Christmas Comics Countdown: Number One – Oink!

By downthetubes Guests on December 22, 2023

Philip Boyce, who runs the brilliant OiNK blog, devoted to one of Britain’s most anarchic comics of yesteryear, completes what we may make an annual celebration of British Christmas comics…

Merry Christmas, everyone! On my OiNK Blog, I’ve had fun rediscovering favourite classic comics in real time. I love the Christmas season and as a kid adored our festive issues, so downthetubes has invited me to count down my personal Top Five Classic Christmas Comics. First place goes to… OiNK No. 43.

It really shouldn’t come as any kind of surprise to see this particular title in the number one spot, what with the name of the website I write. But this isn’t hyperbole; OiNK No. 43 isn’t just my favourite Christmas comic, it’s also the best regular issue of OiNK out of its whole run, second only to The OiNK! Book 1988. Anyone who has read any of my blog will know this is high praise indeed.

As a kid, my brother and sisters collected some comics but the medium never appealed to me until I ran across OiNK No. 14 in November 1987. One read of that and I was hooked, and not just to OiNK, I was hooked on comics! That Christmas the festive issue was the best yet but it was outdone in spectacular style with the following year’s, coming as it did in what I describe as OiNK’s Golden Age. This was a run of perfect issues in the latter half of 1987, each one somehow outdoing the one before in sheer volume of laughs.

It culminated that festive season with this issue. 32 pages of glorious strips, Madvertisements, spoof carols and so much more. It kicked off with a small strip by David Haldane emphasising the difference between OiNK readers and traditional comics fans.

According to the marketing at the time of its launch, the target audience for Mark Rodgers, Patrick Gallagher’s and Tony Husband’s creation was “precocious 8-to-13-year-olds”, who were unsatisfied with the old-fashioned “custard pie” humour in comics, and were instead finding their entertainment elsewhere with television and computer games.

It worked a treat and I and thousands of other pig pals found our sense of humour portrayed through strips such as “Tom Thug”, “Burp the Smelly Alien”, “Psycho Gran”, “Horace (Ugly Face) Watkins”, “The Adventures of Death”, and so many, many more. Each issue was so packed! Even though at this stage in the comic’s life it had the same amount of pages as Buster and Whizzer & Chips, OiNK seemed to have so much more inside, thanks to strips of various lengths, from multi-page stories to quick quarter-page gags… and this issue really is chock full of Christmas cheer.

“The Sekret Diary ov Hadrian Vile Aged 8 5/8 (yearƨ)” was always a favourite, written by Mark Rodgers and memorably drawn by Ian Jackson (also the cover artist for this issue), whose original style seemed to epitomise OiNK perfectly. There may only be three panels this time but there’s so much in each one it doesn’t matter. That middle panel summing up everything Hadrian’s asked for at once is just classic Ian, stuffing as much fun as possible into every square inch of the page.

“Something The Man With the Bag” would bring down “ower chimbleys” that year was plenty of Transformers toys (a comic to be found elsewhere in this Top Five), and as ever when something was popular with its readers OiNK had to take the hand out of it. Dave Huxley was the artist and he pulled from his own personal experiences in coming up with his latest idea for OiNK’s in-house mail order company, GBH. As he’d later explain in an interview he had a “near lethal” experience trying to transform one of his sons’ robots. He even drew both his sons as part of this Madvertisement, although apparently neither were too impressed!

That particular Christmas was a big one for me as far as comics were concerned. They may have been a brand new thing for me but my older brother was growing out of them (we all make mistakes) so alongside my OiNK! Book I also received two others originally intended for him, namely The Big Comic Book 1988 and the 50th anniversary book for The Dandy and Beano. It was a special time indeed and I actually still own all three (Big Comic Fortnightly has also featured on this list).

At this time of year our comics would often start to come earlier and earlier to beat Christmas deadlines and the (appropriately named) Hogmanay issue of OiNK appeared a couple of days before Christmas, although I didn’t read it until after the big day. What I did do, however, was reread this issue again in bed on Christmas Eve, empty stocking by my feet, hoping reading it would calm my excitement down and lull me off to sleep.

I was wrong. But then again, when we have people like Charlie Brooker rewriting some classic Christmas Carols, it may not have been the best idea to think I wouldn’t just end up giggling away to myself instead, singing along to these in my head.

(For the uninitiated to OiNK, yes that Charlie Brooker. OiNK was his first paying job and still being at school at the time wouldn’t preclude him from contributing more and more to the comic as it continued).

I could very easily have shown you this entire comic, every page hits the mark, every joke lands, and everything in here brings back so many happy memories. The five comics featured on this list have been included for various reasons but this issue of OiNK, more than any of them, very much is Christmas to me. It’s been a delight to read through these comics again this Christmas, although I’ll admit the one at the top of the list is pretty much part of my traditional celebrations anyway.

You can check out some more of my favourites from OiNK No. 43 in its full review on the OiNK Blog here.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone out there!

Philip Boyce

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