Weedy Willy and Roger Rental, He’s Completely Mental are two of my most fondly remembered OiNK characters. I’m sure I’m not alone in that. We’re all familiar with their strips and art styles; Mike Green for Willy and Ian Knox for Roger. But that wasn’t always the plan.
Graham Exton went to university with one of OiNK’s three creator/editors, Mark Rodgers and I’ve previously shown the Germs comic they produced as part of their course. Graham was very heavily involved in OiNK in the early days, helping create characters, strips and the overall sense of humour as the dummy issue was put together in 1984 for IPC Magazines, the contents of which would be used for the Preview Issue two years later. Graham would contribute heavily to the early issues of the regular comic before moving to live in the Bahamas, which reduced his comics work somewhat. (Hey, it was the 80s, before the internet so seamlessly brought us all together no matter how far apart we were to adore each other’s cats.)
Graham created The Plops amongst others, including the aforementioned Roger and Willy. Not only did he create these two icons of OiNK, he also drew their strips when cartoonists were still being assembled. Ultimately, he’d be one of the comic’s main writers when it launched, for these two characters and plenty more. For OiNK’s 40th anniversary Graham has given me his kind permission to show pig pals those early, unpublished strips from the days when OiNK was first being put together. Some are still in their unfinished pencilled state, while a few of the Willy strips are complete and inked.
You’ll notice quite a difference between these and the characters we were eventually introduced to. Weedy Willy looks more like a regular boy, it’s his words and actions that give us the information (and the gags) on how weak and cowardly he is. Roger isn’t even called Roger! Barmy Barney was the precursor to Mr. Rental. As Graham explained to me, “I think it was Mark’s decision to use Mike Green’s weedy, spindly style for Willy rather than my more Baxendale-ish one. Similarly, Ian’s wacky style seemed better suited to the character [of Roger].”
The name Stuart Fellows also pops up in one strip, a name unfamiliar to me. “Stuart is an old pal from the Leeds days,” says Graham. “I expect he chipped in for that story. Most of our mates contributed ideas and scripts. You’ll see Keith Forrest’s name on Roger Rental stories, for example.”
Some of these early ideas of Graham’s would make it into OiNK in his scripts for Mike. A strip about Mandy’s recently deceased cat would be reworked and included in the Preview Issue and the introduction of Flash the dog, who now looked like it wouldn’t be too long until he joined Mandy’s cat, was used in the first regular issue. “The dog was named after a friend’s (school friend Rob) mangy mutt. Mike’s version was certainly weedier than mine, which is sort of generic IPC/Baxendale style.“
This was followed up in #2 with a reworking of a photography story. You can see Graham’s original completed strip and the full page from OiNK below to compare.
Graham would continue to contribute to OiNK via fax but less often, ultimately stopping altogether. “I continued to write Sweeny [Toddler for Whizzer and Chips] in South Andros, but dropped all the others on account of teaching,” he says. “Gums was the last to go. (I loved writing Gums. Such a narcissist prat!)” On that we can agree, I love that stupid ol’ shark!
“I continued to write and draw and started Tatertown when I was between jobs in Freeport, Grand Bahamas,” Graham continues. “That really improved my art, and I learned how to use Photoshop to colour the strips. Now I’m teaching comics colouring in my computer classes! One of my tenth grade girls is completely into it and coloured one of my Sweeny newspaper strips that never got published.”
Thanks so much to Graham for all of the great information and of course these original scans. I’ve always said I’d love to see the Creating OiNK section of the blog expand now that the full real time read through is complete, so this insight into the creation of these characters and their misadventures is gratefully received. I hope you all enjoyed it too, may there by many more to come.
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