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Annuals, Christmas, OiNK Comic Reviews

THE OiNK! BOOK 1988: PiGGiN’ PERFECTiON!

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How many of you can remember coming downstairs on Christmas morning and seeing this cheery face staring back at you? I’d been giddy at getting my hands on this ever since I saw it in my local newsagents a few months previous. It really stood out with its glossy soft cover in the sea of cardboard hardbacks. Inside, all 80 interior pages are made of a thick, high quality stock, giving the book a heavy, expensive feel. Co-editor Patrick Gallagher tells me, “The higher-quality paper stock of the book was the idea of Bob Paynter at Fleetway. Bob was completely on our wavelength and knew it would appeal. The floppy glossy cover and back also seemed to really suit the enlarged shots of the plasticine pig face and bottom models Ian Jackson made by capturing the detail so well.”

UPDATE: I’ve since spoken with Ian (some three years later) and the cover wasn’t made by him! You can read more about this and see the original rear cover in a special post of when I chatted to photographer Ian Tilton.

Before this I’d read some of my brother’s Beano annuals but to my young mind they felt just like regular stories but with bigger panels to fill more pages. But The OiNK! Book 1988 was, as ever, different. This first book packed in as much as it possibly could to every single page. As a result, it may have had roughly 30 pages less than its contemporaries but it had so much more in there to read and enjoy. It all began with that famous cover, especially when you flipped it over but we’ll get to that later. While it didn’t really sink in as a kid, that claim on the bottom right is bold and of course completely correct. Inside, a special bookend of Uncle Pigg and Mary Lighthouse introduced that team to readers.

This was innovative for a time when signatures in humour comics were rare, but OiNK’s young readers knew the names of their favourite cartoonists thanks to its creators Patrick Gallagher, Mark Rodgers and Tony Husband and their wish to shakes things up. As an adult I can’t help but look at this page in wonderment at the list of talent involved. It really was a selection of Britain’s best and it was all for us kids. We were spoiled. I also love how the chiselled words work their way around the characters and speech balloons, which makes zero sense to the chiseler!

It’s a wonderfully varied read, containing strips from our favourite regulars, some returning stars of early issues, spoofs of those other annuals I mentioned, puzzles (not filler here but typical OiNK-style funnies) and even letters and drawings from readers, something annuals just never included. So how on Earth am I going to choose a few highlights? There’s just too much brilliance on offer. It’s been painstaking but I hope I can do it justice with this selection.

This is one of my most memorable pages, with Marc Riley as the not-at-all inconspicuous burglar, Snatcher Sam in GBH’s Book Club, a take on those book and video clubs that were so popular in the 80s and 90s. Magazines and comics were filled with them, promising cheap titles to begin with as you sign yourself up to buying a certain amount at full price over a year. I was a member of the Britannia Video Club, remember them? That’s why I loved this so much, along with the usual over-the-top nature of the GBH madverts and just look at all those book covers they’ve created for the photograph. Now, 35 years later it’s the effort put into these daft pages that I really appreciate.

Released for Christmas 1987, this was the year I would turn ten-years-old in the festive season and I was hearing a lot of rumours in the playground about Santa Claus. Thankfully I soon found out they were just rumours when he left my book under my parents’ wardrobe before Christmas because demand for it was so high and he didn’t want to disappoint me. The rumours of his existence were conclusively put to bed with a script by Lew Stringer that’s spectacularly brought to the page by 2000AD stalwart Kevin O’Neill, who we sadly said goodbye to earlier this year. There’s more to The Truth About Santa than we probably wanted to know as ten-year-olds.

There’s an image that’ll stay with you. Or haunt you. I remember this being the strip any friends who read this book at the time seemed to laugh at the most. I may have been the only one of my closest friends who collected OiNK but they all enjoyed reading my issues and in particular this book. In fact, in the year 2000 when I decided to return to college at the age of 23 the book ended up shared around that class too. I can’t remember how it came up in conversation originally, but I dug it out from my cupboard and it made its way around most of my fellow media students, each one of which found it just as hilarious as I had.

To this day it’s still one of my favourite books (of any type) of all time and definitely my favourite from childhood. In fact this is my original copy from back then, only one of three OiNKs that survived various clear-outs (by my dad) and moving out years later. Its timeless comedy is a testament to the talent it boasted about on the cover. Just like the regular comic it sets itself apart from other annuals. While they’d have had huge multi-page versions of their regular strips, here for the most part OiNK kept them to the size they’d normally be, meaning there was a hell of a lot more of them packed in.

Annuals are created far in advance of their release dates so when this one was being put together the ever fantastic Tom Paterson was still a contributor to the comic. Written by the pun-tastic Graham Exton, Eric Knicker the Whacky Vicar may only have been a tiny quarter-page strip but it left a lasting impression on little me during Christmas 1987 as I tittered and giggled and shared the joke with friends and family. A lot better than any cracker joke.

So yes, the annual kept to the format of the comic, only more so. It’s a delight to see the creative team took the opportunity to simply cram much more in of what made OiNK so great in the first place. For a child of ten there was just so much to enjoy. We even got a short Ham Dare strip. His two-page story is a hoot and is followed by this even funnier, wonderful cutaway of his and Pigby’s ship.

Written by Lew Stringer and drawn by the incredible talent that was J.T. Dogg (Malcolm Douglas) it’s chock full of little details that my young eyes really enjoyed pouring over. My favourite parts are the comfy chair and its very dangerous sidestool, and the middle of the spacecraft showing the difference between our heroes, with Ham’s gym next door to Pigby’s very full pantry.

A quick note about the title box at the top of the spread. It makes a great point! My Transformers and Real Ghostbusters annuals would have had “pin-ups” and “mini posters” and I always wondered if anyone actually cut up their fantastic annuals, losing whatever was on the backs of those pages to the walls of their room. I’m glad I wasn’t the only one at the time who thought this was a ridiculous idea.

Hadrian Vile’s usual diary entries take a back seat to a selection of pages chronicling his Interleckshual guide toe Nacheral Histry

A quick glance over some other highlights now. Ron Dibney’s Dumb Ol’ Duck reveals another side to himself, Police Vet makes his debut (he’d return in the monthlies the following year) many years before Jim Carrey took on a similar role and Star Truck makes a very welcome return. Just as in #3 the crew make their presence felt throughout the book in between chapters of their own strip. Here, Mark Rodgers literally pops up as Captain Slog in one of Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins‘ pages.

Dumb Ol’ Duck written by Mark Rodgers, drawn by Swoffs
Police Vet written by Mark Rodgers, drawn by Wilkie
Horace Watkins by Tony Husband

Pigswilla only appeared in seven issues of OiNK altogether but he was still a firm fan favourite, so naturally he had to appear in the annual, with Specky Hector Comics Collector (with added surname) making a funny cameo I’d forgotten all about. Early in the book Frank Sidebottom found out Little Frank had used up all his felt tips and gave him until page 69 to fix the situation, which he does, sort of. It appears young me at least started to lend them both a hand.

Pigswilla by Lew Stringer
Frank Sidebottom by Chris Sievey
Hadrian Vile written by Mark Rodgers, drawn by Ian Jackson

Hadrian Vile’s usual diary entries take a back seat to a selection of pages chronicling his Interleckshual guide toe Nacheral Histry, although he does take some short cuts to get from the evolution of life to the 1980s. His usual know-it-all persona is, as always, hilariously wrong in almost every way. In his fortnightly diary he was the most intelligent person in any room. Well, in his own mind anyway and here his guide to everything from dinosaurs (the hilarious looking Tyrannosaurus rex above is a highlight) to Ford Sierras.

In fact, after spending the first two parts of his guide covering prehistoric Earth he only has one page left to finish up and so this third page makes the leap from the ice age to the aforementioned car in the blink of an eye, clearly skipping millions of years as completely uninteresting. It’s all as hilarious as you’d expect from Mark Rodgers, made all the more special with full colour Ian Jackson art. In fact, so good is it that when the weekly comic itself gets going the diary will eventually be replaced with a series of similar guides.

1987 also saw the 50th anniversary of The Dandy (with Beano’s to come in 1988) hence why OiNK took aim at DC Thomson’s comics with regular digs about how old the characters would really be, such as #38’s Deano. In fact, I received the commemorative 50th anniversary book alongside my OiNK! Book (and The Big Comic Book 1988), although in hindsight I think it was originally for my brother but he stopped reading comics not long before Christmas. Oh well, his loss was my gain.

Returning to that spoof comic name, here the OiNK team take it to even greater heights (although this was probably created first) with a mini-comic inside the annual featuring such characters as Dennis the Pensioner and his dog Flasher, Desperate Old Man and the The Lash St. Old People. All are very funny and then we get a double-page spread of no less than five spoof strips which as a kid were funny, but as an adult are hugely surprising because four are drawn by none other than John Geering!

John was a regular artist for DC Thomson, in fact that’s the publisher he’s most closely associated with, most famously for Bananaman and Puss’n’Boots. To see him take on some of DCT’s characters in OiNK just makes these even funnier than they already were in my opinion. I do remember showing these to my friends who were huge fans of The Beano at the time. Can you blame me?

Unfortunately, I simply don’t know who ‘Philip’ is at the time of writing. His work only appeared in two OiNKs (this and #9), here with Boffo the Bore and two other like-minded strips called Georgie & Zip’s Party and Postman Fat and his Slightly Flat Cat. He’s not mentioned on the intro page either, but needless to say I’m always on the hunt for more information on OiNK’s creation so when I find out I’ll let you know. After The Deano and a ‘Fun-Hour’ pre-school comic we get another special section for adventure fans.

Eagle-eyed blog readers may recognise the brilliant caricature of Roger Moore on the first page from a previous issue (although I didn’t spot this first time around). If you go and take a look at the TV listings page in OiNK #17 you’ll see a tiny part of this image was used the previous Christmas. In it you can even see the OiNK logo behind Roger’s face so it just goes to show how far in advance this was created. This is something that continues to this day. If you follow the likes of Lew Stringer on social media or his own blog he’ll often show us snippets of annuals he’s working on over a year before their release, for example.

I’ve been a huge James Bond fan since all the Goldeneye hype hooked me in the mid-90s and I started renting out whatever films I could from the local video shop. It was discovering Timothy Dalton as Bond that sold me on the whole franchise, whose first film had only just been released the same year as this book, so the previous 007 (and his films) was still the target of this fun, frantic strip written by Mark Rodgers and drawn by Tim Thackery.

This was Tim’s sole contribution to OiNK. An illustrator and graphic designer he actually went on to work on CBBC animated series Minuscule Milton with Ian Jackson. Tim told me how he sees this James Bong strip now looking back: “A long time ago, but yes, that was me. Not my best work, but I was a bit pushed for time on it and had to knock it out at a fairly rough level.” Personally I love the art style here as it matches the nature of the strip and brings a real sense of pacing and chaos to the proceedings. You can check out Tim’s official website here.

“She eats pickled herrings in bed and I saw her kissing the window cleaner!”

Keith Disease

The Adventure Section also contains that Police Vet strip I mentioned above, a GBH madvertisement for their ‘Personal Hand-Glider’ capable of speeds of up to 100mph (downwards) and another strip, Ena Blighty’s Five Go Adventuring Yet Again. An annual will never have a theme in the same way as the regular comic did at the time, although the festive season does come up a lot for obvious reasons. These dedicated sections feel like mini themes, three for the price of one in fact, and are some of the best pages in the whole book.

One character (or rather two) I always found incredibly funny were Hector Vector and his Talking T-shirt. Unfortunately, Jeremy Banx’s strip made its last appearance in #35, disappearing when the comic changed publishers and gave itself a bit of a face lift. With new characters and cartoonists and the very best issues the team ever produced, I hadn’t even noticed these two weren’t in amongst the madness until they popped up here in this brilliant, larger strip.

As pig pals knew, this wasn’t a strip where the brat got his comeuppance at the end of each story; we never knew who’d come out on top between the pair. For their very final appearance I have to admit I was happy to see it was Keith Disease (the t-shirt) who had the last laugh as those stories were the best examples of Jeremy’s creation. There were plenty of laughs to be had in this particular strip but it was always that very final panel that had me in creases. It still does.

It’s with a heavy heart but a smile on my face that we come to the end (almost) of the review of the very best edition of OiNK the team created. This has been both the most fun and yet hardest thing to write so far on this whole blog. It’s been great fun to finally get the chance to reread this book and to tell you all about it, but incredibly difficult to pluck out just a few highlights to try and sum it up. I hope I’ve been able to do that. Two more chuckles to go though. First up, the opposite page to that great opener drawn by Ian Jackson.

A couple of puns, funny art and a grinning Uncle Pigg reminding us (and telling those who were introduced to OiNK with the book) of his fortnightly comic, even if it wouldn’t be fortnightly for much longer. It’s a perfect end to a perfect book. It’s such a treasured item for me these days that it came with me to a comic con where Lew Stringer and Davy Francis signed it for me, and when Patrick Gallagher visited me at my home a few years back he added his. I intend to get the inside covers covered with as many squiggles as possible.

With that, I’m going to close the back page over now and here’s why ten-year-old me pestered my parents, my siblings and any visitors to our house over the holidays that year to have a look at my new book.

The plasticine cover was a step up from Ian’s already brilliant one for the first OiNK! Holiday Special and is probably the most iconic OiNK cover of all, with a story to match. “When we sent in the transparencies of the pig face and bottom with the artwork for the printer to process, Bob Paynter at IPC didn’t spot that the pig’s star-shaped bum was partly exposed and not completely hidden by the pig’s curly tail,” explains Patrick. “It was only when the proofs came back from the printer that Bob spotted it and deemed it too rude to be published. So we had to get photographer Ian Tilton to retake the shot with the pig’s tail completely obscuring the star-shaped bottom.” (You can read all about that and actually see those original transparencies in my chat with Ian.)

It’s still a cheeky cover and perfectly encapsulates OiNK’s unique, naughty yet innocent sense of humour.

From showing off its covers and hearing the raucous laughter of anyone I could grab over that festive season, to rereading it in my 20s, 30s and now 40s, and lending it to friends many years after OiNK was a distant memory… this book will never, ever get old. It’s OiNK in its purest, most concentrated form. Every page feels fresh and new, like it was written this year, not 35 of them ago. Receiving my favourite issue of the regular comic, the Christmassy #43 and this back-to-back made my Christmas in 1987, and reliving them has done it again in 2022. If you’re reading this post on the day of publication I hope you have a wonderful day and a very Merry Christmas!

iSSUE 43 < > iSSUE 44

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THE OiNK! 45: THE ViNYL FRONTiER

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Back in 1987 a unique piece of merchandise for a comic was announced in the pages of OiNK. In issue #37 we were treated to this full page advertisement featuring Marc Riley as petty thief Snatcher Sam and Chris Sievey in his role as celebrity superstar Frank Sidebottom. They’d come together to record The OiNK 45, a single-sized vinyl record available only through mail order in the comic.

Back in the premiere issue OiNK had launched itself onto the unsuspecting public with a free flexidisc, a floppy piece of pink see-through plastic containing two songs, namely the imaginatively titled The OiNK Song and The OiNK Rap. Marc produced and performed both and they proved a hit with the kids and an annoyance to the parents of said kids, which I’m pretty sure was the idea. Now they’d been rerecorded at Drone Studios by Marc and Frank with engineer Paul Roberts, alongside a brand new song.

When I saw the advert for the first time I immediately begged my parents to write a cheque for the record. I remember the agonisingly long wait for it to arrive and then my mum and dad wished it hadn’t. I played it almost non-stop for a few days, being told several times to turn it down. Let’s just say it wasn’t to everyone’s taste. As I said, annoying readers’ parents may have been the idea behind the songs in the first place.

I’d missed out on the original flexidisc first time around so had no idea two of these were new versions of previous songs. I remember loving The OiNK Psycho Rap (as it was now called) as a kid on The OiNK 45, written by Tony Husband and Marc, and when I finally got my hands on #1 decades later for the blog with a mint condition flexidisc I’ll admit I was confused as to why I’d liked it so much! The answer is that the newer version here is completely different and a whole lotta fun. The words are almost the same but it’s more professionally put together. While I’m still not going to blast it at get togethers with friends, it may find its way on to my HomePod.

Fortunately for my parents, but heartbreakingly for me, just a few weeks after it arrived back in 1987 I ended up playing it for the very last time. I’d taken the record out of the hifi in my room and placed it on my bed without its sleeve while I listened to something else. It ended up being a sunny day so off I went outside to play with friends for the afternoon. When I came back I found out to my horror what happens when a vinyl record sits under a skylight on a day like that.

It was badly warped, looking like a disused napkin someone had tossed aside. I was crushed. My parents refused to buy me another, telling me it was a lesson to learn (in reality it had brought peace to the house once more) and, having not yet made a cassette recording so I could take the songs outside with me, that was the last I listened to it. Only now have I been able to hear these versions (and the third song) for the first time since then, 35 years later.

This past summer I was finally able to track down a copy of the record and I’ve waited until now to listen to it as a special festive treat for pig pals. This should be interesting with my now-adult ears! First up, the cover art was compiled by Marc Riley and the photographs on the back and on the adverts were taken by OiNK’s resident photographer John Barry under co-creator/co-editor of the comic and co-designer for the project (alongside Marc) Patrick Gallagher’s direction.

There’s a reference to Mike Gallagher brewing the tea too. This was Patrick’s brother who played sax at the studio sessions (he was also in Frank’s Oh Blimey Big Band) as well as making the refreshments, clearly. Patrick tells me altogether they recorded roughly 50 takes of all three tracks but ended up using the first of each! All that remains now is to place the vinyl carefully into my record player and crank the volume up. We’ll start with the new versions of The OiNK Psycho Rap and The OiNK Song (written by Mark Rodgers and Marc). You’ll be glad to hear the latter is still sung by high-pitched pigs.

The OiNK! Psycho Rap written by Tony Husband and Marc Riley

The OiNK! Song written by Mark Rodgers and Marc Riley

Lyrics page from #1 by Patrick Gallagher

Unfortunately there were no lyrics sheets with the record so young me had a hell of a time understanding those piggies, however the lyrics were printed in the first issue. Only a few words have been changed here and there for the rap, so feel free to use that photo above to follow along.

Apologies that I have no fancy equipment to record the songs in lossless quality (or whatever it’s called), you’ll have to make do with my video recording it with an ever-tiring outstretched arm.

“What the heck you think you’re doing, you?”

Frank Sidebottom, The OiNK Get-Together Song

On the B-side is the brand new song, The OiNK Get-Together Song. Chris sings along with Marc in the previous songs and Frank even makes a small guest appearance in The OiNK Song when he realises he’s on the wrong track and asks the listener to turn the record over. This next song is twice as long and sees him in his usual place as lead singer, with Little Frank constantly asking when he’ll get to contribute. It’s billed as a song starring characters from the comic, however the reality is much different (and funnier) than you might expect.

The OiNK! Get-Together Song written by Frank Sidebottom (Chris Sievey)

In my head this song had included various impressions of characters but instead we’re introduced to them playing instruments or making lots of loud background noise. Of course it would be this! Highlights include it descending into chaos on more than one occasion, especially when Billy Bang and the Street-Hogs get involved, Frank and Little Frank’s arguments getting more and more aggressive and there are cameos from some long forgotten characters such as Billy’s Brain and ‘Ed Banger.

My own personal favourite moment is when Frank messes up and just readily admits it right there in the song!

It’s a genuinely funny record and I’d heartily recommend splashing out the few quid it costs on eBay when it pops up, but let’s just say I think I can understand where my parents were coming from when they refused to buy a replacement once they’d escaped it. Brilliant stuff and very typically ‘OiNK’. No other comic could’ve done this. If you do decide to buy it for yourself just be warned, the sax in The OiNK Get Together Song will be stuck in your head from now until the end of time, whether you want it in there or not.

Above you’ll see Mike Gallagher as part of Frank’s band in a photo Patrick sent me, alongside an image of the original test pressing of the vinyl shared by Tony Husband on the OiNK Facebook Group. The final photo features the children of the studio owner and a very tanned/rosy/burnt Marc Riley and Patrick Gallagher, who may have just come back from holiday according to Patrick himself.

The OiNK 45 and the mug were the only pieces of merchandise I had as a kid so it’s great to own them both again. This has genuinely been a whole lot of fun to revisit. It was another contributing factor to what I refer to as the Golden Age of my very favourite comic of all time.

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OiNK! #39: GAME FOR A LAUGH

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We’re in the midst of OiNK’s Golden Age now and the Great Games and Puzzles Issue is another corker, kicking off with Ian Jackson’s cover and his take on some favourite characters by other cartoonists, namely Jeremy Banx’s Burp, David Leach’s Psycho Gran, Marc Riley’s Harry the Head and Chris Sievey’s Frank Sidebottom. The colourful banners seem to be doing the job of covering over the empty space normally reserved for the logo before the redesign in #36 and they work, hyping some of the contents inside.

A few years ago a pig pal by the name of Becky Armstrong shared a photograph of this cover on social media and it was only through this that David Leach saw it for the first time, not previously aware his creation had made the cover or indeed been drawn by the incredible Ian. Becky kindly sent David the issue as a result! The OiNK community really is the best three-and-a-half decades on. Let’s open this up, shall we?

Once again we get a Frank Sidebottom and Snatcher Sam (aka Marc Riley) photo story, albeit a much smaller one than last time. When it’s so brilliantly crafted and as funny as this it doesn’t need any more space. Every time these two get together in the comic their friendship really does shine and I think this sets them apart, they’re always so much fun.

More strips than ever kept to the themes, giving each issue a really unique identity

A few pages later Marc brings us a little puzzle corner for his character, although it appears it’s more of a suggestion box than a competition and his other creation Harry the Head also takes a starring role in this issue. He’s got an important part to play in the competition promoted on the cover and sliding on to page two he hasn’t had a chance to get there yet, so Uncle Pigg gives him a boot and we see him flying through the issue. We’ll get back to him further down the review.

During this period of OiNK more strips than ever kept to the themes, giving each issue a really unique identity to every other OiNK (never mind compared to more traditional comics on the shelves). You’re always aware of the subject running throughout, somehow making each issue feel even more jam-packed with content. One exception to the rule would be the ongoing serials such as sequel tale The Spectacles of Doom Vs The Monocle of Mayhem, part two of which is in here.

During part one it looked like our inept hero Endor, his singing sword and glasses were going to be vastly outnumbered by the evil Gash and his hordes, so this chapter is all about evening the odds in that traditional fantasy adventure movie fashion of meeting allies along the way with ever more ridiculous names, from ever more ridiculous places. More than ever this strip feels like the spoof of 80s magic and fantasy films The Spectacles of Doom was always meant to be, thanks to the fertile imagination of writer Tony Husband.

The quick succession of gags that really land is quite surprising. We shouldn’t really expect any less from Tony but even for him this is on another level. Known for his freeform art, Tony’s scripting shines through here, his character descriptions are original and hilarious and it must’ve been a hoot for Andy Roper when he got the script and got to bring them to life. The laughs come thick and fast and this is just two part of five. If we ever get a reprint book of OiNK the collected Monocle of Mayhem story would definitely be a highlight.

David Haldane’s Rubbish Man has been with us since the very beginning and he now seems to be accompanied by Boy Blunder every issue. From memory this wouldn’t last but for now it’s two-for-one as they battle their version of Batman’s eponymous Riddler, The Puzzler. I remember watching the 60s Batman show as a very young child and while my siblings and parents hated it for how silly it was, I was the target audience and I loved it.

There’s another myth surrounding OiNK that can be put to bed

In particular I remember the puzzles that had absolutely nothing to do with their apparent solutions and the completely unbelievable way Batman and Robin would solve them. David has obviously been inspired by these scenes and parodies them perfectly. So perfectly in fact, this one page is umpteen times better than the television series that inspired it.

There are lots of little gems throughout this issue and not just from our usual mini-strip cast, the random one-offs are all top notch too. Standing out from the crowd is Time for A Game of Scrabble by the comic’s resident youngster, Charlie Brooker. There’s another myth surrounding OiNK, this time about Charlie and how he’s embarrassed by his early cartooning but this is yet another tall tale that can be put to bed nowadays.

Some other highlights include perfect posh pronunciation in The Slugs, a puzzle section from Pete Throb that had all of us copying the side panel as kids (and adults) and there’s some genuine laugh out loud moments as we take a look at our Puzzling, Mysterious, Unexplained, Amazing World (including another comical shark which I had to include).

The Slugs written by Tony Husband, drawn by Lezz
Pete and his Pimple by Lew Stringer
Haldane’s Puzzling, Mysterious, Unexplained, Amazing World
by David Haldane (who else?)

Below, a close look at a panel from The Sekret Diary ov Hadrian Vile – Aged 8 5/8 (yearƨ) may raise some eyebrows with pig pals. What’s that he’s eating? It can’t be! Not in OiNK! I’m not the only one to pick up on this as a future Grunts page will attest. Anneka Rice would later make a guest appearance on the letters page of an issue of Super Naturals and here she’s popped up in one of its sister comics, complete with a cheeky caption from Uncle Pigg.

Hadrian Vile written by Mark Rodgers, drawn by Ian Jackson
Grunts compiled by Patrick Gallagher
GBH Games Catalogue photographed by John Barry
John Barry (right) pictured with Patrick Gallagher

Finally, ace OiNK (and Frank Sidebottom’s official) photographer John Barry created a page of fully mocked up fake board games for a funny GBH Madvertisement. “Well beyond the call of duty!”, as Patrick Gallagher exclaimed to me recently. Take a closer look at that Plopopoly panel and you’ll see the board, cards and even the strange die (with an ‘8’ side) have all been crafted to great detail! All for just one small photo.

This issue contains the very welcome return of Frodo Johnson (previously in #22), otherwise known as the Dice Maniac, Lew Stringer’s parody of fantasy role players and 2000AD spin-off magazine, Dice Man. It’s somewhat bittersweet because this was his last of only two appearances but at least this time he’s in full colour. For the uninitiated, to Frodo life is the ultimate adventure and, no matter how mundane the task, how he goes about it is all up to the roll of his dice. Of course, these should not actually be trusted.

This is OiNK, so naturally with it being set in the countryside it had to have a cowpat and an accompanying pun at the end. What a shame the character would never return. He had the potential of being something of an OiNK spin on traditional strips but alas this would be all we’d ever see of any potential he had. With the Dice Man magazine only lasting five issues Lew tells me he didn’t think Maniac would be relevant anymore and thus he was created as a limited character.

Last but certainly not least you may have noticed Marc Riley’s Harry the Head flying past one of Rubbish Man’s panels above. You saw him on the cover then on page two our esteemed editor gave him a kick to get him to his own page near the back of the comic. It was a hell of a kick because he makes a cameo in (or beside) no less than four other strips and the Grunts page.

Harry appeared alongside Jeremy Banx’s Burp, his creator Marc Riley’s own Doctor Mooney He’s Completely Looney, Mark Rodgers’ and Mike Green’s Blank Sinatra and Davy Francis’ Cowpat Country which this time is just an excuse to have Harry land as he does. Uniquely, it was by Marc and Patrick Gallagher instead of Davy, Patrick credited as ‘Calorgas’. According to Patrick, “Marc was pretending to be really pissed and trying repeatedly to pronounce my surname, but all he could manage was ‘Calorgas’”.

The reason for Harry’s harrowing journey? A special competition with no less than 100 of Matchbox’s memorable Madballs to give away to lucky pig pals. I remember having one but I’ve no idea which one it was, although I don’t think it was any of these three below. I believe I also had a teeny tiny squishy one too, or maybe that’s just my mind playing tricks on me. Below you’ll also see OiNK co-creator/co-editor Mark Rodgers with one of the Madballs he took on a camping holiday at the time.

The photo of the rugby ball sitting on top of this issue is fellow pig pal Ross Murdoch‘s, one of the lucky 100 winners! I think most of my friends had at least one Madball and I even recall spotting a Marvel UK special in a newsagent at one stage too. They were really fun to kick and throw about since they’d bounce and roll in such unpredictable ways, but they were very well made and were more than up to the battering they took. Even though the competition ran in other Fleetway comics too they’re the perfect fit for an OiNK contest, aren’t they?

This is a brilliant issue! Again. OiNK was going from strength to strength but elsewhere in Fleetway’s range something had happened that would affect our treasured piggy publication. When they had taken over IPC’s comics, Fleetway grouped all the titles into various sales groups. Because there were so many of them and the market was shrinking, tracking individual sales was out. Instead, if any particular group’s combined sales weren’t up to par every comic in it would be cancelled.

The likes of Buster and Whizzer and Chips etc were selling over 200,000 a week and were placed in one group. OiNK was unfairly (in my eyes) placed into a different one alongside the likes of the just-cancelled Nipper (image taken from Comic Vine). OiNK was selling 100,000 a fortnight, far beyond the others in its group and in September with the last of its siblings canned OiNK was left on its own. By Fleetway’s rules OiNK should’ve been cancelled at this point but its own sales saved it. However, the publisher wanted more and so they forced a big change on the team which would take effect in the new year. We’ll come back to that then.

For now that’s us for another issue and I’m really excited for the next one to come. A glorious Ralph Shephard cover that takes full advantage of the extra space from the smaller logo is one of the very best in the run. This suits the issue perfectly because #40, the second Hallowe’en edition, is one of the very best issues too. I’ve got particular memories attached to it as well so I can’t wait to read it again. Fittingly enough its review will be here on Monday 31st October 2022.

iSSUE 38 < > iSSUE 40

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OiNK! #38: A FEAST OF FUNNiES

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A cover that would surely stand out on the shelves, a full-page photograph of Frank Sidebottom (aka Chris Sievey) and Marc Riley as his alter ego Snatcher Sam getting into what appears to be a food fight, with a promise of a full story inside. Frank never seemed to be off our television screens at the time so having him in OiNK was always a major coup for the comic, having him on the cover even more so. Well, it would be if his face wasn’t covered with those wonderful stickers, of course.

Our third and final set includes the same ‘Stick with OiNK’ on the back as previous issues and an array of stars with Burp, Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins, Harry the Head and Frank himself on the good quality, bright yellow stickers. The butcher one in particular I remember, I think it ended up on our fridge back in 1987 but not for very long. We wouldn’t get any more free gifts until the final issue, a gift that would lead me directly to my next comic obsession.

Where did that sticker go? Find out here.

The Story Behind the Cover strip was the first time we’d seen Frank and Sam in a photo story since #26 and here it’s split up into three small chunks, the conclusion on page 31. However, the first two parts are also split up over the opening pages, the bottom half on page two and continuing at the top of page three. Why? Comic timing (pun intended).

Have you ever turned over a page of a comic and something towards the end of the strip catches your eye? Or have you ever been reading a page and your eye happens to wonder just for a split second to something further down, revealing the big gag too early? (Just me?) I love how this stops the strip at the point where Frank’s turn of phrase suggests something very different to what actually happens, then the gag lands when we start on the next page.

That pie thrown in the final image would be seen throughout the comic thanks to co-creator/co-editor Patrick Gallagher as it wings its way to the inner back page. The pie isn’t the only addition to some pages, there are little plops here and there with suitable puns, much like we had in the very earliest issues, in particular the preview. These were added to the previous two OiNKs too, adding to that feeling of newness (reminding me of those first issues) I described during #36’s review.

We’ll get back to that at the end of the review, as intended. As I mentioned in the OiNK’s Golden Age post this was my very favourite time in OiNK’s run, mainly because all of my very favourite characters, writers and cartoonists were present in almost every issue. One character who I’d always thought was always present from the moment she first appeared was Psycho Gran by the insanely talented (and all round decent feller) David Leach.

Old Lady Psycho appeared seemingly randomly from #15 up to this point, partly because David didn’t know she was to be a regular character originally. Her Maniacal Majesty was at her most prolific in these latter fortnightlies, in fact apart from the next issue she’ll be in every one until OiNK turns weekly when she unfortunately disappears, only popping up in three of the regular issues after that. So she’s another reason to enjoy the rest of this year’s issues.

A loveable character who was often the subject of body shaming, his cheery demeanour would see him get one over on the bullies

Also introduced in #15 and advertised as a regular was Fatty Farmer, normally written by Mark Rodgers and drawn by Mike Green. Farmer appeared in five issues, then this is only his third appearance since and he’d only have three more to go. He was a loveable character who was often the subject of body shaming, although he’d never let it get to him and his cheery demeanour would see him get one over on the bullies every time.

Here however, he’s eaten a load of cream cheese just before bedtime and, playing on the old tale of cheese giving you nightmares if you eat it late at night, he drifts into a disturbed sleep in Fatty Farmer’s Nightmare! A Blubbery Bonus. This time the script has been written by new OiNK scribe Vaughan Brunt, with Mike as ever providing the art. Written as a rhyme it starts off silly and just gets sillier.

I’m a sucker for a comical shark and Mike doesn’t disappoint here. For a start trying to strangle a shark is funny enough, never mind the giant, crazy eyes, lack of pectoral fins making it look like a long, silly sausage and the little “Dunslop” sign on the front of its rubber body! This was the only time Fatty Farmer got a full page to himself and I think it’s Mike’s art that really makes it. It could’ve been written for any character let’s face it but Mike makes it feel like the perfect fit.

Other highlights of this issue include Burp doing political satire three decades early, Death’s hilarious reaction to an unwelcome visitor, our dense-but-buffed Endor and his magical spectacles being woken from their apparently cuddly sleep when the Monocle of Mayhem is stolen by a ghost and Pete giving us a hint as to why he may have that pimple in the first place.

Burp by Jeremy Banx
Adventures of Death by Charlie Brooker
Spectacles of Doom written by Tony Husband,
drawn by Andy Roper
Pete and his Pimple by Lew Stringer
Jimmy Flynn by David Haldane

A quick note on those last two panels. This was the first appearance for new serial Jimmy Flynn, a boy who was “bathed in a weird light from a flying saucer” and ever since could make his skeleton jump out of his skin to go and investigate spooky goings-on. Each strip would hype a ‘Special Guest Star’ in the title too, only for that special guest to appear inconsequentially in one panel, as Larry Hogman (Larry Hagman, Dallas) does here.

This issue saw the very first contribution from none other than Kev F Sutherland. A prolific cartoonist in OiNK’s weekly and monthly issues (his work would make up nearly a sixth of the final issue!) this was the only time his art would be seen in the fortnightlies. It’s great to see him join the fray at last. A small, quarter-page three-panel Madvertisement riffing off the McDonald’s TV adverts of the day, not only is this Kev’s first OiNK strip, it’s his very first published work.

So a little bit of comics history right there. Kev went on to be a cartoonist in titles as diverse as Beano, Toxic, Doctor Who Adventures and Red Dwarf Magazine. Today he also visits schools to teach comics creation, performs with socks puppets as The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre and you can check out his 17-part podcast series Comic Cuts – The Panel Show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

When you’re a heavy, building-sized robotic pig there’s no way you can’t make an impact

I’ve been looking forward to Kev’s time in the comic and forgot all about this little strip. Having proven himself we had to wait until #49 to see him again but it’ll be worth the wait. Some of the very best strips to come are from Kev; The March of the Killer Breakfasts and a simply brilliant strip about three scientists discovering time travel are stand outs. Kev also had a series called simply Meanwhile… which would have a completely different scenario every time, all linked together by nothing more than his unique art style and even more unique sense of humour. You’ll see some of those next year.

One character didn’t appear too often, showing up for just five regular issues and both annuals, but made a huge impact with readers and remains a fan favourite to this day: Pigswilla. Then again, when you’re a heavy, building-sized robotic pig there’s no way you can’t make an impact. He returns this issue in Beware the Bread-Beast from Beyond. As you can see Lew Stringer’s gorgeous colour work has returned, as has his rhyming storytelling.

It’s all very funny, that exclamation by the Bread-Beast at the top of the second page along with his facial expression made me genuinely roar! You know you’re in for a treat when you turn a page and find Pigswilla is in the issue and we were never let down. The strip ends with cut-out finger puppets and by the initials it appears Mark Rodgers had a hand (boom! boom!) in those. Lew would do something similar to brilliant effect with his Combat Colin strip in Marvel UK’s Transformers a few years later.

The next strip takes up two pages, although it’s not a double-page spread, instead we turn over for the second half. This instance isn’t for comic timing, instead it’s so that it can be presented as the front and back covers of a spoof comic. I was surprised to see this because the first annual has a superb, multi-page spoof of Beano and The Dandy and it would’ve been on sale at this time (although most of us didn’t get it until Christmas, of course). Nevertheless, here’s the first time OiNK took a direct swipe at DC Thomson’s best-seller with The Deano.

This was all a well-meaning jest, a parody of the long established comics. As OiNK writer Graham Exton once told me parody is when you poke fun at something you admire, satire is something different, and these were always intended as parodies. For example, this was written by co-creator/co-editor Mark Rodgers who (according to Graham I should add) would always have a Beano Book next to the loo for guests in his house to read while they did their business.

“There’s a new butcher in town, gang! Let’s splat him!”

Scramble

Brought to life by Les ‘Lezz’ Barton, the volume and issue numbers emphasise the running gag that the comics were tired and had been going on too long with the same humour, and it all goes rather dark on the second page. I’m not referring to the lights being turned off either. Let’s be clear, Dennis has just minced and eaten his pet dog! Then again, we are reading a comic which advertised burgers made of butchers in its preview issue, so the precedent was set.

Percy Piglet turning the light out will actually get mentioned in our final highlight from this issue but before that here’s the winner of Granada TV’s Scramble competition as promised. I actually prefer runner up Ian Marshall’s Professor Foible but I wasn’t judging and when the winning strip features a gang of punk pigs it’s clear this was always going to be the winner. After all, co-editor Tony Husband was (and still is) a huge fan of punk music and always saw OiNK as the comic equivalent.

I’m sure Michael Spencer of Poynton was thrilled to see his work in the comic, introduced by Uncle Pigg and the plops on the previous page. You can’t fault the imagination on show and it reminds me of the comics my friend Roger and I made for each other in school, which were usually riffs on Marvel UK comics such as Transformers and The Real Ghostbusters. From memory, Roger created The Battleoids and School Busters, while mine were called War-Bots and The Real Smokebusters. (Hmm, definitely not as original as Michael’s strip.)

Time to round off this issue’s review with the conclusion of our photo story starring Marc Riley as Snatcher Sam and Chris Sievey as Frank Sidebottom. The custard pie has made its way through the comic to end up splattered all over Sam so the OiNK photographer finally gets their shot. In response the reluctant cover stars plot revenge and this is where the reference from earlier comes back to funny effect.

The lucky young star who got to meet some of the OiNK team was Scott Steward, neighbour of Patrick Gallagher‘s. Thanks again to Patrick for the info and as always he’s sent along a recent photograph to show us Scott as he is now. Hello Scott!

That’s our feast of an issue at an end and it’s been a belter from start to finish. It should come as no shock that I think the same of the next one, at least from memory anyway. After that will be the Hallowe’en issue which (along with the Christmas edition later on this year) I seem to recall was one of my very favourite OiNKs of them all. So good times ahead then. Before then, the review of the Games and Puzzles Issue will be here on Monday 17th October 2022.

iSSUE 37 < > iSSUE 39

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OiNK! #37: NEW ADDiTiONS

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Our second new look OiNK sees the logo enlarged a little, sitting proud in its new position and, as promised by co-creator/co-editor Patrick Gallagher it lets us see more of the superb cover image by Mike Higgs. There’s a confidence about this issue and it’s new format that takes me right back to those days of running to the newsagent for my latest issue every fortnight, knowing I was going to get another 32 pages of perfect pork.

Another set of free stickers are wrapped around the cover, that Tom Thug ‘Book of Grammar’ one being my particular favourite. I think I used the Hadrian Vile sticker on a school book of some description back in 1987 (I would’ve been in primary six at the time of this issue) and the missing one on the back was the same as the one in that position last issue, which ended up on my fridge. This issue’s has been added to the comics shelves in my new home office.

The ‘Hilarious Happy Families Issue’ lives up to its name from the very first page with that brilliant cover complete with a couple of strategically placed OiNKs, portraying an elderly relative dying from the shock of reading an issue. The Christmas Club, the note on the bottom of the casket and a couple of plops for good measure, I can remember visiting my mum’s friend’s house with this issue and sitting absorbed by it while they gossiped.

In fact, I remember they were talking about Santa Claus and wondering if I knew the truth (that he most definitely existed, obviously) and I caught part of the conversation between strips. I can recall May asking the question and my mum saying at my age my friends would’ve been talking about it, so she assumed I knew. I kept quiet, I still wanted all my toys (and my OiNK Book!). That’s something which always comes back to me whenever I see this cover. May (or Aunty May as we called her, even though she wasn’t related) is no longer with us so it’s a happy memory that I’ll never forget thanks to OiNK.

This is quite simply the perfect comic script

Inside, one of the first strips is an old favourite, Davy Francis’ Cowpat County. Davy has two trademarks when it comes to his funniest strips, background gags and brilliant puns. This next page is easily my favourite featuring Farmer Giles. It is quite simply the perfect comic script. It all leads up to the final joke, expertly laying in the little bits of information along the way that’ll make it work, the reader unaware this is happening until the end.

Davy is a real comedic genius and it ran in the family. His father Stanley Francis was a comedian, performing in the old club circuits in Northern Ireland with Frank “it’s a cracker” Carson. Stanley also played piano and once accompanied Little Richard at Belfast’s Boom Boom Rooms! He’d often tell jokes at home to try them out (which Davy now uses on his bus tours) and the joke at the centre of this Cowpat County was one of Stanley’s. Also, check out that middle panel and you’ll see Davy’s caricatures of fellow OiNK cartoonists Ed McHenry and Lew Stringer! (Thanks for pointing them out, Davy!)

“She’s luvly!!”

Hadrian Vile

Just one final note about this strip. I have the original artwork, one of a few pieces of Davy’s I own. I’m going to hold that back for a future post and show them all off at once. It also couldn’t have escaped your notice that something is going on with Snatcher Sam and Frank Sidebottom. Anyone who grew up on OiNK should instantly know what this refers to. Yes, it was finally available. Exciting! I’ll get back to that later in the review.

Next up is what I’d easily describe as the main event of this family themed issue. In fact it’s probably the main event in the whole life of Hadrian Vile thus far, something I’ve alluded to ever since the character first appeared on the blog back in #4’s review. To mark the occasion he gets three pages written by Mark Rodgers in glorious Ian Jackson full colour. This story more than any other plays to Ian’s strength of perfectly capturing a character’s thoughts in their face and body language. For example, his exasperated dad when they’re pulled over and in the next panel when he’s trying to explain things to the police officer.

We saw Hadrian’s age increase in the birthday issue and his reaction when his parents explained he was going to be a big brother. Now, after months of him torturing his poor pregnant mum the big moment has arrived and while the laughs are still plentiful, what we have here is a surprisingly sweet strip. After all those previous issues full of Hadrian getting into trouble thanks to his ridiculous schemes, he actually comes up with a helpful idea when the situation calls for it. It’s still daft and funny of course, especially his dad trying to run along holding that pillow. 

After wearing down the carpet in the waiting room the family are called in to see their newest addition and even Bowser gets a mask so he can join them. We turn over to see the following full-page image with a simple, sweet (yet still incorrectly spelt) diary entry. This was certainly a memorable moment in humour comics. When did a character live their life in an almost real time manner like this? When was something like this properly built up to instead of just being a sudden change? OiNK was always unique and this is all the proof you need.

Don’t be thinking Hadrian is going to go all slushy on us though. Instead, he sees his new baby sister as a potential protégé, someone to teach the ways of the world to, someone to train to be just like him and we’d get to see these in various ways over the following months. She also makes an appearance in the card game in this very issue.

This takes up the middle pages and the back cover, with another half page for the instructions, which are the same for the regular Happy Families game.

So as per the typical rules each family is made up of four individuals, with Hadrian’s not including Bowser as would’ve been expected up to this point, instead his baby sister gets a little cameo of sorts. Altogether there are 36 cards for the reader to stick on to cardboard and cut out, split into nine families. Parents and siblings could also easily take part because each group has a simple numbering system so non-OiNK fans (yes, they exist!) wouldn’t get lost amongst the silly names.

I always liked seeing favourite characters drawn by different artists. Ed McHenry is the person responsible here and his depictions of Ian Jackson’s Hadrian and his family, David Haldane’s Rubbish Man, J.T. Dogg’s Street-Hogs heroes and villains, and Jeremy Banx’s alien innards are my particular favourites. Did any blog readers cut out and play this game when they were but a piglet? I never cut up any of my OiNKs back at the time. (I did begin to colour in something in the first annual but that was about it.) However, these days the angel on top of my Christmas tree is from a page of the comic and for the blog I’ve already constructed an old-fashioned Frank Sidebottom toy.

There’s a certain phrase I remember my dad using whenever my siblings or I did anything that our mum would’ve found particularly bad and one of the little quarter-page strips in this issue takes that exact phrase and ridicules it, albeit swapping the parents’ roles over in the process. From that moment on I could never take it seriously when it was used. I still can’t. Mad Dad is written by Vaughan Brunt and drawn by Ian Knox. This is followed up by Grate Expectations, a memorable little one-off from the insane mind of Simon Thorp who, I’m very happy to say, was turning up more regularly by this point.

There were so many highlights in this issue I really struggled deciding which ones to include. This could be a regular problem over these next few months, but it’s a nice problem to have, isn’t it? The Grunts page features press clippings about OiNK itself, although I’ll save them for their own post at a future date. Just mentioned recently on the blog’s socials by a fellow pig pal was Burp’s tractor beam and it pops up here, so I just had to include that in this little selection of panels.

There was also a unique competition in which readers could win a trip to Timperley, the home of megastar Frank Sidebottom and meet their hero, and to get readers excited to enter he tells us all about his post office having two letterboxes! Woo. I’ll keep an eye out for the results. There’s a full-page Uncle Pigg strip describing the special versions of OiNK he publishes around the world and it’s nice to see he and Santa have made up since #17. 

Frank Sidebottom by Chris Sievey
Uncle Pigg written by Mark Rodgers, drawn by Ian Jackson
Horace Watkins by Tony Husband
Rubbish Man by David Haldane
Burp & Butcher Watch by Jeremy Banx

For the first time we see Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins playing football, something which would lead to a huge multi-issue story for the character in future issues, a little plop drawn by Patrick Gallagher invaded a handful of pages throughout the issue such as Rubbish Man’s, and in the latest Butcher Watch a pig by the name of Stig the Pig thinks he’s finally won the battle with Jimmy ‘The Cleaver’ Smith, with wonderfully Banx’y captions.

Of course, Jimmy has to live to see another day and terrorise the world in which the characters of OiNK reside. As it turns out that shadowy figure wasn’t Jimmy at all but rather a selection of pork sausages tied up and dressed to resemble him. We see this reveal just before Jimmy strangles Stig to death with another string of sausages. This might sound a bit brutal for a kid’s humour comic but it was so ludicrous and over-the-top we’d just laugh at the absurdity of the pretend horror.

So, Frank has just set a new competition and this issue announces the runner-up of one we hadn’t seen in the comic. In much the same way that OiNK ran a competition in conjunction with Radio Manchester (the results were in #26), they teamed up with Granada TV’s Scramble programme. Ian Marshall from Bramhall has not one, but two small strips in this issue starring his own creation, Professor Foible.

If this is the level of quality the runner-up produced I can honestly say I’m eagerly looking forward to seeing what the young winner came up with! We’ll have to wait to find out though because that’s being held back until #38.

So for the uninitiated, what were Frank Sidebottom aka Chris Sievey and Snatcher Sam aka Marc Riley up to earlier in the issue? Why, they were recording a new song for the OiNK 45 of course! Way back in the mists of time the premiere issue of our favourite comic gave away a fun flexidisc record with two songs created specifically to annoy adults as much as for the kids to enjoy. The OiNK Song and The OiNK Rap are often quoted by fans to this day and on this new proper record they were getting another outing alongside a new song.

When the original songs were produced by Marc, Chris had yet to join the comic (#16) so the new track, called The OiNK Get Together Song was a chance for the pop music sensation to get in on the action and team up with the former member of The Fall. Along with the other two songs (the rap now renamed The OiNK Psycho Rap) this was a proper, solid record the size of a single, in its own sleeve for just £1.70 and I for one jumped at the chance to own it, especially since all three songs were new to me (having missed the flexidisc first time around). In fact, this and the mug were the only pieces of OiNK merchandise I originally owned.

I recall the song contained impressions of various characters and it irritated my family just as much as the other two. My record met with an early demise when it warped under the hot sun from a skylight window only a couple of weeks after it had arrived in the post. I hadn’t even had a chance to tape it yet for my Walkman. Now if only I could listen to it again after all these decades to see how my adult brain would react to those songs.

Well would you look at that. Yep, in a moment of perfect timing this appeared on eBay and the record is in mint condition. I could not be happier. But then again, I haven’t listened to it yet! Nope, I haven’t stuck it on the ol’ record player yet, I’ll do that when it comes to writing the accompanying blog post. So look out for that just after 17th October. Why am I making you wait so long? Well, we had to wait 28 days for delivery after all and this is all in real time.

That brings us to the end of another fantastic issue. As a child I’d loved the changes and was so happy they weren’t a one-off (the previous issue‘s theme seemingly explaining them away for that one edition), the book was in the shops and I was eagerly anticipating it for Christmas, plus I’d just ordered an exciting new piece of merchandise, my first piece of OiNK merchandise in fact. I’d been a fan of OiNK since I’d first discovered it, but by now I was completely obsessed. The next issue is the Food and Drink Special with yet another memorable cover, a full-page photograph of (who else) Frank and Sam. The next review will be here on Monday 3rd October 2022.

Is it really October already?! OiNK really had helped this year fly by,

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