Wednesday 16 March 2022

Pete and his Pimple Lost In Space! (OiNK! comic, 1988)




I was reminded yesterday of this Pete and his Pimple story I did way back in 1988. Towards the end of the run of Oink! comic I asked readers to come up with ideas to cure Pete's giant pimple. Reader Daryl Selby was one of many who sent in suggestions, and this one was about sending Pete into space, so I took that idea and developed it. 

Yesterday, Daryl posted a query on the Oink! Comic Facebook group asking to see it again and group moderator Phil Boyce kindly replied with scans of the strip. I thought I'd post it here today so that more of you can see it.

This originally appeared in Oink! No.66, dated September 1988. It was when the comic had become a 68 page monthly so we were allowed more pages for our stories. I really enjoyed doing this three pager and I think it was one of the best in the series. I hope you enjoy seeing it again, 24 years later!

Incidentally, my original art was censored in one panel! I'd show Pete (with his back to us) having a wee against the robot but that was too much for IPC. They stuck a piece of paper over him and changed the tail of the word balloon so it looked like Pete was hidden behind the robot... but the paste-over was opaque and with a bit of Photoshop enhancement you can see Pete's silhouette...

If you want to join the Oink! comic Facebook group here's the link:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/OinkComic/ 

Phil Boyce also runs The OiNK! Blog at this link:

https://oink.blog/

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6 comments:

PhilEdBoyce said...

Haha, it's been a long time since I read that issue but I never noticed the very clear silhouette of Pete having a wee! Even without Photoshop it's quite clear on the page! I must make sure to point that out when I get around to reviewing the issue... in about a year-and-a-half.

Lew Stringer said...

I still have the art for these pages as they're some of my favourites. They're buried somewhere beneath a pile of Buster pages but I wonder if the patch paper used for censoring it has dried up by now?

If I remember correctly. my original sound effect was "Pssssss" but clearly that blew IPC's gasket too. :D

This was during the time when we were told to pitch the stories at an older audience but clearly even mild rudeness was still unacceptable.

Anonymous said...

So your artwork is filed with the earliest at the bottom and newest at the top? It shouldn't be to hard to find certain pages then if anyone put in a requeast?

Lew Stringer said...

My artwork isn't filed in any sort of order I'm afraid. I know these Pete pages must be near the bottom because I haven't seen them for a long time when I've been sorting through pages.

John Freeman said...

Ha! That's brilliant! Thanks for sharing, hadn't seen it before

Lew Stringer said...

Thanks John! I think the longer page count really helped Oink, but it was too late unfortunately. Had it not been cancelled two issues later I'm sure we'd have all enjoyed the luxury of longer stories. As it was, at least I was lucky to jump over to Buster when Oink! merged into it, but then Pete became a single pager again.