Tag Archives: Steve Gibson

KNOW YOUR OiNK!: CARTOONiSTS’ PROFiLES

11 August 2023 Phil Boyce Leave a comment

This is a nice little bonus post even if I do say so myself. Although I can’t take any of the credit, that must go to ten of OiNK’s top contributors who each decided to tell us a little bit about themselves in the second Holiday Special, released in March 1988. Sprinkled throughout the issue were fun little quarter-page profiles containing a self-portrait of some sort and a description of the cartoonist or editor in their own words.

The last part of that sentence is key. Don’t be expecting any actual real information here. This is OiNK after all. If you chose ten of its talented team and asked them to tell the readers something interesting about themselves do you really think they’d waste that opportunity with actual facts? Or would you prefer they took the chance to use their unique senses of humour to have a laugh instead? It’s a no brainer. Let’s kick things off with the three people responsible for OiNK in the first place, shall we? Here are the comic’s creators and editors. These were the people in charge!

I particularly like Patrick Gallagher’s pen name and his unique way of presenting his age, and it’s hilarious to have the incredibly talented Mark Rodgers’ profile presented as so amateurish. Tony Husband’s artistic depiction of himself is so funny but poor Paul Husband! If you take a look at the very first OiNK, the special preview issue, you’ll see he doesn’t actually look like Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins. If readers had wanted to see what all three of these individuals really looked like they’d have to check out the article in Crash magazine from the previous year.

As a kid I never knew of Crash (or the unique free edition of our comic tucked away inside that issue), so as far as I was concerned these profiles were the closest I was going to get to really knowing those that made us laugh so much. I had no idea it was Patrick and Mark who had appeared in photo stories such as Castaway and Star Truck previously. The latter also starred Tony albeit behind an evil alien (chicken) mask, but we never knew who they were in those strips. That’s what makes these silly not-so-fact files so funny of course, that these would be how we’d image the amazing talent behind the comic. It’s just a shame we didn’t get more!

Ian Jackson is synonymous with OiNK and did appear in a photo story alongside Mark way back in the Valentines issue but, like Tony, he was behind expensive (not really) alien special effects. In fact it was only two years ago, not long after I started this website, when John Freeman‘s Down the Tubes website published a spotlight article about Ian that I finally found out what the person behind Uncle Pigg, Mary Lighthouse and Hadrian Vile looks like.

This imaginative profile not only sums up his wacky sense of humour with far-fetched nonsense, he also manages to highlight the truth about being a cartoonist

Marc Riley appeared as another anonymous kind-of-actor in Star Truck but was probably best known for portraying Snatcher Sam during the first year of the comic and The OiNK! Book 1988. The grisly world of punk rock he refers to is The Fall, the band in which he was a part of for four years between 1978 and 1982 before forming his own band The Creepers. Of course, Frank Sidebottom needs no introduction or indeed a silly drawing! We all knew him from countless children’s television appearances already and the man behind the papier-mâché, Chris Sievey, was always so brilliant with his fans that of course he’d take any opportunity to give them a chance to get in touch directly.

Below is David Haldane’s profile, he of Hugo the Hungry Hippo, Rubbish Man and Torture Twins fame and this imaginative profile not only sums up his wacky sense of humour with far-fetched nonsense, he also manages to highlight the truth about being a cartoonist! Then Steve Gibson, who’d go on to produce a range of very adult comics after OiNK brings us a depiction of himself that’s really rather disturbing and perfectly illustrates (no pun intended) his art style. If you’re interested in a full-page strip of that Judge Pigg he’s drawing then check out the review for #58.

Quite a few years ago now, perhaps about a decade back I had the pleasure of meeting Davy Francis a few weeks before Christmas and had the chance to purchase some of his original OiNK artwork which currently takes pride of place on my wall. I didn’t even know he lived in Belfast like me until I was at a film festival earlier that year, and while chatting about comics to someone and mentioning OiNK they told me they knew Davy. An absolute gent with a brilliant sense of humour and an incredible caricaturist his contribution here keeps to the theme of telling us absolutely nothing about him and instead giving us a good chuckle.

Like Ian and David, Davy works his usual signature into his profile so readers can instantly recognise who this is and then we finish the Holiday Special off with Davy’s good friend Ed McHenry. The drawing in Ed’s is in my mind probably the most accurate, based on my completely unknowledgeable assumptions about cartoonists’ work areas. I really like how he’s tried to incorporate as many of the little random details from his description into the drawing too, it’s packed full of little sight gags and details. Absolutely classic Ed.

A few months after the special one more profile appeared in one of the monthly issues, OiNK #66. While it got my hopes up there’d be more in future issues this was sadly the last but it’s a nice little bonus. Especially since it’s by one of my favourite cartoonists of all time and was in an issue where he contributed almost a third of the contents! Lew is very much a child of the 60s and plays up to that here, beginning with the profile number being made up of three key 60s movie/TV/comic series. I just wish I’d thought of his excuse to get me out of sports at school!

There we go. Don’t you feel completely informed about who made the funniest comic of all time? Me neither. Or maybe we should. The details may not be entirely accurate but they portray the sense of humour OiNK encapsulated, the craziness and imagination that captivated us and the combination of comic talent that was like no other. These great profiles inside the second OiNK Holiday Special may not have been an introduction to these cartoonists, but they could very well be the perfect introduction to OiNK itself.

THE MORE OiNK! MENU

MAiN OiNK! MENU

OiNK Comic Reviews

OiNK! #64: WAKA-WAKA-WiT

18 June 2023 Phil Boyce Leave a comment

The second of our monthly OiNKs brings a surprise cover star in the shape of Police Vet, a character who had appeared before in The OiNK! Book 1988 in a funny take on 70s police dramas, with a pre-Ace Ventura slant of an officer who only investigates missing pets etc. While it’s easy for us to look back on the 80s and have a well meaning giggle, here we have the 80s and its excesses taking the hand out of the decade that preceded them. So it’s a retro look at a different retro time and I think it’s great fun.

On the inside cover is the most blatant example of how OiNK had been rebooted for an older teen audience. Mark Rodgers’ script for the latest Rotten Rhymes completely baffled me at the time. I was only ten-years-old and firmly inside the original target bracket for the comic. Reading this now, as funny as it is it would suit another publication more, inside OiNK it just feels out of place. I know that’s the way the comic was heading but it’s jarring after 63 issues of hilarious children’s comics. They had been suitable for all but now this was aimed way over the heads of the loyal fans who’d been pig pals since the start, for the first time excluding a part of the audience.

It reads like a cross between Austin Powers and Ace Ventura which is quite the feat when neither existed yet, with a liberal sprinkling of Starsky and Hutch thrown in for good measure

The rest off the issue is more like the OiNK we knew and loved. The main event is the six-page Police Vet story written by Mark and drawn by cover artist Eric ‘Wilkie’ Wilkinson. Beginning with its own version of a Shaft-like theme tune we soon shift to some pretty awful (read: funny) puns as our hero gets his assignment. This reads like a complete strip and not a serial originally meant for several weeklies pasted together. The monthlies will have a mixture of these kinds of larger strips (edited serials and tailor-made). This could also have been made for a future special or annual and brought forward for the new format. As such it changes the pacing of this particular story and is all the better for it.

It reads like a cross between Austin Powers and the aforementioned Jim Carrey movies which is quite the feat when neither existed yet, with a liberal sprinkling of Starsky and Hutch thrown in for good measure, particularly in Police Vet’s nonchalance of being in an exciting car chase. The best bit for me is how he deduces Foxy isn’t a real woman because she was too much of a bad stereotype, only for the culprit to be the most stereotypical French person imaginable. Brilliance.

We even have an example of the 70s laughing at the fashion of the 80s! It’s a shame we never got to see the character return, as after this he’d hang up his platforms for good. Maybe it was for the best before the joke wore thin. To perk me up from knowing that was the end of Police Vet is Misplaced in Space on the very next page with a very surprising special guest artist, following the likes of Dave Gibbons in #49 and Kevin O’Neill in the first special and book. Pencilling Davy Francis’ script here is none other than John McCrea (Hitman, The Boys: Herogasm, 2000AD).

Another local (to me) talent like Davy and OiNK’s Ian Knox, John was born in Belfast and good pals with Davy, who approached him about contributing to the comic. Renowned for his 2000AD strips in particular his body of work is quite staggering and in 1988 he added a page of OiNK to that list. Written and then inked by Davy, John brings a unique look to the strip. Especially unique because he didn’t normally do humour comics work. What a treat to see these two completely different talents combine their styles inside my favourite comic. OiNK really was one of a kind.

I have a vague recollection of news bulletins in the 80s being filled with something every night that seemed to unite mainland Britain in anger, and which Spitting Image took great delight in poking fun at. It didn’t affect the populace of Northern Ireland but that didn’t stop me from knowing just enough to enjoy this next piece written by Howard Osborn. I am of course talking about the Poll Tax. OiNK taking its role as a children’s comic very seriously for a moment here to educate us on the latest piece of legislation.

As I mentioned in the preview for this issue there’s a page in here that would end up being read out in the House of Commons. No piggy prizes for guessing correctly this was it. OiNK would actually tell its readers about this in a future issue so we’ll check back in on what happened when we get there. I wonder what Howard thought of that! It feels very current too, especially the digs it takes with points five, six, seven and the final sentence. Unfortunately some things just don’t change, eh?

A couple of quick Lew Stringer highlights next. A quite monumental moment was approaching for Tom Thug, something that had never happened before in children’s funny comics. Reminding me somewhat of how The Sekret Diary ov Hadrian Vile saw his mum go through an actual pregnancy before his new baby sister appeared in the story, Tom would actually leave school and go out into the adult world. But he still has to finish his final year of course. Then in Pete and his Pimple, with the Zitbusters from #41 back a lucky reader got to see themselves as the person who saves the day! Sort of. Well, basically how Lew imagined they might look anyway.

This issue leans more towards the text-heavy pages than normal and there are more examples of the partnership that seems to have blossomed between young writer Charlie Brooker and the unique art of Steve Gibson on these pages, specifically Doctor Jonathan Swiller’s Home Health Check-Up. The character is a parody of Dr Jonathan Miller, a physician who also happened to be a director, author and actor, and was well known in the 1980s.

The following self-diagnosis test asks the readers to answer honestly so they can get a free and easy assessment of their overall health. With only eight questions in total, to get the thorough diagnosis we’re expecting surely these questions will really probe deep, right? Not quite, no. Starting with the insanely easy and making its way to the ludicrous in no time at all, this is genuinely very funny and, even though I never knew the person this was based on, I remember finding it just as funny as a child. Sometimes the silliest ideas just work.

Charlie’s work as both cartoonist and writer in OiNK is a highlight of the whole run for me. He contributed a lot for still being at school, appearing on no less than five pages out of the 42 pages of new content here (#6’s Watery Down and two of the OiNK Superstar Posters are reprinted). Speaking previously with co-editors Patrick Gallagher and Tony Husband on separate occasions both praised Charlie’s work, remembering how the amount of his contributions kept rising, so impressed were they with what he was producing.

Before I show you a handful of the issue’s great mini-strips we’re off to the sunny climes of the Bahamas once more after we visited there in #61 for the GBH Desert Island Survival Kit. Clearly co-editor Mark Rodgers, his partner Helen Jones and writer Graham Exton felt the gorgeous setting and opportunities it provided were ripe for more than one OiNK moment. This issue we find ourselves on a golden beach (albeit in black and white) as bored Robina finally finds what’s been missing in her life in Castaway, a “Heart-Wrenching Photo-Story”.

I think this is all the funnier knowing now that’s real-life partners Helen and Mark. Playing on the expectations of those typical love photo-stories found in women’s weekly magazines (which have been a target since the very beginning of OiNK) I love how Helen’s acting is deemed to need a large arrow telling the reader what she’s portraying, plus her goofy look in the panel below. This must’ve been so much fun to produce.

The characters of When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth sign off with one of their best entries

While the issue has its fair share of text-heavy pages and the like it’s also got a particularly good selection of mini-strips sprinkled throughout. Below are the best of the crop. A recent addition to the regular OiNK team that’s becoming just as prolific as Charlie is Kev F Sutherland whose Rotten Rhymes version of Polly Put the Kettle On is classic OiNK. Marc Riley’s Harry the Head is still in mini-strip form from the weeklies and appears to be staying that way with this acknowledgement of the new look.

Davy Francis’ Doctor Mad-Starkraving (a spin-off from Davy’s Greedy Gorb) tells a great gag that in hindsight is actually the most obvious time travel joke! It’s just that no one had thought it up yet. An instant classic gag from Davy then. Finally, Marc’s zany characters in When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth make their final appearance in a new strip (they’d return next issue but as a reprint before disappearing) and they sign off with one of their best entries.

There’s one more page I’ll show in a special post next week. It’s a competition to win a couple of books of particular interest to pig pals and I’ve been able to procure them in time to have a closer look at, so watch out for that post.

While OiNK would take another issue or two to truly settle into its new guise this issue has still been a belter. As more and more gets created with the new look in mind we’d see bigger and better strips from all of our favourites and some truly memorable moments that are among the very best OiNK produced. The Next Issue promo in this issue elicited real excitement too when it signalled the return of The Street-Hogs at last in ‘Malice in Underland!’ You’ll see that promo in the preview post on Thursday 13th July 2023, swiftly followed by the review of #65 itself on Sunday 16th.

iSSUE 63 < > CRACKLiNG TALES BOOKS

OiNK READ THROUGH MENU

MAiN OiNK MENU

OiNK Comic Reviews

OiNK! #58: JUDGED TO BE FUNNY

7 April 2023 Phil Boyce Leave a comment

I have distinct memories of showing this issue of OiNK to some friends of mine a few years after its publication when I’d moved on to grammar school and met some huge 2000AD fans. Their reaction to the cover and the strip inside was one of laughter, naturally. One of them had also collected OiNK, for the others it was something new and they were gutted not only at the fact Judge Pigg wasn’t a regular strip, but also that the comic itself was no longer being produced.

The lack of colour on the cover is a bit of a disappointment. The strip suits being in black and white as it’s a spoof of the earlier days of Judge Dredd when the majority of 2000AD also lacked colour, but I can’t help wonder how much better the cover could’ve looked. Interesting to note the comic is committing to ‘satire’ now too, after writer Graham Exton previously went to lengths to explain OiNK focussed on parody instead of satire and the difference between them . Perhaps this was another sign of the changing age of the audience mentioned in #51.

Steve Gibson is the perfect artist to parody the hard-edged style of classic Judge Dredd, making the joke of the whole thing even more reminiscent of what inspired it. In fact, I’d go so far as to say there’s something quite Brian Bolland about it, like Steve was spoofing that particular Dredd artist. It’s written by Mark Rodgers (of course it would be), someone who had worked for IPC Magazine’s humour comics for many years and who would’ve been very familiar with their stablemate sci-fi comic.

Also, as a regular cat sitter myself and someone who can’t walk past a kitty without trying to befriend them I just love that ending. This is one OiNK strip that’s even more enjoyable to me nowadays than it was when I was a mere ten-years-old. Not just because of the cat though. I think I appreciate the work Steve has put into the style of the strip overall because I’ve read a good bit of Dredd in the intervening years, whereas originally I don’t think I even knew the character.

Frank makes tabloid headlines the butt of his jokes with the actual story being very different to the assumption the headline produces

Since going weekly co-editor Tony Husband has contributed a hybrid full-page/mini-strip to each issue. Containing only two or three panels each but taking up a full page, there’s a chance those unfamiliar with OiNK and the freestyle drawings of Tony might initially think these pages are light on content, maybe even rushed as one friend put it at the time. Not true of course and when each and every one of them produces a good laugh who cares anyway?

Those of us used to two years of Tony’s award-winning style and his Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins strips enjoyed these bold full-page gags every week and they were a defining part of OiNK’s short but memorable 18-issue stint as a weekly comic. Tony also created one of my favourite non-regular characters, the multi-named Wonder Pig who this issue goes by the name Lazzie. They were getting a four-issue run (quickly followed up by one more in the first monthly) and the repetition of the predicament that would befall his owner continued to raise giggles.

Other highlights of #58 include Frank Sidebottom’s Little Bit of Show-biz (sic) Gossip at the bottom of his page. As per usual Frank makes tabloid headlines the butt of his jokes with the actual story being very different to the assumption the headline produces. Also, Hieronymous Van Hellsong is in the pits of hell looking for the soul of singer Raoul McCurtney and it appears even in that dark place there’s always that one person.

Lazzie the Wonder Pig
written by Tony Husband,
drawn by Chas Sinclair

I’ve mentioned before I’ve been surprised at how infrequently certain characters actually appeared in OiNK, simply because they’d formed such a strong part of my memories of the comic from childhood. Perhaps the very fact some of my favourites weren’t in every issue helped make their appearances all that more memorable and I think this applies to the following series as well, which I’m very surprised to discover had only six episodes.

Charlie Brooker’s The Swinelight Zone popped up in #44 as a one-off strip and then reappeared three weeks ago in #55. It’s been in each issue since as well as the recent Holiday Special but it disappears after this, never to return. I’d thought it was a regular fixture all the way through to the last issue. What a shame, but at least they go out on a high. Quite literally in this case.

One strip which would remain with us until the very end was Kev F Sutherland’s Meanwhile… series. Each had a completely different scenario with nothing to link them other than the title and the cartoonist’s unique sense of humour. Kev would take a seemingly trivial locale or event and create a guaranteed laugh from it in his own unique way, such as ‘Meanwhile at the Fun Fair…’ back in #49. That was a properly funny mini-strip and I’m very happy to see the return of the series for the first time since gets a full page.

There’d be at least one in each of the monthlies and they really were a constant defining highlight of those later issues. The Meanwhile… in this issue is the perfect example of what we could expect so much of. It takes a simple idea, a simple joke that could’ve worked in a smaller capacity and takes it to another level, making it as crazy and as funny as possible before the pay off. So, after Kev’s pun-packed March of the Killer Breakfasts last week comes something completely diffferent.

That was the beauty of the Meanwhile… series; on the surface they were more like a series of one-offs by the same talented cartoonist, every single one felt completely different, yet that idea of taking a joke and getting as much value out of it as possible was key. The example above still pops into my head today whenever I hear someone utter those words, and I have a little chuckle to myself every time.

From strips I thought were regulars but weren’t, to one I thought was a tiny little one-off when it appeared in the previous Christmas issue but then was delighted to see return just a few weeks ago. It’s The Kingdom of Trump. This is another last appearance unfortunately, but then again I didn’t expect more than one in the first place so I’m just happy to see it. This is also the most memorable of the trilogy.

I’d loved to have seen what else Davey could’ve come up with

Davey Jones’ King isn’t the main character in this one but the silliness of his kingdom and all those who dwell within is very much front and centre. Davey’s sense of humour is completely insane; go and have a look at #20’s war spoof Bridge Over the River Septic if you need any more proof of that! He’d later become a hit in the pages of Viz and you can clearly see why in his OiNK work.

From the wooden stick masquerading as a horse to the dragon living in a cave right next to the throne with a polite little doorbell, there’s so much that made me laugh on this half-page. Funniest of all is that silent penultimate panel with that facial expression! The Kingdom of Trump really should’ve been a regular, the three examples we got were so funny, each one better than what came before. I’d loved to have seen what else Davey could’ve come up with.

On that note we come to the end of another review. We of course finish with co-editor Patrick Gallagher’s newsagent reservation coupon as per usual, moving from the already random Great Moments in History to the completely daft Great Moments in the Height of Good Manners (number 76 no less). April is the last month full of weekly issues so make sure to come back next Friday 14th April 2023 for #59 as we inch closer to the next big evolution in the life of OiNK.