Just a quickie this week. Kicking things off as usual with the covers for The Real Ghostbusters and Transformers and Action Force and, unlike last year, the former was actually marking the occasion of Halloween, as it really should’ve every year. Slimer is drawn by Brian Williamson, Dave Harwood and Robin Bouttell, the attack on the Autobot Ark is the work of Jeff Anderson.
Medic Ratchet, who was always a favourite character of mine in the early days of the Transformers comic, was going through something of a mental breakdown this week thanks to the Decepticon Micromasters controlling the bodies of his fallen comrades. He was always one of the better developed characters. In the exclusive UK strip one of the best artists at getting real character into these toys was Andrew Wildman. This week, Thunderwing attacked the chilled out (and ill-prepared) Autobots on the Ark and was announced as Decepticon leader after the successful mayhem and destruction. Let the games begin!
The Real Ghostbusters actually contained an honest-to-gosh reprint from an earlier issue this time and as a kid this really annoyed me (unlike Transformers which repeated some series from before I was a reader). Thankfully, they’d soon be replaced with American imports and the rest of the comic was always guaranteed quality. In particular, this week there was a surprise sequel story to an earlier strip about a haunted electric razor and the chaos this had caused for Peter. Both stories were among the funniest the comic produced, not that you’d know it was a funny comic from the advert appearing for the first time in other Marvel UK titles this week.
Then again, any fans of the movie and the cartoon should know what they’re going to get! This image was drawn by regular Real Ghostbusters artist, Anthony Larcombe and taken from one of his earlier strips. It would become synonymous with the comic for the rest of its run, as it was used in this promo for a long time throughout the publisher’s range. From what I recall, this dramatic entry into a client’s property to bust a supposedly terrifying monster was actually happening in Janine’s apartment where demons had taken possession of her mirror. I seem to recall it was more afraid of her than the ‘busters!
As you can see, there was no checklist in either of these comics this week. It was out there somewhere, possibly in the pages of the others I haven’t collected. It was mentioned on the editorial page of The Real Ghostbusters but where it should’ve been we were met with a half-page advert for The Incredible Hulk Presents instead, which you can check out in last week’s post as it happens.
The list reappears next week (for one week anyway) with details of no less than five comics, and our two lead weeklies have covers representing the return of two big baddies. One terrifying, one cuddly and delicious. See you in seven.
I’ve got a bumper selection of nostalgia for you this week, with no less than five comics on the checklist and three contemporary comics adverts. Well, two are versions of each other but they still count. We kick things off as per usual with the covers of the two comics they’re all being pulled from.
Once again Brian Williamson, Dave Harwood and Robin Bouttell team up for The Real Ghostbusters and I’ve noticed in the way I’ve taken this photo that the sheen on the top-left clearly shows the higher paper grade both comics were enjoying around this time. For their outer 16 pages anyway. The funniest moment inside came from a tenuous link between a ghost pilot and dimensional planes in Spengler’s Spirit Guide, a page that was always guaranteed to raise a giggle.
Geoff Senior’s cover for Transformers and Action Force hinted at the return from the depths of the terrifying Thunderwing, but not before the American story continued to build towards the return of four classic characters in their new Pretender forms, namely Jazz, Bumblebee, Grimlock and Starscream. It was such an exciting time for me as a reader, the US and UK strips so simpatico with one another in each issue; side-by-side rather than the comic alternating between the two. Having four fan favourite characters I’d missed out on from earlier issues was the icing on the cake.
I mentioned before how the new look checklist would allow more comics to be covered upon occasion and this week is one such occasion. Ignore the listing of two strips as reprints for The Real Ghostbusters (possibly putting potential readers off), as discussed last time this was a mistake again. That Action Force story briefly mentioned in the entry for Transformers was superb, with the team disavowed while behind enemy lines. I’ve got great memories of that one with its superb original villains.
The cover to The Sleeze Brothers’ penultimate issue saw the duo’s idiotic faces coming out of an overflowing toilet, setting the scene perfectly for a misadventure in the sewers. Check it out in more depth in the full review at the link further below. The 13th edition of The Punisher began another new story that could easily have been set today, while the Thundercats got such a perfunctory description you have to wonder why the writer of the checklist even bothered.
On to our adverts. In this week’s Transformers the Deception Flamefeather came off the worse for wear thanks to his wannabe leader Thunderwing, but he got the star power treatment on the advert for the latest special.
Jeff Anderson’s pencils and Stephen Baskerville’s inks for the hugely enjoyable Enemy Action story were the stars of Collected Comics 14, one of the best reprint specials of the run which saw the Seacons, Firecons and Sparkler Minibots (the latter two groups based on pull-back-and-release toys that produced little sparks that were so much fun for us kids) up against none other than the always-entertaining Galvatron. Along with a superb annual story and some new A-Z fact-files it was a great special to see in the darker days with.
The other adverts were full-page and half-page variations for the new Incredible Hulk Presents, a weekly which saw the green one’s strip backed up with a variety of other tales from Action Force, Doctor Who and Indiana Jones. As a kid, the title star never appealed and his strips were the least interesting of those advertised, so I never tried the comic out. It didn’t last very long, just 12 issues and it ended one week before the checklists did, just two-and-a-half months after the premiere issue.
It had actually been launched the week before this but for some reason hadn’t made the cut for the checklists, despite there being plenty of room for it last time. I always thought it was a strange mix, what with Action Force and Doctor Who already having strips elsewhere. Although, apparently the Doctor’s stories here were brand new and would be reprinted in Doctor Who Magazine later. With four strips for what seemed like disparate audiences no wonder it didn’t last, becoming just another of a myriad of new comics launched by Marvel UK in 1988 and 1989 that disappeared quickly.
Next week, for the first time in 36 weeks there’ll be no checklist. Instead, one of our main comics gets an advert for those who were somehow unaware of it, or who maybe just needed a poke to buy one of the best comics around at the time. It’ll be here in seven days. Will you?
It took the talented trio of Brian Williamson, Dave Harwood and Robin Bouttell to produce the week’s cover for The Real Ghostbusters, while Andrew Wildman had to cope all on his lonesome to knock out this fantastic front page for Transformers and Action Force with some funny hidden gems in there (a toaster, bike pedal and a UK plug?).
At last the New York team got the same paper upgrade the Cybertronians had been enjoying on-and-off for a while. Speaking of things finally happening, that Pharaoh story mentioned in week 59’s checklist saw the light of day, but now of course Spengler’s Spirit Guide no longer matched up. A child’s letter questioned the science behind the naming of their Proton Packs and for once the comic gave a considered, serious response! Again, this issue was all-new but the checklist describes some stories as reprints. There could be a reason for this, one which we may get a definitive answer to on the blog in the future.
First, that Transformers cover represented a very funny strip also drawn by Andrew. It involved a double-dealing ‘bot and The Mechannibals in a tense stand off followed by a magnificent 80s-style bar brawl, but the highlight was (letter answerer) Dreadwind and his partner, Darkwing. Drunk on dodgy oil after the failure of their most recent mission several months back, the story jumped back and forth between their slurred speech and feeling-sorry-for-themselves comedy in every left-hand panel, while the drama and action played out in every right-hand panel. It’s hilarious stuff and indicative of the kind of thing the comic was perfect at in this three-story format. It also broke up all of that tension and darkness from previous weeks nicely.
As you can see, this week’s checklist was light on quantity but the comics featured made up for that in quality. Not only was the UK Transformers story magnificent this week, the imported US stories changed hands, with Brit Simon Furman now writing for both sides of the Atlantic. Hasbro had brought back four toys from the original line up as Pretenders and this was the beginning of Simon’s wonderful take on their reissue. From here until the end (in January 1992) Simon would do a magnificent job of creating back stories for any toy release they could come up with.
Also, check out the link below to see Lew Stringer introduce Dara O’Briain in Combat Colin! (Not really.)
The only other new point of interest this week was the latest issue of The Punisher and, while the comic itself did a better job of it (from what I’m told), I’m really not comfortable with how these checklists have generalised certain things (groups, historical moments, plot points) at times. It’ll be interesting to see how the comic itself portrayed these stories. In the meantime, you can look forward to an absolute bumper crop of goodies in next week’s post with five comics on the checklist and three new adverts. Well, two really. Well, technically three. You’ll see what I mean in seven.
Combat Colin by Lew Stringer from Transformers #302
When I was a kid most of my comics were fortnightly so their Christmas editions arrived very close to the Big Day itself, complete with snowy logos and cheery happenings on the cover. It always felt like extra effort went into the creation of these special editions, and reading them just days before the annuals arrived from Santa was guaranteed to raise already high levels of excitement even further.
The classic Christmas comics covered so far had that same effect on me even as an adult. So I decided I wanted to do something a bit special this year with all of the seasonal covers in my collection, and to do it right at the beginning of December to kick off the excitement on the blog this year. Below you’ll find a smorgasbord of festive fun from four comics titles I’ve already covered, one I’ve been reading for the blog’s Instagram for seven years(!), another I’m reading annually, a popular title I’m still in the collecting stage of and, for the first time, I’ll reveal one of the new real time read throughs beginning in 2024 by showing you its two Christmas covers!
That’s 21 covers altogether. “Holidays Are Coming!”
#43 cover by Ian Jackson #18 cover by John Geering #44 cover by Lezz
Of course we have to kick things off with the blog’s namesake, don’t we? My very favourite comic had two special issues for my very favourite time of the year. A great spoof of our family’s traditional Christmas TV magazine (which I still buy in December) or a hilarious Ian Jackson cover, which is the best? The second of these issues is my favourite regular issue of OiNK out of its whole 68-issue run, so that particular cover always makes me smile the most.
With the New Year holiday named HOGmanay in Scotland it’d be rude not to do a themed issue in a comic called OiNK for that part of the season. Both of these celebratory issues are also some of the best the team ever produced, with covers by the legendary John Geering and Les ‘Lezz’ Barton respectively. In fact, #43 and #44 form the final two issues of what I personally saw as OiNK’s Golden Age, a run of pretty perfect comics which also included The OiNK! Book 1988.
Super Naturals’ Christmas issue is one of my favourites from this whole blog experience
There’s nothing quite like a good Christmas ghost story. So, when I began collecting Fleetway’s Super Naturals comic for the blog (after only having owned the first and last issues as a kid) I was thrilled to not only see #5 was a special Christmas issue but that it also had a simply joyous, painted Ian Kennedy cover. Inside, the team really went for the spirit of the season, with even the ongoing serials containing themes and plots centred around Christmas. My favourite issue of the run and one of my favourite issues from this whole blog experience.
Super Naturals #5 cover by Ian Kennedy
By coincidence, a year later it was also #5 of Super Naturals editor Barrie Tomlinson’s Wildcat that fell at the right time, with a somewhat memorable front page! With its ongoing serials set upon the surface of a distant world as we searched for a new home planet it was left up to the complete anthology story to tell a tale on board the Wildcat spacecraft itself which, yes, did include that image from the cover. Even more surprisingly it actually explained it!
At the time of writing this post those are all of the Christmas comics I’ve covered as part of real time read throughs on the blog so far. However, over on the Instagram account for over seven years I’ve been patiently reading Marvel UK’s superlative Transformers comic. I’m actually reaching its conclusion very soon, in January 2024. In its last December the issue on sale over Christmas was the penultimate edition so it didn’t take a break from the ongoing story for a Christmas special, meaning I’ve read all of its seasonal issues.
It’s Christmas! “So what?”
Starscream
In fact, it was a particularly Christmassy Winter Special that began my lifelong love of the Cybertronians. By 1988 I’d enjoyed many episodes of the cartoon and owned a few of the videos so when I fell ill my mum bought me a comic to cheer me up. That comic was Transformers Collected Comics 11. It contained three reprinted Christmas stories and I loved every page! It was a revelation compared to the cartoon. Within a few days I had a regular order at the newsagent and 35 years later I’m first in line at the cinema every few years and have been enjoying Image Comic’s brand new series (which began just a few months ago).
#7 cover taken from The Last Stand: Part One, pencils by Frank Springer, inks by Ian Akin & Brian Garvey #41 cover by Mike Collins & Mark Farmer #93 cover by Robin Smith #145 cover by Barry Kitson & Robin BouttellCollected Comics #11 cover by Robin Smith #198 cover & #250 wraparound by Andrew Wildman #302 cover by Stewart Johnson & John Burns
That earliest issue from the comic’s first year may only pay lip service to the festivities on the cover but as you can see from then on they celebrated with some of the most fun issues they ever produced. There’s snow or holly on a couple of the logos and even Optimus Prime dressed as Santa which, much like Wildcat, is actually explained in the story and isn’t just a cover image. Although they play up to that with the next year’s Christmas card image of Galvatron, who wasn’t inside.
The issue with all the snow was actually one of my first issues back at the time. It was doubly exciting for me because it was a special issue for Christmas and had one of the toys I received that year on the cover (Slapdash, the one on the left). The celebratory 250th issue fell on just the right date and as the comic surpassed an incredible 300 editions former letter answerer Dreadwind hilariously had to answer to the ghosts of the past, present and future Transformers to hold that post.
Big Comic Fortnightly #14 cover by Sid Burgon Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends #31 cover by Tim Marwood
Thirty-five years ago I very gratefully received The Book Comic Book 1988 for Christmas (reviewed just three days ago) and was thrilled to suddenly see a new fortnightly baring the same ‘Big Comic’ brand during the following summer. I just had to track down this fondly remembered issue for this post. Of course, the cover was a reprint too, reworked from #35 of Jackpot. Big Comic never felt like a random selection of reprints but rather a properly curated collection that made each issue unique. It even had a special Leo Baxendale issue. Its Christmas specials were similarly packed with related material.
Next to it is the second Christmas edition of Marvel UK’s Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends, one of two issues I’ve kept all these years and for a very personal reason. Namely, it was the first time young me saw his name in print when my drawing of Thomas, Gordon and Percy with Santa hats was published inside. I can still remember that moment of excitement upon turning the page that year. If you want to see it, you can check out the Thomas retrospective (marking an incredible 800 issues), the link to it and all of the issues featured here can be found at the bottom of this post.
I’ve also written a five-part series about my top Christmas comics for former Marvel UK editor John Freeman’s Down the Tubes website
Moving on to a comic I wrote about for the 33rd anniversary of its first issue. I enjoyed that so much I committed to covering the comic in some fashion in the future. However, with over 190 issues to collect first it’s going to take a while. (Remember, these cost money!) What I can show you now are the first three years of festive fun. Taking advantage of its weekly schedule, The Real Ghostbusters had two celebratory issues every year, one for Christmas and one for the New Year, as you can see below.
#29 cover by Martin Griffiths #30 & #82 covers by Brian Williamson & Dave Harwood #81 cover by Brian Williamson, Dave Harwood & Robin Bouttell #133 & #134 covers by Brian Williamson, Stephen Baskerville & John Burns
With at least three stories (two strip and one prose) every issue we were treated to a couple of themed stories and of course Slimer’s humour strip would also join in. One of the New Year issues also contained the results of a reader survey told in comic strip form, complete with the winners at Marvel UK meeting the characters on stage!
I promised at the top of this post I’d be introducing one of 2024’s brand new real time read throughs with a preview of its two Christmas covers. It’s time to reveal the title that will finally be keeping Jurassic Park company in the Dark Horse International drop-down menu. It’s not one you’d expect to have a nice, cheerful Christmassy cover… and you’d be right. They’re not exactly the usual fluffy fare.
Covers by Chris Halls
With the strips all being imports from the US, split into ongoing serials, I doubt there are any stories inside to match the covers but this is one of those rare occasions when covers not correlating to the contents doesn’t annoy me. The fact Aliens of all things marked the season at all (and with funny headlines to boot) is brilliant as far as I’m concerned. All of the Aliens issues I’m covering have arrived and I’m eager to start reading them next year. Listen out for the motion tracker bleeps in May 2024.
There we go, my look at all of the Christmas covers currently residing in my classic comics collection. Writing this has me wanting to read them all over again. Well, the ones I’ve already featured anyway, the last two titles will have to wait until it’s their time, that’s the rule of the blog after all.
I’ve also written a five-part series about my top Christmas comics for former Marvel UK editor John Freeman’s Down the Tubes for this festive season. Below you can see the banner John created for the series (Smudge the cat is becoming very famous these days) and links to the five individual posts from fifth place to my top Christmas comic.
So you’ve opened all your presents, eaten your own weight in food and want to relax on the sofa with a good book this Christmas season. The holidays aren’t over yet and this week, which some refer to as ‘Void Week’ when we lose track of what day it even is, was always the time I’d start getting stuck into my annuals when I was a kid. You can carry on this fine tradition, not only here on the blog itself with the review of The OiNK! Book 1988 but also on Instagram where the real time read through of Marvel UK‘s Transformers has reached its seventh (yes, seventh) Christmas!
Cover by Stewart Johnson
This post is just to let everyone know of that other read through, one that’s been carrying on since the days of the original blog. For over six years I’ve been reading this wonderful comic in real time, never reading ahead, always waiting for each Thursday to roll around (the dates corresponding to Saturdays at the time) to read the next chapter in the ongoing saga of the Autobots and the Decepticons, now at over 300 issues! As you’d expect, the issues are a bit extra special this time of the year and sit alongside the hardback book Santa would’ve brought us.
Cover by Geoff Senior
At this stage in its life the comic really is the best its ever been in my honest opinion, and from memory this final year (the read through will come to an end in January 2024) has some of the best stories, the most incredible art, the greatest characters and the biggest epics imaginable. It goes fortnightly soon which will make the wait between issues even more of a test of will power but each one will be worth the wait, I’m positive of that.
Cover by Stewart Johnson and Robin Bouttell
So come on over to the OiNK Blog‘s Instagram and follow along for some of the very best comics, licenced or otherwise, I’ve ever read! The Christmas and New Year issues and the annual from 1990 are the latest additions. The covers alone these next 12 months are worth the price of admission (which is nothing). The profile is public so if you don’t have an Instagram account and don’t want to sign up you won’t have to, just bookmark this page: https://www.instagram.com/oink_blog/
