It’s my birthday today! I can’t think of anything I’d rather post today than the final part of what has been a really enjoyable series focussing on OiNK’s wonderful creative team and their memories of producing one of my very favourite things in my whole life. It’s been a wonderful experience to put this together and get to ask these questions to some of my childhood (and let’s face it, adulthood) heroes.
Despite what the critics thought of it from the outside looking in, in reality OiNK gave us many great messages along the way. From anti-smoking to anti-bigotry, from never judging someone by their looks to being proud of who we are no matter what, all packaged up in comedy gold of course. So to wrap things up I was curious what messages the team had for us.
QUESTION FOUR
Finally, if pig pals could take one thing away from your work on OiNK, what would it be?
DAVEY JONES Henry the Wonder Dog, Pop-Up Toaster of Doom, Kingdom of Trump
“No idea how to answer this. There were a couple of strips in the later issues which I had to draw in a bit of a rush, and some of the drawing was very ropey. So if everyone would be kind enough to overlook the ropey drawings, it’d be much appreciated.”
DAVY FRANCIS Cowpat County, Greedy Gorb, Doctor Mad-Starkraving
“The friends I met, my fellow artists, the readers who are artists and writers themselves who say OiNK was such an influence on their work. I loved every minute I worked for OiNK, I would have done it for nothing!” (“What?!” – Uncle Pigg)
IAN JACKSON Artist Mary Lighthouse, Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins, OiNK Book 1988 covers
“It was great having fun with my mates on the project. Uncle Pigg was a tough bugger though.”
LEW STRINGER Tom Thug, Pete and his Pimple, Pigswilla, writer of Ham Dare
“I hope they enjoyed the irreverent style of fun and lunacy I tried to put into my work. We were allowed to be more edgy than other kids’ comics of the time. Little did we know how much children’s comics would be toned down in the years that followed.”
DAVID LEACH Psycho Gran, Dudley DJ
“Don’t underestimate the elderly.”
GRAHAM EXTON writer Fish Theatre, Herbert Bowes, Murder in the Orient Express Dining Car
“Just that I was proud to be a part of such an influential team. The current Beano owes a lot to OiNK.”
ED McHENRY Wally of the West, umpteen OiNK puzzle pages, Igor and the Doctor
“If any of the readers liked my stuff in the way I enjoyed certain artists in all the comics I read as a lad that would be nice.”
KEV F SUTHERLAND Meanwhile…, The Three Scientists, March of the Killer Breakfasts
“I’m just honoured to have been a part of such a landmark comic, so when they’re writing about it, I hope I get remembered occasionally, alongside the real stars.”
PATRICK GALLAGHER co-creator and co-editor of the whole shebang, designer of the OiNK logos
“The joy and reward of working with Tony and Mark.”
STEVE GIBSON artist Judge Pigg, countless GBH Madvertisements, Ponsonby Claret
“I just want anyone who remembers OiNK (and I have met lots of fans who grew up reading it) to know that we had fun and I hope that a little bit of the cheeky anarchy that we intended stuck with all our readers to this day.”
JEREMY BANX Burp, Mr. Big Nose, Jimmy ‘The Cleaver’ Smith
“Never trust your liver.”
I can’t thank everyone enough for taking part in this series! Everyone I reached out to couldn’t have been more helpful and it’s a testimony to how fondly OiNK is remembered by all that everyone was happy to take part and keen to reminisce. On a purely selfish basis it’s a brilliant birthday present to be able to present the now completed series of posts, too.
I hope pig pals have enjoyed this, and to everyone above I hope you’ve enjoyed reading what your fellow OiNKers (to quote Jeremy) have said too. I’ve waxed lyrical about how much OiNK has meant to me and the memories it’s brought back. It’s been a delight to see the same applies to those who worked so hard to entertain us for those few fantastic years.
I hope you’ve all been enjoying this fascinating look into the creation of OiNK from some of its incredible creative team. In case you’re stumbling upon this series for the first time, I sent four questions to some of OiNK’s greatest talent and every Saturday during the build up to Christmas I’m publishing all of their responses, one set at a time.
The third question is the most personal. Working on a funny comic isn’t easy. We were laughing with the turn of every page but it must’ve been exhausting to come up with all of that comedy gold week after week. We’ve established they all loved their time on OiNK and each other’s work, but is there anything of their own that they’re particularly proud of?
QUESTION THREE
What’s your personal favourite piece you contributed to OiNK?
DAVEY JONES Henry the Wonder Dog, Pop-Up Toaster of Doom, Kingdom of Trump
“I suppose it’d be a half page strip called Henry the Wonder Dog, because that was the first one I’d got accepted, and my first bit of paid cartooning work. When I finished my A-Levels in the summer of 1986 I started bombarding OiNK with ideas, and at the beginning of August got a note from Mark saying “Success at last, can you draw this one up and send it to Patrick.” I was chuffed to bits, and remember that evening going down The Barrels (still my favourite pub in Hereford) to show off.”
STEVE GIBSON artist Judge Pigg, countless GBH Madvertisements, Ponsonby Claret
“Personal fave: Judge Pigg. I wanted to do more 2000AD parodies (Strontium Pigg, Rogue Porker, ABC Piglets) but alas we were too busy and the guys at 2000AD don’t like us mere cartoonists taking the pee-eye-double-ess out of their serious characters.”
IAN JACKSON artist Mary Lighthouse, Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins, OiNK Book 1988 covers
“Various covers plus a black and white two-page school story.”
PATRICK GALLAGHER co-creator and co-editor of the whole shebang, designer of the OiNK logos
“Chaotic issue eight cover with the skeleton staff member.”
DAVID LEACH Psycho Gran, Dudley DJ
“It’s either my fully painted poster of Psycho Gran in the annual, The Good, The Bad and The Very Old. Or it’s the one pager where PG is waiting for a bus.”
DAVY FRANCIS Cowpat County, Greedy Gorb, Doctor Mad-Starkraving
“My favourite piece of work is the Cowpat County page with Cyril the Sheep. A lot of my workmates at the time were put into the strip (including Cyril). We had a real laugh when it was printed. It was one of those strips that nearly writes and draws itself.”
GRAHAM EXTON writer Fish Theatre, Herbert Bowes, Murder in the Orient Express Dining Car
ED McHENRY Wally of the West, umpteen OiNK puzzle pages, Igor and the Doctor
“I was very pleased with the two double-page spreads I did, one for the 50th birthday party and the other for the anniversary portrait, both these featured all of OiNK’s regular cast of characters.”
LEW STRINGER Tom Thug, Pete and his Pimple, Pigswilla, writer of Ham Dare
“Another question that’s hard to answer but I was very pleased with the Pete and His Pimple pull-out comic I put together. It was nice to do a longer story. Another favourite was the one-off half pager Thick As Thieves about the bungling crooks. I was inspired by the old time British comedy movies for that one.”
JEREMY BANX Burp, Mr. Big Nose, Jimmy ‘The Cleaver’ Smith
“That might be the Burp one when he had to fight for those round squishy ball things; thus ensuring his puberty and subsequent transition to manhood. I think it was in a special? A reader messaged me a few years back to tell me it had helped get him through the whole painful process when he was a boy. The mind boggles.”
Ahem… I then admitted to Jeremy that reader had been me! To which he replied, “Oh excellent. I seem to remember you saying it had some sort of beneficial effect. I hope you weren’t just being polite.” Not at all , Jeremy! To any of you out there who may be a bit confused by this, check out the review for The OiNK Book 1989!
KEV F SUTHERLAND Meanwhile…, The Three Scientists, March of the Killer Breakfasts
“I did a couple of short stories I was really proud of. That one with the Three Scientists who travel back in time, then compare watches, but because they’ve all travelled the same amount their watches don’t show any difference. I still don’t think I’ve seen that gag being done (cue a dozen people telling me they’ve seen it in everything from Futurama to Rick & Morty. Well I haven’t seen it, and dammit I did it first!) I was also proud to have coined the phrase, “Would you Adam and believe it?” in one of my strips, which went on to be used a lot by Marc and Lard.”
The pages mentioned here really are the crème de la crème of what OiNK had to offer, and where possible I’ve included links to those specific issues so you can relive some personal giggles this Christmas. Just one more question to go, so don’t miss out on the answer to this on Saturday, 21st December 2024:
Finally, if pig pals could take one thing away from your work on OiNK, what would that be?
Welcome to the second of four parts to this OiNK Interview Series, in which I sent the same four questions to some of OiNK’s greatest talent and I’m publishing their answers all together, one question at a time. The response to last week’s post has been phenomenal and the blog’s stats have been skyrocketing. Every time this happens it’s always great to know I’m not alone in keeping this wonderful comic close to my heart all these years later.
Last week I asked the team what their fondest memory of their time on OiNK was and many of them mentioned working as part of this particular team. Suitably then (even though I sent all of the questions at once) this second question digs down into those previous answers a little. It seems those creating OiNK enjoyed reading it just as much as we did!
QUESTION TWO
Whose work did you admire the most in OiNK?
LEW STRINGER Tom Thug, Pete and his Pimple, Pigswilla, writer of Ham Dare
“Difficult question because with so many different styles everyone brought something fresh and exciting to the comic. Jeremy Banx was always one to watch because he pushed the envelope with what he could get away with. J.T. Dogg did spectacular work of course and I was pleased with our collaboration on Ham Dare, Pig of the Future. It was also good to see David Leach’s style develop. Psycho Gran is such a great character and I’m pleased he still creates new stories for her today.”
DAVY FRANCIS Cowpat County, Greedy Gorb, Doctor Mad-Starkraving
“There were so many artists I admired on OiNK but my absolute favourite is Ed McHenry. He introduced me to dip nibs and they were a real game changer in how my style looked. I’m very lucky I met Ed, he is a true gentleman who loves his work. Fun fact: He was a drummer for Roy Orbison in the sixties. Fun fact 2: I hitched a lift in Roy Orbison’s white Rolls Royce.”
DAVEY JONES Henry the Wonder Dog, Pop-Up Toaster of Doom, Kingdom of Trump
“There were loads of really good artists working on OiNK, Lew Stringer and Ian Jackson spring to mind. I think it was Jeremy Banx’s stuff that struck me the most. It was very funny, and unlike anything I’d seen in British kids’ comics before. There was one Burp strip about him going on holiday to a secluded planet, and he’s inadvertently brought along a wasp in his spaceship which escapes onto the planet, and he knows then that he can never return – the presence of the wasp has ruined his paradise. I don’t know why that has stuck in my head all these years.”
PATRICK GALLAGHER co-creator and co-editor of the whole shebang, designer of the OiNK logos
“Ian Jackson’s.”
KEV F SUTHERLAND Meanwhile…, The Three Scientists, March of the Killer Breakfasts
“I loved Frank Sidebottom‘s stuff, and was also a fan of his music, so being in the same comic as him was a thrill. I thought Jeremy Banx and Lew Stringer‘s stuff were the funniest. Lew is the deserved star of the comic and it’s no surprise that his was the work that carried on into Buster.”
GRAHAM EXTON writer Fish Theatre, Herbert Bowes, Murder in the Orient Express Dining Car
“This is tough, as there were so many great writers and artists. I was very partial to Ian Jackson‘s covers and Hadrian Vile strip, and I always found Jeremy‘s nose-related strips hilarious.”
IAN JACKSON artist Mary Lighthouse, Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins, OiNK Book 1988 covers
“Jeremy Bank‘s Burp.”
ED McHENRY Wally of the West, umpteen OiNK puzzle pages, Igor and the Doctor
“Awkward question. Let me explain. When each new copy of OiNK appeared, I would clip out my stuff, this was then placed in my safe deposit box at my bank, the rest of the issue was then used to line the bottom of our budgerigar’s cage. So tell me, did I miss anything good?”
DAVID LEACH Psycho Gran, Dudley DJ
“I admired them all. I felt humble to be in the same comic, it was a comic that made me laugh. I loved the different styles, I genuinely don’t think I had a favourite, although the three artists I felt symbolised OiNK were Husband, Stringer and Banx.”
STEVE GIBSON artist Judge Pigg, countless GBH Madvertisements, Ponsonby Claret
“Favourite OiNK artist? Banx. No question. Funny, witty and a great writer/cartoonist. I loved getting to see his original art. Only met him once in London for about 4 seconds as I had to dash back for a train.”
JEREMY BANX Burp, Mr. Big Nose, Jimmy ‘The Cleaver’ Smith
“So much good stuff to choose from. So many talented artists and writers. Mark Riley‘s Harry the Head always sticks in my mind. Loved the simplicity of his drawings and his daft ideas.”
Can I just say I agree with every single answer here? I’d have been useless if someone asked me this question. My answer would’ve been as long as this whole post. Our next question is one I’ve been particularly looking forward to. After reading about them admiring each other’s pages we ask about their own creations. It should be an interesting one (again). Come back next Saturday, 14th December 2024 for the responses to this:
What’s your personal favourite piece you contributed to OiNK?
Welcome to first post in what should be a fascinating four-part OiNK series this festive season. I came up with some general questions about our favourite comic and handed them over to no less than 11 of OiNK’s finest contributors. Every Saturday between now and Christmas Day I’ll publish all of the responses for each question in turn, so we can get an insight into what it was really like to be a part of the world’s greatest comic.
The OiNK team have always been so forthcoming with information ever since the blog began and their enthusiasm for the comic hasn’t diminished one iota in the decades since they first tickled our funny bones. It’s been a joy to put these posts together and reach out to some of my comics heroes. So what’s the first question?
QUESTION ONE
What’s the fondest memory that comes to mind when you think back to OiNK?
DAVY FRANCIS Cowpat County, Greedy Gorb, Doctor Mad-Starkraving
“Fondest memory was meeting all the artists and writers at the OiNK launch party. It’s a bit of a lonely profession drawing cartoons and comics so it was great to meet up and yack about drawing and comics.”
DAVID LEACH Psycho Gran, Dudley DJ
“That first UKCAC show in 1988, I think, when I got to meet other cartoonists for the first time. I met Davy Francis, Lew Stringer, Davey Jones, Ed McHenry and Banx. It was wonderful. I felt I’d found my people.”
DAVEY JONES Henry the Wonder Dog, Pop-Up Toaster of Doom, Kingdom of Trump
“Probably just that sense of open-mindedness you got from the editors. My main point of contact was Mark Rodgers and I’d send him script ideas which he’d either approve or turn down. But you always felt that he’d be open to any kind of silly ideas. I remember buying a volume of Spike Milligan’s Goon Show scripts from a jumble sale, and for a while after that the stuff I was submitting was a bit Goon-ish. So you felt you could sort of muck about and try out different things.”
STEVE GIBSON artist Judge Pigg, countless GBH Madvertisements, Ponsonby Claret
“Memory? I remember meeting Mark and Tony (Husband) and Pat (Gallagher) as they were cobbling the first few issues together. They were working from inside a cupboard in Manchester back then. It was hard to tell them apart because we all had hair then, including Pat. It felt like an exciting time to draw comics, and I could always meet a deadline because I learned to draw in my sleep thanks to Pat nagging me. Hey Pat! How are you?”
PATRICK GALLAGHER co-creator and co-editor of the whole shebang, designer of the OiNK logos
“Meeting up with Tony and Mark immediately after we received the news that OiNK had been formally commissioned.”
IAN JACKSON artist Mary Lighthouse, Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins, OiNK Book 1988 covers
“Photo story shoot with Mark Rodgers dressed as aliens, and his girlfriend Helen as someone we were trying to abduct from a local park.”
ED McHENRY Wally of the West, umpteen OiNK puzzle pages, Igor and the Doctor
“Printed on quality paper with excellent colour reproduction, everybody could sign their work or get a printer credit, well paid and all your artwork returned. What’s not to like as they say.”
GRAHAM EXTON writer Fish Theatre, Herbert Bowes, Murder in the Orient Express Dining Car
“Visiting Tony‘s house with Mark was brilliant because Tony was such a nice chap. I noticed his stack of Peter Hammill albums in a corner – we bonded over music. We also had a fun time discussing Uncle Pigg‘s helpers, the Plops.”
JEREMY BANX Burp, Mr. Big Nose, Jimmy ‘The Cleaver’ Smith
“A lot of fond memories. Getting the ideas and drawing them up against the clock was hard work but fun. Meeting up with the other OiNKers at conventions and stuff was a highlight. I remember, with great fondness, the process of getting the idea that Burp‘s organs should be independent living beings with their own ecology. Also when I realised that his liver should be Dr Devious, the notorious super villain. The nice thing about that was it felt like the character was revealing himself and it almost wasn’t me doing the work at all.”
LEW STRINGER Tom Thug, Pete and his Pimple, Pigswilla, writer of Ham Dare
“There are lots of happy memories but I think just having regular work in an IPC comic for the first time felt like a major achievement, even though I’d been contributing to Marvel UK for a few years by then.”
KEV F SUTHERLAND Meanwhile, The Three Scientists, March of the Killer Breakfasts
“It was my big break, so the best thing was being a proper professional comics creator at last. I was holding down a day job and doing my OiNK work at night, and it had taken a whole year of sending something off every single week before I got in. I would send something to 2000AD who’d say ‘you’re too cartoony, you should send it to OiNK’, and to OiNK who’d say ‘you’re too action-y, you should send it to 2000AD’. OiNK broke first.”
And so it begins! Even though very few of the OiNK team ever worked from their Manchester offices, you’d never think it from these replies. They were clearly a fantastic team, whether they ever met each other or not, and admiring of everyone else’s creations. It pleases me no end that it seems OiNK was such a great comic to work on. Make sure you come back next week, Saturday 7th December 2024 for question two, which will be:
On a chilly November morning in 1989 I innocently toddled off to my local newsagent’s to pick up my Transformers, The Real Ghostbusters and Big Comic Fortnightly, only to be met with a lovely, glossy OiNK-shaped comic handed to me from the reservations box too! I’d no idea this was coming. I’d thought the Holiday Special from earlier in the year was the final issue ever. Seeing no annual on the shelves by now I’d given up hope of ever seeing a new OiNK again.
So you can imagine my excitement when this surprise 68-page OiNK Winter Special slid out from behind the others. You can probably also imagine the speed at which nearly-12-years-old me ran back to my house to ask my mum and dad for more money, and their shock when I told them exactly how much it was. Needless to say my other comics were ignored that day. Oh, and the cover image was drawn by co-editor Patrick Gallagher and that’s his brother and OiNK photographer James as David Smellamy.
Inside, it begins with an OiNK Book-like introduction page. Unfortunately these little glimpses of Psycho Gran, The Spectacles of Doom and Greedy Gorb are all we got of them as they don’t actually appear anywhere else, and Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins only pops up in a reprint, but at the time I was just so excited to get a new OiNK I don’t think I realised how much of it was reprint material. I’ll get to that later but first up I have to talk about the paper quality here.
This is very much in keeping with the tradition of the previously published Buster and Wildcat Winter Specials from 1987 and 1988 respectively, including their price. Inside the thin but gorgeous card cover are 64 shiny, high-quality pages far above that used at any stage in the regular comic. It may have the same amount of pages as the second annual but the paper stock makes it feel a lot thinner. It’s gorgeous to look at and hold though. Can’t fault it at all!
We kick things off with a fun three-page Pete and his Pimple and it’s great to see him back after missing him in the Holiday Special earlier this year, when he and Tom Thug (who also returns in this issue) kept themselves to Buster comic instead. With this being the final Pete strip in an OiNK, Lew Stringer decided to pick no less than ten reader ideas for ridding Mr. Throb of his pimple and, while they’re all fun, the best part for me is Lew’s interpretations of what the readers could’ve looked like!
I would particularly like to know what Kevin Leeden of Goole’s reaction was upon reading this, and poor little Janice Hogan of Cumbria! (At least her dungarees provided a little context.) Lew began asking readers for their suggestions way back in the first weekly issue, #45. Inspired by Ken Reid’s Dare-A-Day Davy strip from Pow! in 1967 (readers sent in dares for the character), Lew ended up receiving many more than he could ever possibly have used, hence the list at the end.
There are some fun little additions too (although that alien on the first page wasn’t Lew’s), like an apology to fellow OiNK cartoonist Davy Francis and marking the occasion of David Leach’s wedding. At the end you’ll see Pete was due to reappear in the Buster Book 1990 which readers of that comic would soon receive for Christmas. I didn’t move over to Buster (the comic or books) as I explained when I reviewed the early merged issues, but that’s something I’m going to correct this year.
Starting this Christmas I’ll be reading each of the remaining Buster Books, one per year, so watch out for Lew’s Pete and Tom strips this festive season. They’ll both be brand new OiNK character strips for me, for the first time in decades for these two in fact, so I’m very excited to say the least. Although due to changes made for Buster, the pages above would be the last time readers saw all that ‘orrible pus exploding everywhere.
I remember laughing so hard at The Pig With No Name as a kid that I developed a little pain in my side
There are a few even larger strips here too, such as an eight-page story for The Slugs, although it’s written by Charlie Brooker and Mark Rodgers instead of Tony Husband, the first time that’s happened, but it’s still brilliantly brought to the page by Lezz. It involves the band being told they need a female lead singer by their agent and it’s funny what their main complaint about this is! But Anna Key is even louder and more obnoxious than they are and it brings their adventures to a happy ending.
David Haldane‘s Rubbish Man also returns in the nine-page Plague of the Zombie Tortoises and it’s much better than his last strip in the monthlies; his idiocy has returned, as has (I’m very happy to say) his disgusting superpowers. So Jimmy got the send off he deserved in the end. Then on Tom Thug’s page is another classic Lew Stringer rhyming script with a plug for where we could find Tom for the next several years.
The third and final multi-part strip was most likely created for the weeklies, seeing as how it’s made up of two-page spreads with edited cliffhanger captions and even looks like it may have originally been in colour (there are black and white reprints of colour strips elsewhere with the same finish to them). Drawn by Chas Sinclair, The Pig With No Name takes on all of the clichés of cowboy and western movies. It’s one I remember laughing so hard at as a kid that I developed a little pain in my side. That moment comes on the second page below and I’m sure you can work out what bit I’m talking about.
After I picked myself back up from that bathroom door scene the rest of the story is a cracker (crackling?). In part two the usual man-enters-a-saloon-and-everyone-stops scene is spoofed, quickly followed by the evil butcher villain and his men having a complete panic and showing the reader what really must go on behind the door in such scenes in these movies. Then finally, it all builds up to the stereotypical quick draw and ends with a hilarious, surprising defeat!
So who wrote this incredibly funny strip? Patrick confirms that it was his fellow co-editor Tony Husband, who worked so brilliantly with Chas on many strips, but strangely it includes no credits all. In fact, Tony’s signature is nowhere to be found in any of the new material. There are reprints of Horace Watkins, one of Tony’s Golden Trough Awards from an early issue and some of his quick gag pages from the weeklies, but for all intents and purposes he’s absent. I asked Patrick about this and he tells me the reason is most likely because they were simply so busy on the Round the Bend TV show by this time.
It’s all very funny, but a few bits and pieces feel like they would’ve been better suited to a comic like Gas
Altogether there are 12 pages of reprints. As a kid I remember recognising some but I’d no idea until right now there were so many. They are some of the very best examples of OiNK’s humour though, so for those unfamiliar with them they add a great deal to the package.
The photo of Patrick is reprinted from an earlier Grunts page but everything else here in GBH’s newest scam is brand new. The small print under the “All Goods At 1/2 Prince Unless Otherwise Stated” headline, the not-at-all-subtle dig at 80s marketing for new fangled music equipment and of course the boasts about the very ordinary features their TV includes are all classic GBH! I’m going to miss these gangsters.
A couple of pages later comes a double-page which shows how much OiNK had changed since its early days. Drawn by Mike Peek with admittedly very funny lyrics written by co-editor Mark Rodgers, this went way over my head at the time. The same thing happened a few times in the monthlies after publisher Fleetway’s well-intentioned (but misguided) tampering to push OiNK towards a slightly older teen audience.
This and some censored, but still very obvious, bad language (in particular in The Slugs) shows OiNK wasn’t a young children’s comic anymore and I think that’s very sad. Its humour was always cheeky, rude even, but it had an innocence about it. While some contents, like most of what I’ve shown you here, could still fall under that category, this spread and a few others contribute to an overall feeling of OiNK no longer being the same publication I remember so fondly.
The team that were still working on it were definitely producing the goods, however OiNK was at its best when it was a children’s comic that could be read and enjoyed by anyone of any age, rather than a comic with a teen-and-older target audience that could (upon occasion) alienate its younger readers. Don’t get me wrong, as an adult it’s all very funny, but a few bits and pieces feel like they would’ve been better suited to a comic like Gas, which a lot of the OiNK team did contribute to (look out for that at a future date).
For the final time, let’s sign off the issue with some new Ian Jackson art.
If you look closely at the first and last speech balloons, the words “effort” and “Holiday Special” seem added in after the fact, like there was originally mention of a “Book” or “OiNK Book” respectively. I asked Patrick who confirms some of the material here was indeed intended for The OiNK! Book 1990 before OiNK was cancelled and he thinks I’m right about the edited words above too.
This particular edition of OiNK is a bit tricky to track down these days, only rarely popping up on eBay but it’s definitely worth keeping an eye out for. It truly is a gorgeous issue and, while there’s a reprint collection to come, this feels like a fitting swan song for a comic that was so fundamental to my life. It feels like a very special issue when held in your trotters and gives some fan favourites a suitable ending after the sudden cancellation last year. Coveted by a lot of fans, the OiNK Winter Special is a treasured piece of my collection and contains a lot of happy memories.
OiNK Blog 