he’s been drawn as the baddie here. Maybe it’s just an example of another 80s thing we all knew very well, the evil twin! Yes, that’ll do, I’ll go with that.
The strip itself is the first of a short two-part mini-series written by one of OiNK’s creators/editors Tony Husband and drawn by Andy. Taking a shot at the fantasy adventure movies of the 80s which all seemed to involve epic journeys across dangerous, impossibly-named lands with very specific ways of dying around every corner, Tony’s script is full of originality and wit. I particularly like the solution to crossing the Valley of a Million jokes.
The Spectacles of Doom proved popular and returned for a longer five-part serial later and then again in a spectacle-arly illustrated final episode in the second (and last) OiNK Book. Both of these would be in colour and were just as much a treat for the eyes as they were for the funny bone. You can see an example of the art from the annual story in the obituary for the late and very, very great Andy.
Under a Weedy Willy strip a few pages later in the comic the remainder of the page is seemingly filled up with a few advertisements. There are the usual ones for stamp collecting and practical jokes which I’m sure readers of basically any comic from the mid-80s will remember, but something stuck out about the one next to them, something created by Patrick Gallagher.
Oh, that tin can! I can still remember seeing that tin can for the first time. I’m sure it took all of five minutes to put together but I found it so funny as a kid that I haven’t forgotten it. It’s strange the things that left a lasting impression on us from this comic. Sometimes the simplest ideas really are the best.
There’s one line from a particular strip which has been quoted more often than any other
Over the past several years I’ve had the pleasure of chatting away with fellow pig pals across social media, sharing memories as we reminisce about our OiNK comic collections which were lost to house moves or decluttering parents over the years. Thinking about those conversations there’s one line from a particular strip which has been quoted more often than any other. That line is in the following Mr. Big Nose strip by the incredibly talented Jeremy Banx. I’m sure you’ll be able to work out which line it is.
Every now and again in a string of comments an OiNK fan will randomly proclaim, “And the dolphin’s name was Keith” and everyone will know exactly what they’re referring to. I do remember laughing hysterically at the caption when I first read it way back in 1986 and even now as an adult, knowing it’s coming, it elicits childish giggles in me every single time. I also love how Jeremy has drawn the dolphin! One of my very favourite strips from all of OiNK’s issues and a fan favourite with many others it would seem. A lovely little random gem.
Elsewhere in this issue Pete and his Pimple visits a witch who concocts a rather dodgy solution to his problem, then perhaps a relative of her’s in one-off strip The Magic Forest second-guesses her own recipe list, and Nigel and Skrat the Two-Headed Rat makes a surprise reappearance to con some magic fans into handing over their money so they can chow down on their favourite food stuff.
Pete and his Pimple by Lew Stringer The Magic Forest written by Howard Osborn, drawn by Mike Green Nigel & Skrat by Noel Ford
Now, back at school a few friends became obsessed with fantasy role-playing games, playing with nothing more than dice and their imagination. I always wondered how they kept track of everything and what stopped them from cheating, but a few years later the board game HeroQuest came along and I saw first-hand how it all worked, albeit with a game board and actual player pieces. (Actually, now that I’m thinking about it I remember the Space Crusade board game in the 90s and coming up with a version of that which utilised the Barcode Battler! Do you remember that thing? Whoa, sorry, that just came back to me.)
Anyway, it would appear OiNK decided to have a little stab at its own version of one of these games with The Sword of Blatterlee. Played over two pages, it all kicks off with a quick scenario containing more strange names and a map of the castle you’re going to raid (one room now more sinister than it would’ve been at the time). Below that are the instructions for playing with dice and they’re just as straight forward and as easy to follow as I remember when my friends were trying to describe their game in the playground. Then it’s on to page two and the conclusion of your quest, so enjoy.
Of course it all has to end with a good (bad?) old pun, doesn’t it? I feel a bit guilty setting you up for that. But just a little. I asked co-editor Patrick Gallagher who created this when I spotted a tiny little “AW” behind our hero character, the initials unfamiliar to me. He’s not sure who the artist was (possibly a junior artist from Cosgrove Hall) but he’s almost certain Mark Rodgers wrote it. With that pun right at the end I’d have to agree.
From spoofing the games we now move on to having a giggle at the fans themselves, all in an affectionate way of course and a strip I’m sure my friends would’ve appreciated and found just as funny. Dice Maniac was created by Lew Stringer and only appeared in two issues of OiNK, but both were winners. The name (specifically the logo as seen below in an image from Comic Vine) was a parody of a short-lived 2000AD spin-off comic which only ran for five issues and had already been cancelled by this time.
Lew’s take focussed more on the fans of the dice-based role-playing games and young Frodo Johnson (funny use of the fantasy and the mundane) has taken his obsession of rolling dice to battle beasts and find treasures and brought it into his real life. No decision is made without a roll and every person or thing he encounters, no matter how ordinary, is transformed by his imagination into a quest to be undertaken or an enemy to defeat. Of course, every time he decides to use the dice it ends in disaster, but he’s never phased and I love that about him. Such a shame he would only appear in one later edition.
A double dose of David Haldane now, beginning with a quick trip to Zootown. The best episodes of these mini-strips were always the ones where the animals were dressed as we would be, with jobs or personal events taken straight from the human world, but with their animal traits providing the laughs. This is the perfect example and another classic funny strip.
David’s other highlight is one of the best pages of the whole issue. Conan the Barbarian as played by Arnold Schwarzenegger had been a massive hit in 1982, but between then and OiNK’s creation its sequel and attempted spin-off Red Sonja both flopped at the box office. Spoof movie sequels were some of the very best one-off strips in OiNK and David’s take on the genre is no exception.
Perhaps due to the original’s success and Arnie’s role still very much being in the public consciousness (or maybe inspired by the unsuccessful sequels) David has created the origin story for his own muscle-bound fantasy hero, Konan the Accountant. Action, adventure, thrills, spills and a twist ending. What’s not to love?
That final panel is just brilliant. All of that build up, all of that gorgeous grey-shaded extravagances to the story, all brushed aside for a plainly drawn office job and the whole narrative completely forgotten about with one hilariously written caption. Brilliant stuff.
We’re almost done for another issue of the world’s greatest comic and one lovely treat awaits. As someone who is fascinated with Ancient Egypt, last Halloween (#13) Banx’s The Curse of the Mummy really was a special one for me. Now it’s the turn of OiNK’s superstar in residence, Frank Sidebottom (aka Chris Sievey) to bring us a page of Pharaohs, pyramids and ancient tombs, all in his unique style. There’s a lot to love here for me personally, but also simply in the fun and imagination on show.
Frank wearing a burial mask had me sold from the start, but also the way it’s laid out, the writing and the colouring reminds me so much of the homemade comics my best friend and I would’ve created for each other back in primary school. (He created School Busters and The Battle-Oids, mine were called The Real Smokebusters and War-Bots… I wonder what inspired us.) Frank’s pages were unlike anything you’d find in any other comic. Period. Perfect for OiNK. My particular favourite moment here is how the name King Maurice Karmen reads just like another random name until we find out his brother’s first name.
Classic.
“And the dolphin’s name was Keith.”
Mr. Big Nose (Jeremy Banx)
That just about wraps up our trip into dangerous lands, ancient curses and medieval quests. Next, OiNK comes bang up to date* with the All-Electric Issue on Monday 7th March 2022. So that gives you time to recharge, before you lead yourself back here to power through more of the same shockingly good humour.
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