Tag Archives: Lew Stringer

OiNK! #47: iT’S WHAT’S ON THE iNSIDE THAT COUNTS

21 January 2023 Phil Boyce Leave a comment

So I told you this issue’s cover was the ugliest of the whole run. That doesn’t mean I didn’t like it! What we have below is Tony Husband’s Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins and another yellow background cover. After the first two great weekly covers by Ian Jackson and Lew Stringer the next three (of which this is the first) are rather basic, possibly a symptom of the increased schedule.

They all feature fan favourite characters which is always a good thing for already established pig pals but I’m not sure how well they’d do at bringing in new readers. Fortunately the covers return to more complex pieces of funny art in a few weeks and the artists (with the team no longer rushing to get them finished) will once again have time to turn out covers the likes of which we’ve been used to since OiNK began.

At the time of OiNK there was a certain teatime telly show which captivated everyone who watched it, despite it being a basic question and answer quiz. At ten-years-of-age I can’t remember knowing many of the answers the university students were asked but that didn’t matter, Bob Holness and that electronic Blockbusters game board made it, the whole family sitting together for half an hour. It appears Charlie Brooker was also a bit of a fan as he wrote a script for Lew Stringer’s Pete and his Pimple strip, the only time someone other than Lew wrote for the character.

I particularly like the little signs held up to excuse the caricature of Bob and the “convenient” way of not having to draw him at the end of the story. The only thing missing is that silly dance everyone did in their seats at the end of the Friday episodes. Uncle Pigg pops up to remind readers to send in their suggestions. There’d be shedloads of them and they’ll start to be used very soon and (apart from the occasional issue) all the way through to the end of OiNK.

“Naughty terrorists had taken some important top nobs hostage…”
Storm Farce, Mark Rodgers

In the 80s action figures became more complex as rival companies battled against each other and videogames for kids’ attention. They’d boast about everything from the level of articulation to the fact they had an elastic band inside to make them ‘punch’ when twisted. One of the most popular was G.I. Joe (or Action Force as it was called here until the end of the 80s) and I was a big fan of the comics as they ran as backups in my Transformers comics. When Hasbro took over the Action Force name in the UK in the early 80s and decided to use it to rebrand their G.I. Joe line IPC Magazines also lost the licence to Marvel UK.

IPC needed a replacement and Storm Force was co-created by legendary comics editor Barrie Tomlinson with Richard Burton (not that one) for the pages of Battle. In fact, you can check out early design sketches in the review of Barrie’s book. Barrie often said they’d have made a good toy range themselves and they were definitely designed to resemble such a line with a never-ending array of characters and their unique weaponry and add-ons. As such, they were perfect for a Mark Rodgers spoof in the sister comic.

As kids we’d obviously never think of the impracticalities of such attachments and that’s what made this so hilarious at the time, it was pointing out something ludicrous that was right in front of our young eyes. If you think about observational comedians who point out normal things to us that are actually stupid, it felt like that when I read this for the review. Eric ‘Wilkie’ Wilkinson‘s art is always gorgeous too, especially when he gets the chance to have a full-colour page.

The story is on the same page as the previous Disney parodies and has the same banner title at the top. Again, I think this may have been for new readers so they wouldn’t be expecting more of the same spoof each week. Seasoned pig pals didn’t need such explanations. It’s a brilliant parody and one I’m sure Barrie would approve of.

As if being eaten alive wasn’t bad enough…

A quick look at some highlights from other pages in the issue now, starting with The Sekret Diary ov Hadrian Vile (Aged 8 5/8 yearƨ) and he’s beginning to teach his new baby sister the important things in life, like crawling without being clumsy. The lengths he goes to are classic Hadrian and he gets up to the usual mischief, but it also shows that as far as his baby sister goes his heart is in the right place, which is sweet. Haldane’s Incredible Amazing Bizarre World is particularly funny for this fan of everything Ancient Egyptian and Frank Sidebottom meets Edwina Currie as she tagged along with the Smokebusters.

**Hadrian Vile** written by *Mark Rodgers*, drawn by *Ian Jackson*
David **Haldane‘s Incredible Amazing Bizarre World**
**Frank Sidebottom** by *Chris Sievey*

If you’d like to know more about the Smokebusters you can check out the previous issue for more on Frank’s trip and a special free edition of OiNK given away to schools in parts of England was also reviewed just a few days ago on the blog. That’s right, there was an extra issue of OiNK you may not have seen before. I didn’t know about it at the time either and only got my trotters on it for the review. So go check that out.

I’m not a fussy eater (stay with me here). I eat almost anything and try almost anything too. Except one thing. That one thing is oysters, I just can’t fathom how it can be pleasant swallowing a live slimy, salty little bit of sludge (you can tell I’ve never tried them) down my throat. I mean, the poor thing is still alive! Burp is a fan though and in this week’s strip we get to follow that aforementioned poor little oyster down his gullet. But as if being eaten alive wasn’t bad enough…

I think the phrase is, “Well that escalated quickly”. I find the expression on the oyster in the large panel on the left just hilarious, as is the stomach’s horrible realisation in the next. It seems stomach and myself share a similar view on the matter. My favourite Burp strips always involve his organs or gratuitous, over-the-top cartoon violence and this strip manages to have both. Although, I do wonder where his pet specimen from Uranus has got to, we haven’t seen them in months.

Something I’ve noticed in recent issues is how Marc Riley’s strips such as Harry the Head and When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth are no longer being written by him. He may still be drawing them but a range of different talent has been scripting his creations including Doctor Mooney He’s Completely Looney, written here by Mike Taylor, one of OiNK’s contributing artists who has drawn everything from a GBH Christmas Catalogue to Ye Ballad of Snatcher Sam and the advert for the OiNK sweatshirt.

An endless stream of visual “Doctor, Doctor” jokes, the gags in this strip remained fresh throughout and perhaps this was thanks to the now ever-changing scripting roster. Apart from the occasional absence the good doctor would be a regular in OiNK all the way to the end and I can’t remember if Marc would ever write any more. His Harry the Head strip, once a full-page main character would remain a mini-strip from now on so perhaps Marc’s music and DJ work was taking up more of his time.

The back page calendar of this issue caused some controversy at the time, although not on the scale of Janice and John from #7 which resulted in a complaint to the Press Council. I can’t even remember where I read that this next page caused a bit of backlash from certain quarters, it could be from a press clipping in a later issue so I’ll look out for it. But what could Patrick Gallagher’s piggy-themed sports calendar do to upset people? I really don’t know, it’s only pigs playing football with a butcher’s head after all.

As I’ve mentioned before I never cut up my OiNKs. The Tom Thug Christmas Angel was finally made when I was in my 30s and the Frank Sidebottom zoetrope just last year for the blog, so I definitely never cut out an entire page to put these calendars up on the wall. I never even cut out the coupon to give to the newsagent, I just asked my shop to reserve it for me. However, those coupons did give co-editor Patrick Gallagher a chance to give some drawings from an old book of Victorian illustrations (previously ransacked for #23) a new lease of life and they became a series of cartoons in their own right.

That’s us for another issue and so far I’m enjoying reading OiNK and writing about it every single week, even if the comic hasn’t quite settled into its new format yet. This’ll come over the next few weeks and I’m really looking forward to that. So should you. In the meantime remember to come back next Saturday 28th January 2023 for #48 of the world’s funniest comic.

SMOKEBUSTER SPECiAL < > iSSUE 48

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OiNK! SMOKEBUSTER SPECiAL!: RARE FUN

18 January 2023 Phil Boyce Leave a comment

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! #46: BACK SO SOON?

14 January 2023 Phil Boyce Leave a comment

Lew Stringer brings us his second OiNK cover (#33‘s was the first of his career) which perfectly sums up the very different and eclectic range of characters the comic had compared to its peers, even if Roger Rental He’s Completely Mental on the bottom row isn’t inside and wouldn’t actually return until #63. The first of three covers with a yellow background and a banner coaxing in new readers to the now-weekly OiNK, it’s by far the best of the three.

Inside there’s a definite feeling of a more traditional comic creeping in. Not only are strips of different lengths all corralled together like last time, but all of the returning characters are on the same pages. This isn’t very OiNK-like at all, so thankfully it’s only a temporary situation as far as I can remember, perhaps because of the sudden increase in workload for the editorial team. Thankfully, after a handful of weekly issues OiNK does return to its much more randomly generated feel.

For these handful of issues The Slugs would be the first strip readers would come across after Grunts. The punk band, written by co-editor Tony Husband and drawn by Les Barton (‘Lezz’) were the perfect introduction for new readers, with the scratchy art and the punk mentality behind OiNK itself on the page for all to see. However this story is a little different, while still perfectly suitable for the characters and the set up.

Tony Husband was making a clear point to young minds through anarchy and comedy

OiNK had its fair share of critics at the time who said it was a bad influence on kids, but they clearly never actually read the comic because it often got serious messages across using humour children would appreciate. Tony is an absolute gent in real life, a man whose passion for fairness to all creatures, human and otherwise, is clear on social media posts. With this Slugs strip back in 1988 he was making a clear point to young minds through anarchy and comedy. Brilliant stuff.

There’s another specific message OiNK liked to get across to its pig pals on occasion, one which resulted in an extra edition outside of the regular comic and you’ll be able to check that out in just a few days, but I’ll get to that in a bit. First up, one of the very best Sekret Diary ov Hadrian Vile – Aged 8 5/8 (yearƨ) strips out of the whole run. For the most part the family are pushed into the background and we get to focus on Hadrian himself innocently playing in the snow.

Another little reference to Stinky Exton there, namely OiNK contributing writer Graham Exton who was great friends with writer (and co-editor) Mark Rodgers. Never has a creation married writer and artist together as perfectly as Hadrian Vile, with Ian Jackson’s unique style capturing the spirit of the character and humour so sublimely. I can also sympathise with being wrapped up like a burrito by parents at that age, although thankfully it never produced this end result.

The anonymous backside on the cover wasn’t the only bare bum to be brandished by Lew Stringer as none other than Pete Throb would bare all in his strip too. With only hours until the school disco Pete finds himself at a loss as to what to do with his enormous pimple in such a short period of time. He can’t exactly dance with anyone with this third wheel of a zit. One daft idea lands him in trouble, as per usual, but this leads on to an even more unexpected outcome.

It’s all innocent enough, yet OiNK was the only kid’s comic you’d have seen anything like this inside, never mind on the cover. I also like the colouring used here, just the flesh colours which highlights the pimple and a yellow for the balloons, which I originally thought was to match the colour of the pus, but this turns out to be a sickly, gross brown colour. Nice. Also, that second subtle pun surprised me, I thought using the word “shower” to describe a group of people (usually daft people) was a Northern Ireland thing!

Lew also writes the continuing adventure of Sherlock Hams in The Hog of the Baskervilles, jam-packed with groan-worthy puns and gags. Other highlights include Uncle Pigg finally answering the query I also had when I read #39’s Hadrian Vile strip, but thankfully Ian wasn’t fired for getting into a jam (sorry). David Haldane had occasionally given us some strange factoids from around the world (also in #39 as chance would have it) and these are now a regular feature. Also, Horace (Ugly Face) Watkin’s ongoing soap-like strip ends on a cliffhanger that would make even Emmerdale jealous.

**Sherlock Hams** written by *Lew Stringer*, drawn by *Ron Tiner*
**Grunts** compiled by *Patrick Gallagher*
*David* **Haldane’s Incredible Amazing Bizarre World**
**Horace Watkins** by *Tony Husband*

Back in #32’s review one of the stand out moments was when Jeremy Banx’s smelly alien Burp, forever trying to befriend humans on his strange new home, gave life to a child’s teddy bear believing he was saving a life rather than creating a new one. Of course it didn’t have a happy ending, not when there was opportunity to have a hilarious and horrific one as the girl proceeded to play with the newly sentient bear in the most childlike of ways.

So the strip had finished with the bear screaming as limbs were torn off, blood spurting everywhere and threats of burying him in the garden were made. I mentioned back then it wasn’t the last we’d see of this character. I’m delighted to say the time has come for him to contact Burp again in a desperate attempt to escape the torture of being treated like any other toy. Can Burp come to the rescue in time?

That poor bear. But it wouldn’t have been the same if he’d been rescued and it makes for a brilliantly funny and surely final appearance? (Apparently not.) The ‘Little Obedient Woman About the House Play Set’ is also a nice dig at the clichéd stereotyping of boys’ and girls’ toys which was so prevalent back then, something that’s thankfully improved since. Just this past Christmas my friend’s four-year-old boy was ecstatic when Santa Claus brought him the toy kitchen he’d asked for, so things have definitely improved.

OiNK’s three co-editors (and Chris Sievey inside Frank Sidebottom) all smoked in the 80s but they were keen to ensure the young readers didn’t make the same mistake

Something else that’s improved since the 80s is the abundance of smoke we’re subjected to. At the time my parents both smoked (they stopped about twenty years ago now) and secretly so did all of my siblings. I always hated it and never started, but growing up with it I guess I got used to it whether I liked it or not. Thinking back it really was everywhere and even as a child I remember being in restaurants or family bars on special occasions and the air was thick with it. I couldn’t cope with that these days!

Thankfully, when I was in my 20s the introduction of the smoking ban across Europe soon made its way here and overnight things improved dramatically. So much so that it’s quite rare for me to see anyone smoking these days (because of this I can definitely smell them before I see them). Despite the fact that OiNK’s three co-editors (and Chris Sievey inside Frank Sidebottom) all smoked in the 80s they were keen to ensure the young readers didn’t make the same mistake.

These photos were taken at the end of a day meeting some pig pals to promote an anti-smoking message, something the editors had done with the release of a very special free edition of the comic, the OiNK Smokebuster Special. This was given away to schools in the north of England but unfortunately was never distributed further afield despite its success (although this was Fleetway’s fault, not OiNK’s, read the review to find out more). As such, it’s obviously a rare issue today and was incredibly difficult to get a hold of.

I say “was” because I finally got my trotters on it last year. I wasn’t even aware of it until a handful of years ago and have yet to read it, saving it for the review. That time has finally come and with this page above as my cue I’ll now be reading the special 16-page OiNK before the next regular weekly issue, so watch out for it on the blog in a few days. But first up, with the themes gone so too were the enjoyable Next Issue promos. However, in their place came a series of brilliant newsagent coupons under the banner of ‘Great Moments in History’ by co-editor Patrick Gallagher.

I don’t know of anyone who actually had to use these, we simply requested our reservations at the shop. While other comics I collected such as Marvel UK’s Transformers and The Real Ghostbusters would just reprint the same coupon every issue, OiNK used it as a chance to get one more laugh out of us. There are some brilliant ones to come so I intend to show them all.

Right, well there we go. Our second weekly OiNK done and dusted. The next couple of issues would keep to the yellow theme on the cover as mentioned above but next week’s is horrible. I must warn you, it really is one of the ugliest comics covers you’re ever likely to see. You’ll have to wait until Saturday 21st January 2023 (oh pipe down, it’s only seven days away) to see what I mean, but before then check back here on Wednesday 18th for the review of the OiNK Smokebuster Special!

iSSUE 45 < > SMOKEBUSTER SPECiAL

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OiNK/TRANSFORMERS CROSSOVERS?

1 January 2023 Phil Boyce Leave a comment

“What?!”, I hear you exclaim. “Why didn’t I hear of this before now?” Indeed, a crossover between two comics is always a big deal, but between an action and a humour comic belonging to two different publishers? That’s unheard of. However, this did actually happened. Twice! Well, sort of. Both times were thanks to the same person, Tom Thug’s creator Lew Stringer.

#94 cover by *Lee Sullivan*
#228 cover by *Jeff Anderson*

Back in the 80s it seemed like nearly every comic I picked up had a Lew humour strip inside. Whether in funny comics themselves or in the likes of Transformers, Action Force (G.I. Joe), Marvel Secret Wars or early issues of The Real Ghostbusters. In Transformers, Lew’s work first appeared in #15 in April 1995 and he’d end up contributing to every single issue until the very end, #332 in January 1992!

First up was Robo Capers and, while there were some regular characters, for the most part it was made up of random little gags about the future of automation and robotics, a hot topic in the 80s. (Early issues of The Transformers even had news articles about the topic.) While pig pals were enjoying OiNK’s first Hogmanay issue from IPC Magazines at the end of ’86 (#18), Marvel UK‘s The Transformers #94 was hitting shelves. In this issue a suitably New Year-themed strip quite literally rang in 1987 to finish off the issue. Here it is to enjoy, but take your time and savour the little details.

Did you spot him? In the last panel below the big reveal, on top of the letterbox. Have a look. Yep, that’s Satan the Cat, none other than Tom Thug’s little kitty! So does this mean the strip was set in OiNKtown to keep it canon? No, it’s just a daft comic strip, you silly person. You didn’t really expect a full blown crossover with the Robots in Disguise, did you? This is OiNK. You should know better by now.

Lew has shared this post on his own blog and adds, “Making an unofficial guest appearance in the strip is Tom Thug’s cat Satan from IPC’s OiNK comic (sitting on the postbox) and in the corner, it’s Loose Brayne, Brickman himself holding the sign. All part of the Lewniverse! The shop sign refers to Marvel editors Richard Starkings and John Tomlinson who sometimes did the colour separations for the strip. (All of my Marvel strips were coloured by the staff.) I’ve forgotten who ‘Hindmarsh’ was, so apologies for that.”

No less than two OiNK guest stars hidden away within the pages of another publisher’s comic

When Action Force was cancelled after 50 weekly issues it merged into Transformers and brought Combat Colin with it, where he stayed right to the finale. In recent years Lew has started to publish collected editions of Colin’s misadventures (look out for reviews of them soon) and they’re just as funny as they ever were, and in a later edition of Transformers and Action Force (#228) there’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him cameo from a certain member of Satan’s family.

I must’ve missed him in that second panel at the time (I began collecting Transformers from #192 originally so I never saw Satan) because it was only while reading this epic comic for the blog’s Instagram in real time over more than seven years that I spotted him. I don’t know how I didn’t see him as a kid but as an adult I jumped and pointed at him, laughing at how Lew likes to link together all of his characters with cameos like this.

Well there you go, no less than two OiNK guest stars hidden away within the pages of another publisher’s action comic. I think that would make Uncle Pigg very happy indeed, OiNK’s influence reaching out beyond its own boundaries even after it was gone in the case of Tom, who of course was a regular in Buster by that stage. (Although, our esteemed editor will probably be looking to collect fees for these appearances!)

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CHRiSTMAS 2022

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OiNK! #44: END OF AN ERA

26 December 2022 Phil Boyce Leave a comment

Happy New Year to one and all from David Haldane‘s Zootown! Wait, what? That can’t be right, it’s still Boxing Day! Actually, this second Hogmanay issue of OiNK was released even earlier, before Santa came to visit all of us pig pals. Boxing Day was the official date on the cover but with publishers closed for the holidays (and the shops themselves closing their doors for more than one day back then) comics and magazines are released earlier than normal over the festive period. I received my subscriber copy of Edge’s January issue weeks ago!

As such, this OiNK came out during the week before Christmas. I’ve no way of telling which day I received it in 1987 and I’m just going to stick with the cover date on this occasion, so while you recover from a day of eating and prepare for another, put your feet up, pop the paper hat back on your head and have a giggle with some highlights from OiNK #44, our last fortnightly issue.

I personally didn’t read this until Boxing Day as a child, although The Slugs finally making the cover (drawn as ever chaotically by Les ‘Lezz’ Barton) was very tempting. But even back then I wanted to wait until I’d read my OiNK! Book 1988 first. In fact, Boxing Day that year brings back many happy memories of sitting down and reading the annual cover-to-cover after dipping in and out over the course of Christmas Day, then in bed that night finally grabbing this issue.

For young me the highlight wasn’t the theme, the festivities and the crazy parties our characters got involved in, instead it was all about the future of the comic, the big change I eluded to in #39’s review after Nipper, the last comic in OiNK’s sales group was cancelled. Given publisher Fleetway’s rule that if a whole group’s total sales weren’t up to par then every title in it would be cancelled, would OiNK’s own impressive sales possibly save it from cancellation? Uncle Pigg had some news for Mary Lighthouse (critic) on this front, as written by Mark Rodgers and drawn by Ian Jackson.

So while the other titles had been canned, and OiNK’s own sales may not have been in the same league as Buster or Whizzer and Chips, as an independently produced comic fortnightly sales of 100,000 weren’t to be sniffed at. But Fleetway (and retailers) wanted more. Doubling the amount of issues equals doubling the sales, right? Much hype had been made of the comic’s transition to a weekly in recent issues and I’ve included a couple of examples in the posts for #41 and #43.

I can remember the excitement of this moment after enjoying the Christmas issue and the book, the fact it was now going to come out every single week was almost too much for my young mind to handle! The price decreasing by 5p softened the blow for parents somewhat too. We were unaware of certain changes to be made to the physical comic and its contents but for now let’s enjoy the final issue in my own Golden Age of OiNK and the return of the increasingly shocking Butcher Watch.

Given what would come from Jeremy Banx in a new mini-series in the weekly OiNK this dark strip acts almost like a precursor, reminding us just how twisted the evil butcher Jimmy ‘The Cleaver’ Smith really was. Have to give him points for imagination though. This would come to the fore with Jimmy as a regular character for at least some of the weekly issues. I was engrossed as a kid and now as an adult I find it all deliciously funny in a most ridiculous way.

Let’s take a look at some other highlights of our last 32-page issue, shall we? After joining OiNK in #15 Psycho Gran has racked up quite the list of examples of being a sweet but naughty (to say the least) old dear. Surely she couldn’t have been that bad? David Leach sets the record straight this issue. The Tale of Wee Jimmy Riddle tells us a horror story about a phantom haggis and on the Grunts page an old random line in a Diary ov Hadrian Vile from #12 gets picked up on by a reader following recent events.

**Psycho Gran** by *David Leach*
**Jimmy Riddle** written by *Vaughan Brunt*, drawn by *Mitch*
**Grunts** compiled by *Patrick Gallagher*

Tom Thug and Pete and his Pimple were two of the comic’s strips that would make their way into the pages of Buster by the end of 1988 and when OiNK goes weekly they’d permanently be full-page stories, rather than surprising us every issue with strips of various lengths which I have preferred. With the more random nature we were sometimes treated to lengthy stories with a great pay off, sometimes a quick gag. This next one falls somewhere in between.

So long Mr Big Nose, it’s been funny, surreal, confusing and memorable in equal measure

Now that I’ve read this I have clear memories of giggling away at it on at least one of the many occasions I read and reread my OiNKs back then. Lew Stringer always said the whole point of Tom was for there to be a strip where a bully (and the usual intelligence level of a bully) was the butt of the joke every single issue. I don’t think there’s any better example than this one right here.

Another character who would pop up in strips of various length was Barrington Bosh, He’s Incredibly Posh who was always drawn by Ian Knox and scripted by a variety of writers. This time it’s Keith Forrest who uses Barrington’s posh accent to great effect here. Small, simple but brilliantly crafted, the teeny tiny small strips were always a joy in OiNK and pretty much guaranteed to raise a laugh, as well as breaking up the larger contributions to each issue.

Moving on, he’s entertained us ever since #3, introduced us to surreal humour, was never predictable and of course brought us the dolphin named Keith. Jeremy Banx’s Mr Big Nose was about as unique as you could ever get in a children’s comic and is one of the most fondly remembered characters from OiNK as a whole. I’ve always said a collection of his strips would make for one of the funniest books you could read, even now 35 years later. That makes the fact this is his final issue all the more sad.

He wouldn’t even pop up in any special or annual, this is it, the final Mr Big Nose. The weekly comic would have fewer pages and Jeremy would continue with Burp and that aforementioned mini-series featuring Jimmy. I originally thought perhaps the weekly comic was aiming at a younger audience (there’d be promotional crossover strips in Buster and Whizzer and Chips) and the surreal humour of Mr Big Nose wouldn’t be a good fit, but that Cleaver series is very dark indeed so it can’t have been that.

But at least he goes out in style.

Explain that one! Of course, the best of his strips defied explanation and, while I’m saddened to know I won’t be reading any more of his wonderful surrealism, this is the perfect example to end on. That final line could almost be taken as a little sign off. With space at a premium in the weekly and Jeremy already committed to two full pages it just boiled down to something having to give and Mr Big Nose stepping aside to make way for other strips. So long dear friend, it’s been funny, surreal, confusing and memorable in equal measure.

To end on, a little nursery rhyme. Innocent little stories for kids. Nothing could possibly be twisted with these, surely? The Rotten Rhymes series periodically popped up throughout OiNK’s run and proved nothing was sacred. Many of these quick little rhymes (often ending by tossing away the need to rhyme at all) have proven surprisingly memorable. How many have pig pals recited in the years since? Here’s the latest in the series and the first one by Charlie Brooker.

Well that’s it. Not only is this the end of the issue, it’s also the end of the only year in which we had regular OiNKs from beginning to end, it’s the end of it in its original form and it’s the end of what I called OiNK’s Golden Age. That’s not to say what’s to come isn’t great of course! It takes a while for the comic to settle into the new weekly version of itself (same when it turns monthly later next year) but when it did it was easily the best weekly out there.

It’s just that this period of time, between #36 and this one and including The OiNK! Book 1988, were just so good they could each be listed as examples of the very best OiNK had to offer. If all issues were ranked I think these would all be at the top of that list, and we got to enjoy them in one glorious chunk, one after the other. I’ve had a fantastic time reliving these and, while there are changes ahead, we’re still going to be getting weekly OiNK reviews for the first five months of the new year.

More OiNK is always good, right? Of course it is, as illustrated by co-editor Patrick Gallagher‘s back page here.