Jamie Smart | OiNK Blog

If you happen to be in a certain English town today then you could always pop along to the Maccpow comic con where there’s a preview screening of the OiNK documentary tonight. But what if you don’t happen to live in Macclesfield? Don’t fret, the OiNK Blog has got you covered, and will throughout the year. You see, tonight is very much a preview screening, a first edit if you like, to gauge audience reaction of the film so far.

Very kindly, filmmakers Claire Bend and Rob Reed of Bread and Butter Films sent me a copy a couple of days ago so that I could give all of you lovely pig pals something of a preview too. Obviously, I don’t want to spoil anything for when you finally get to see the finished product but I can certainly give you a tease of how the film stands so far.

Back in May I interviewed Claire and Rob about Piggs, Puns and Plops (the new name for the film) and was able to reveal those who had been interviewed so far. They included the likes of OiNK’s co-creator and co-editor Patrick Gallagher, Tom Thug’s and Pete and his Pimple’s Lew Stringer, Psycho Gran’s David Leach, and Helen Jones, Mark Rodgers’ wife and star of some hilarious photo stories in the comic. Oh, and me. Now with an official title no less!

There were others I mentioned too and now I can reveal who else they’ve spoken to in this preview cut.

The big news is that the brilliant TV writer and producer Charlie Brooker has been interviewed! Creator of the hilarious Screen Wipe and the compelling Black Mirror, and known to OiNK readers as the mastermind behind The Swinelight Zone, Transmogrifying Tracey and The Adventures of Death among many others. I’ll admit it was a very surreal moment in my life to watch myself share screen time with Charlie bloomin’ Brooker!

I remember several years ago being told that Charlie was embarrassed with his art on OiNK but that was soon dispelled as rubbish and a misquote from when he’d looked back at his first published work. This documentary will put that to bed permanently. His obvious love of OiNK and the three editors who gave him a chance is clear and he tells a great story about how he originally got hired.

Jeremy Banx has also been added to the mix and regales us about Burp the Smelly Alien From Outer Space, a huge fan favourite. I’ll admit this (somehow) was the first time I’d seen Jeremy’s face beyond his childhood photos and that shocked me. I mean the fact this was the first time, I wasn’t shocked by his face! OiNK was such a silly and fun comic we don’t think of the challenges faced by those creating it and this makes Jeremy’s piece particularly fascinating.

If you think you know everything about OiNK’s story already you’ll be very happy to know you’re wrong. Take it from the guy who has written hundreds of thousands of words on the subject. This is thanks not only to the new additions but also seeing more of the interviews with everyone else. For example, Helen brings a certain detail to the story of Mark and Patrick meeting in a library that I hadn’t heard before and I laughed out loud upon hearing it!

The film also includes two very favourite cartoonists of mine who grew up with OiNK, the crazy contents of which very much influenced their own work, namely award-winning graphic novelist Jamie Smart and Beano cartoonist Laura Howell. Between Laura’s continuing enthusiasm for OiNK decades later and Jamie breaking into spontaneous laughter while reminiscing about it, they’re brilliant additions to the film.

Patrick Gallagher is as passionate about OiNK as he was when he and Mark and Tony were creating it and I could listen to him talk about it all day. Lew Stringer tells us about the creation of one of OiNK’s most popular characters, David Leach wears a hat you’ll all want while describing his big break, Steve McGarry laughs about his most famous OiNK cover and there’s even a nice section about a certain piece of merchandise that’s featured heavily on the blog too. This is all just the tip of the melting-in-this-heat iceberg! Quite a feat for a short film.

There’s so much in this I want to tell you about, so much I want to add to various OiNK posts on the blog, but I’ll not be doing any such thing until you’ve all seen it. When will that be? Well, Claire and Rob have made it very clear they’re nowhere near finished yet. Originally, it was meant to last 10-15 minutes but so far it’s running to 25 and they’ve a lot more they want to add, including more people to interview.

Some have already agreed to take part but I can’t mention any names as yet. There’s also the matter of funding to try to make a longer film and get it distributed and a lot (a lot!) of footage already filmed that’s had to be cut at this point which may be released as fun extras. There are plans to screen it at more comic cons and film fests as it develops and beyond that, when it’s finally finished, plans to release it to your sties.

As always, the OiNK Blog will be the place to find out about all future developments so make sure you follow along by subscribing via RSS or email, or follow along on the blog’s socials. Needless to say, your favourite childhood comic is in very safe hands with Claire and Rob.

(And thanks to both of them for the loveliest surprise addition to one of the end credits.)

iNTERViEW WiTH CLAiRE AND ROB

OiNK MEDiA COVERAGE MENU

MAiN OiNK MENU

OiNK’S 40th ANNiVERSARY

The name Tom Paterson is synonymous with British humour comics, his madcap style appearing in an eclectic array of titles such as Beano, Shiver and Shake, Buster and many more. The most famous characters he has drawn include the fondly remembered Sweeney Toddler, Calamity James, Bananaman and Buster himself. There’s one other that will most likely have been forgotten by many though, namely The Wet Blanket.

By the time I started collecting OiNK I’d missed this strip but I’d already been introduced to Tom’s work. While I’d found my brother’s Beano wasn’t really to my taste at the time (I was the perfect target audience for OiNK), there was one strip which most definitely was. I remember pouring over all of the funny background details in Calamity James, the incidental randomness in the visual gags often being funnier than the story itself. This was the genius of Tom’s style and now here’s The Tom Paterson Collection, a hardback collection full of his work available from Rebellion and their Treasury of British Comics range.

This is just one of several chapter title pages showing which comics the following strips were pulled from and as you can see our favourite comic is represented here too. In fact, upon its release this book was the first time OiNK reprints had been made available for purchase ever since its final special in 1990. Included here are two double-page spreads from early issues, Testing Time and The Wet Blanket himself, who even makes an appearance on that fantastic cover drawn by Tom.

A kind of super villain, Wet Blanket was a “miserable so-and-so” whose sole job was to ruin everyone else’s fun. He would’ve made for a brilliant regular character but alas that wasn’t to be and this was his sole appearance. This makes it all the more surprising that he’d appear on the front cover but I think he deserves a place there, the strip is that good! Clearly Tom still has a soft spot for him after all these years.

OiNK co-creator Patrick Gallagher told me they would’ve loved to have had Tom on board as a regular but his work load was just too large to accommodate them. With spreads such as Testing Time above, taken from #1 of OiNK it’s such a shame he couldn’t have let his imagination run wild on a regular basis for Uncle Pigg. So the question is, with only four pages from OiNK in here, will this 200-page book appeal to pig pals? The answer is a resounding yes!

On one of the opening pages is the list of writers including Tom, Mark Bennington whose Buster strips I’ve covered before on the blog and most excitedly regular OiNK contributor Graham Exton and OiNK co-creator/co-editor Mark Rodgers. With these names you know you’re in for a treat. The comics featured alongside OiNK are Buster, School Fun, Nipper, Jackpot, Shiver & Shake, Whizzer and Chips, Whoopee, Wow! and Cor!, as well as some of Tom’s own personal strips and unpublished works.

Also included are little pieces by professional fans of Tom’s including Lew Stringer and Graham and friend of the blog Jamie Smart (Bunny Vs Monkey, Looshkin, Wubble) who has always said OiNK was a big inspiration to him, as was Tom.

Picking out highlights for this review was never going to be easy!

A strip riffing on James Bond and featuring a comical shark was always going to be put to the top of the list for me, as was this Captain Crucial strip, a character I’d never heard of before. That “The Craziest Characters Are Always in Buster Comic” banner along the top is proving true here and it’s used several times for different strips, namely Lucy Lastic, Sportsfright, Thingummy-blob, Coronation Stream, Monty’s Mutant Mutt, Teenage Mutant Turnips and more.

My favourite Buster strips in this book are dated around 1989 onwards and they’re enough to make me regret not placing a regular order when OiNK merged into the comic. If only I’d stuck with it after that first and only issue I bought back in 1988 I’d have been treated to a bloody funny comic if these strips by Tom are anything to go by. Oh well, that just makes this book all the better as I’m getting a snapshot of the very best from that comic in one volume.

Just one look at the contents page will back that up. As well as those already mentioned there’s Crowjack, Felix the Pussycat, Grimly Fiendish, School Belle, Watford Gapp who is another new one to me as well as being a brilliantly funny rapping strip, and many more including a favourite of mine from the days of the Big Comic Books, Strange Hill. I found the Ghost Train here particularly funny and there’s that old staple which I think Tom and Lew drew better than anyone: the slap-up feed! Classic.

It wouldn’t be a Tom Paterson book without a certain little baby boy causing all manner of hell for his poor parents, so I’m very happy to say there’s a sizeable chunk of Sweeny Toddler here. Including content from both Whoopee and Whizzer & Chips, a total of 30 pages are given over to the miniature terror and every single one of them is a classic. Of course, if you know me you’ll know I’m a sucker for a Christmas comic so naturally I was overjoyed to see this full-page panel when I turned a page.

I also laughed out loud (genuinely) when I saw a certain trademark of Tom’s used as a substitute for a Christmas stocking. In fact, I wonder just how many smelly socks there are in this book? These 30 pages of Sweeny Toddler are worth the price of admission alone. Reading them now I’m beginning to think the same could’ve been said of those other 80s comics too. Even though OiNK was the only one that seemed to speak to my sense of humour, these strips by Tom were all hidden gems to me, and I’d happily have spent more of my pocket money on some of those comics at the time if I’d known just how good his contributions were.

Of course Rebellion would include this classic spoof Judge Dredd cover and strip and that wasn’t the only time Sweeny took on a different persona for a good ol’ parody. However, changing the entire cover Whoopee logo included for that 2000AD riff was inspired! I said it was difficult to pick highlights but that’s definitely one of them and there are 200 pages of that sort of thing in total. UPDATE: Check out the comment OiNK writer Graham Exton left on this post for a little more info on this piece of comics history!

The book is £14.99 and worth every single penny. In fact, it feels like a bargain to me at that price. There’s also an exclusive cover based on that Whoppee one when purchased through the Treasury of British Comics online shop. Not since The OiNK! Book 1988 have I enjoyed, and laughed as hard with, a humour comics book this much and since that OiNK tome remains my very favourite to this day, I hope that shows how much high regard I have for The Tom Paterson Collection.

Available pretty much everywhere, this would make a fantastic Christmas present for any humour comics fan, pig pals included.

To see one more mini-strip by Tom from that aforementioned OiNK! Book 1988 you can check out its review.

OiNK REPRiNTS MENU

MAiN OiNK MENU

CHRiSTMAS 2023