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description=Posts about Eric Wilkinson (Wilkie) written by Phil Boyce;

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r for regular readers but just before those is a new four page horace ugly face watkins strip which finally concludes his long running story with the happy ending he always deserved it s his and mandy s wedding day horace may have evolved completely from those early joke strips to an ongoing serial about the difficulties he faced thanks to his looks but co editor tony husband never forgot it was meant to be daft too horace s ongoing football soap opera was wonderfully random and he faced everything from a stalker to a radioactive monster in fact they were both the same person however his strips taught us much along the way about never judging others based on their looks and that we shouldn t let others who judge us unfairly hold us back yes oink was a daft comic but horace s strip sat comfortably alongside the non smoking anti bullying and anti bigotry messages to teach its young readers the right lessons in life without us ever being aware that s what they were doing three months was a long time to wait for new oink material however the next issue wouldn t be released for another six the holiday special 1989 may have been an additional monthly issue of oink rather than a summery feast but it was no less fun to take another bite of that pork pie i never saw any adverts for the oink winter special because i wasn t collecting any of the comics it would ve appeared in so it was a wonderful surprise when it popped up in november 1989 i can t wait to read it for the first time since that next crackling issue will be here on saturday 2nd november 2024 oink book 1989 winter special oink read through menu oink specials books menu main oink menu davey jones eric wilkinson wilkie j t dogg lew stringer ozeluí patrick gallagher tony husband annuals christmas oink comic reviews the oink book 1989 short but oh so sweet 25 december 2023 phil boyce leave a comment released towards the end of the summer in 1988 and advertised in the final two issues of oink after the comic s cancellation it felt like a long time coming for the oink book 1989 to finally fall into my trotters on christmas day that year as i mentioned in the preview post with a reduction in pages from the previous annual and a thinner paper stock it really does feel a lot smaller this time around but it s still 68 pages including cover of prime pork that s got to be reason enough to celebrate surely the cover by acclaimed oink illustrator j t dogg real name malcolm douglas is equal parts gorgeous and gruesome with some little icky details for kids to pour over it s bold and brash and certainly stood out amongst the other children s annuals just like oink always had in fact it stood out even more than it had in the adverts because they decided to swap the colours of the logo around possibly because it would work better against that dark brown background i think it works much better this way and we still get the pink regardless that background gives a hint as to what was on the back cover i remember seeing it in the shop and half expecting it to be the rear of the butcher s head this cover clearly being a riff on the piggy face from the oink book 1988 and i laughed quite loud when i turned it over that first time we ll get to that at the end we ve the insides to cover first beginning with the obligatory welcome page with something you d only see in oink at the time credits genius scriptwriting from lew after he was told by co editor mark rodgers only the first two pages would be printed in colour uncle pigg may be relying on more easily managed cards rather than an artist chiselling the names into stone like last year but this bright and colourful welcome was just what the piggy ordered when i opened it on christmas morning even today it feels like reuniting with old friends yes the comic may have only ended two months ago but ian jackson s contributions were becoming rarer so this is a wonderful return to form it s great to see certain names back too especially jeremy banx who had left when the comic went monthly halfway through reading the book it was clear to me what i was going to highlight first and it s more gorgeousness from j t dogg this time written by lew stringer that combination can only mean one thing it s ham dare pig of the future last seen in the oink book 1988 i d always remembered ham and pigby in serialised stories yet only their first one was published that way here they get a three page tale with a genius piece of scriptwriting from lew after he was told by co editor mark rodgers that only the first two would be printed in colour normally a comic would just carry on regardless on to the black and white page but if something is normally done then we should really know by now that s not what oink would do actually having it referred to is genuinely funny and malcolm s work is no less lovely the third and fourth panels of that page in particular had me roaring between the name of the weapon beam and the reason for it and the name of the weakun s henchman ham dare would return in the oink holiday special 1989 the following year and make the cover for the only time with a story originally written as his second serial and i for one can t wait there s another serial of sorts in here a set of four mini posters based on jeremy banx s original butcherwatch idea however this time each one is drawn by a different artist eric wilkie wilkinson mike higgs les lezz barton and banx himself what a team of course jeremy has to have the last word right at the very end of the book we just never knew when jimmy the cleaver smith would pop up did we while there are still three special editions of oink to come between now and april 2025 this book feels like an end to the regular comic yes this was already in the shops and santa already had it saved for me but with jimmy bursting through to threaten pig pals at the end it felt like the perfect way to wrap things up it was like he was telling us he was always going to be about even if the comic wasn t obviously what he says about oink was no longer going to be the case but that s because this page was created a long time before the book was published long before the comic even went monthly back when jeremy was still contributing someone else from back in those mists of time who makes a rather brief return here courtesy of ian jackson again written by mark rodgers was hadrian vile and his diary it may only be half a page and the captions aren t typed out but boy was i happy to see him again no matter how briefly way back in the preview issue s review i mentioned how burp s story in oink would culminate in an epic tale that taught a very young me about puberty you may have thought i was joking well maybe it was a slight exaggeration raging puberty is a huge eight page burp strip from banx set in the far future and recounting an ancient rite of passage amongst the alien species using our pal their lost son as an example i read and enjoyed this strip during christmas 1988 particularly the daft fight that takes place the imaginative weaponry and the funny designs however skip forward a few years and a young teenage me decided to reread the book for the first time since i saw this next strip in a completely different light i thought how did they get away with this on more than one occasion while outrageously laughing before taking it to school to show to all my friends obviously straight away the descriptive captions are classic banx reminiscent of some absolutely brilliant burp strips in the later fortnightlies when he was often given a double page spread to fill with his unique style of storytelling even though this is a comic strip the words alone paint such a picture that the images are barely needed but what on earth or elsewhere has this got to do with the title and the reason i found it so funny a few years later the answer is found on the next page not exactly subtle and that s why i couldn t believe oink a children s comic got away with this but even beyond the round furry things there s so much to laugh along with here such as the grizzled old warrior who was tired of being a boy and burp s innocence at what he thought being a grown up was all about then there s the dramatic change in angle with the lone caption and burp had a very sweet tooth it reminds me of that famous and the dolphin s name was keith moment from jeremy s mr big nose in 22 i ve really missed his work in the comic i m not sure if it s just a good gag or if jeremy was making a bit of a point with the first panel on the fifth page but i think it s both funny and poignant that battle cries and fear sound exactly the same then the story takes a brief break to detail gunk s weapon of choice the mauser only jeremy could come up with a gun that feeds electricity to a small rodent s fear receptors to provoke it to do a literal death stare the silencer is just the icing on the cake arguably the next page is even funnier the fight escalates burp using his unique bodily functions we ve all come to know and love and be grossed out by then as it s all building to a climax the story casually breaks again to have a closer look at another animal based weapon burp is usually a pacifist but it suits him doesn t it we even get a bit of marlon brando from on the waterfront although that would definitely have gone over my head in 1988 it all has to end in an even sillier manner and it does so with aplomb as a fan it s fun to see the insides of burp s body again and how the little fellas do all their hard work for nothing on the final page is a message that as a kid i took to mean we should never want to grow up that adults are just silly so why would we want to be them as an adult now and looking around at the world today i think that message is pretty much on point jeremy banx was both shocked and dismayed joking about how concerned he was for my wellbeing so anyway a few years later i hit that time when things start to change and life can feel very confusing it wasn t something we talked with our friends about we didn t realise what was going on after all but then i happened to read this again i m not going to say things suddenly made sense did you read it but it was enough for me to realise i wasn t alone and it could be something to look back on and have a giggle about so it couldn t be all that bad i once mentioned to jeremy how a young and impressionable me viewed this strip in my early teenage years and he was both shock and dismayed joking about how concerned he was for my wellbeing typical jeremy response so having been mentioned in the very first oink review on the blog we ve now finally covered it and finished our regular read through coming full circle i ve loved seeing this again after all these years moving on and yes the dreaded reprints we saw a handful of in the monthlies have even made their way into the annual introduced by uncle pigg promoted as a way for readers to check out what they may have missed out on even though i d only started reading oink at 14 as a child there were still a few strips here i d read before but even though i hadn t read the majority i still felt these dampened the book as a whole especially considering there d already been a page cut as it turns out there are ten pages of reprints meaning there are actually only 54 interior pages of new content that s only six more than the recent monthly issues or a holiday special even as a child i was very aware of this these reprint pages are really the only place you ll find mini strips too the rest is made up of much larger fare there s even a three page psycho gran and a five page spectacles of doom which you can see some of in artist andy roper s obituary the new content here is superb second to none and some of the very best oink ever produced this means the book is a rather quick read especially if you skip the reprints according to co editor patrick gallagher cost cutting is partly to blame after fleetway publications took over from ipc magazines who had published the first half of oink s run including the first book and oink had survived the first round of cancellations there s a chance all the larger material here was already complete when fleetway started to see the comic s fortunes in a more negative light during the latter weeklies early monthlies and maybe the plugged was simply pulled on the rest of the book when oink s stablemate titles such as buster and whizzer and chips had 112 pages in their annuals for the same price albeit cut down from 128 you couldn t help but feel short changed as a pig pal the new content here is superb second to none and some of the very best oink ever produced but i can t help but wonder how amazing this book could ve been it could even have topped the previous one with silly pages like this next one it s easy to see how only in an oink book could such a simple cheeky gag like this take up a full page and be illustrated and coloured so gorgeously however even with all of these brilliant highlights i think i may have saved the fan favourite for last at least as far as my memories are concerned that s because in 1988 it was so exciting and so funny to see two of lew stringer s creations in the same strip especially when they re pete and his pimple and pigswilla actually we even get tom thug popping up too alongside his own snowy christmassy strip elsewhere so that s two thirds of the buster mergers included and it s nice to see pete reading oink again instead of that other comic ignore the heartbreaking caption about oink still being a periodical and watch as pete s pimple becomes the latest giant monster that only an equally giant robotic pig can save the world from i just love that panel showing us the pimple terrorising the cities it may only be a small cameo for pigswilla s final appearance but we did get a superb epic strip for him back in 66 so this is a nice little addendum to say goodbye not that it would ve been written as one but it works nicely anyway when reading children s stories to my friends kids i think i ll stick to the moon being made of cheese though also did you spot the slightly obscured dig at w h smith i hope you ve enjoyed this look at just some of the highlights from the oink book 1989 in more recent years i ve seen some pig pals online somewhat dismiss it as nothing more than an inferior version of the first one i hope i ve been able to enlighten you a little on why some of the changes may have occurred and most of all shown you that the content in it is top notch oink all the way yes it s a little frustrating because this could ve been a classic oink book through and through but the team still produced some of their very best work for it if you see it on ebay you should definitely splash out the few quid it ll cost you for some of the best laughs you ll ever get from a comic book just like last year the outro concludes what began earlier and while it s yet another example of the book publicising the ongoing comic afte...