This day in 1986...

My TOM THUG page from OINK! No.1

 

On this day, 3rd May, in 1986, IPC launched the first issue of Oink! into newsagents. There had been a preview issue the week before given away in varioys comics (see info about that at this link) but that was comprised of the strips we'd done for the dummy issue in 1984. By 1986 we'd all improved our skills a bit and Oink! No.1 was by far a better product for it. 

Oink! had three editors, which in theory sounds like a "comics by committee" thing that would dilute a comic, but far from it in this case. Mark Rogers, Tony Husband, and Patrick Gallagher were all creative people and natural humourists. They packaged the comic from their studio in Manchester and sent it to IPC to Humour Group Editor Bob Paynter. Bob was often cautious about material but he was on staff at IPC so he had to protect the company image to an extent. Nevertheless, he wanted Oink! to have its own voice and style and I don't recall a great deal of interference from IPC. What they definitely didn't want was another Krazy comic, which Bob had told me hadn't worked out to be as radical and wild as they'd hoped.

Most of us on Oink! were fairly new to comics and full of energy and fresh ideas. It's often misjudged as a "junior Viz" but most of us had never heard of Viz when we did our work for the Oink! dummy in 1984. (Viz didn't have national distribution at that time.) My inspirations were comics like Wham! and Smash! and Mark Rogers was inspirec by Mad magazine.

We had a great time on Oink! comic. I remember having phone calls with editor Mark Rogers every week where we'd discuss story ideas and comics in general. At one point Mark was talking about doing some companion comics in the same anarchic tone. One would have been a pre-school comic called Potty (which Mark asked me if I'd come on board as an editor) and a romance comic called Snog! for teenage girls. Sadly, neither went beyond the early ideas stage.

Nevertheless, pouring all my energy into strips for Oink! (as well as doing Combat Colin and Robo-Capers for Marvel UK) proved to be a busy and creative time. Oink! ran for two and a half years, longer than many IPC comics, and Bob Paynter told me they didn't consider it a failure. Perhaps it didn't appeal to readers with more conservative tastes, and WH Smiths moving it away from the children's section didn't help, but every issue was a pleasure to work on and Oink! still stands up as a very funny comic with its own identity. 

In the end, after 68 issues, Oink! merged into Buster in 1988 and my Tom Thug strip moved over there, toned down somewhat for Buster's younger audience, but still became a popular strip. New Tom Thug strips appeared in Buster until 1996, and then nearly four years of reprints thereafter.

At the top of this post is my Tom Thug strip for Oink! No.1, which readers would have seen 37 years ago on this day in 1986.

 

OINK! issue one, published 3rd May 1986.

You can read more about Oink! at the regularly updated OiNK! BLOG, run by Phil Boyce:

https://oink.blog/