It was exactly 40 years ago today when Oink! made its debut! Those were the days, my friend, we thought they'd never end... but but it lasted longer than a lot of comics, and one character endured more than others.
Oink! first appeared as a 32 page preview issue, bagged free with Whizzer and Chips, Eagle, and (I think) Buster on Saturday 26th April 1986. The contents of that preview issue were actually the pages we'd all done for the 'dummy' issue back in 1984. A dummy issue is a comic presentation that editors would pitch to management to see if they'd go for it. Many such 'dummies' of various comics never got the green light, but Oink! did... even though it took two years for IPC to finally launch it.
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| COVER BY IAN JACKSON. |
At the time, IPC realised that their "traditional" type of comics were not as popular as they had been so they wanted something fresher and a bit more in tune with the times. They'd tried Krazy ten years earlier but even that had the usual look to it, so they looked beyond the established writers and artists to bring in newer talent for Oink!
Oink's editors Mark Rogers and Patrick Gallagher had experience in writing for Buster and other comics, and the third editor, Tony Husband, was a popular cartoonist who'd contributed to various magazines. Together, and with Graham Exton (before he emigrated to the Bahamas) they had a vision for a more anarchic comic using newer talent. IPC's humour group editor Bob Paynter, with his 20 plus years of experience, contacted new creators too, such as myself.
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| The very first Tom Thug strip. |
I came up with Tom Thug, the brainless bully, and Bob Paynter developed the idea of him wanting to live up to the family lineage of Thugs (but always failing). I'm pretty sure now that Bob's input was inspired by the Dick Emery skinhead and his dad characters on TV ("Daaad! I got it wrong again!") but that never occurred to me at the time. (Hey, I was in my twenties. I didn't spend much time watching TV in the evenings.)
Having brought me into the comic, Bob then just oversaw the production and left Mark, Patrick, and Tony to commission and create Oink! up in their studio in Manchester. Tom Thug became a regular fixture and I contributed to every issue, dealing solely with Mark Rogers who proved to be an excellent and creative editor. I also created other characters such as Pete and his Pimple, and (as writer only) Ham Dare (a Dan Dare parody) with Malcolm Douglas on art, and Sherlock Hams and The Hog of the Baskervilles (you can guess what that was a satire of) with art by Ron Tiner.
Oink! was a fantastic comic to work for and we all had a great time. Sadly, for various reasons, it didn't last beyond 68 issues (69 if we count the Preview) and merged into Buster in 1988. Well, a few strips merged. I was thankfull that my Tom Thug and Pete and his Pimple strips had proven popular enough to make the leap over. Not without some changes though; Tom Thug (who had left school in the latter issues of Oink!) became a schoolboy again, and Pete's Pimple was no longer allowed to burst and cover people in pus. (Perhaps for the best.)
In its neutered form, Pete's Pimple didn't last long in Buster, but Tom Thug proved to be very successful. My idea was never for Tom to be an anti-hero like Dennis the Menace. (I felt the "cheeky scamp" trope was old hat by the Eighties.) Tom Thug was the villain, not someone to admire. An ignorant, stupid bully who always got his just desserts. The readers were invited to laugh at Tom, never with him. As we know, real-life bullies rarely get their rightful comeuppance so I hope the readers of Oink! and Buster felt some catharsis to see such a cretin get constantly defeated in the comics.
Tom Thug ran in Buster until 1996 in new stories, and then a further three years as a reprint. (New owners Egmont had decided that making Buster all-reprint would cut costs (as creators are not paid for reprints), but it doomed the comic and it folded at the end of 1999.)
I gave Tom Thug a cameo appearance in the two Cor!! Buster specials that Rebellion published a few years ago but today's Oink! anniversary made me wonder what Tom would be like today if he'd continued to age as I'd intended when he was in Oink! So here we go....
Tom Thug 2026... As Tom was 16 in the later issues of Oink! he'd be in his fifties now. Like many of his type he never learned from his mistakes, became an habitual petty offender and spent his life in and out of prison. He's currently wearing a tag, has a self-made badly spelt tattoo, and is as dim as ever. Good news is that his cat Satan is still alive because (as far as I'm concerned) pets live forever in comics.
So that's Tom, trapped in a cyclic fate of his own making as always! Happy anniversary ya mug! :)
For more Oink! goodness, check out the dedicated Oink! Blog hosted by Phil Boyce. It's piggin' brilliant...
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