1988: THE SECOND OINK! BOOK (1989)

From 1988: THE OINK! BOOK 1989.

Yup, it's a spin-off OINK! ANNUAL from Fleetway, unusually for the time (although it would become standard for 2000AD and JUDGE DREDD in the following decade) published as an oversized stiff-covered softie rather than the  more traditional hardback.

This would have been on sale just as the comic, launched in 1986, was winding down.  The last issue - number 68 - was published in October prior to a 'great news pals' merger with BUSTER.

The first OINK! BOOK had appeared the previous year but seemed to suffer from patchy distribution, not least because WH SMITH (who, back in the day, would devote large tables or extensive shelf space to annuals) apparently tried as hard as possible not to stock it.

A further SUMMER SPECIAL, reprinting material from the comic, went on sale the following summer.

Someone even made an OINK! computer game!  Pigging brilliant!

1987: DOCTOR WHO in OINK (IPC)

It's the morning after the night before… DOCTOR WHO's 50th anniversary has come and gone… but STARLOGGED is continuing the celebrations.

This post will need no introduction to connoisseurs of British humour comics: OINK emerged from the IPC stable (albeit produced and packaged far away from King's Reach Tower) like (ironically) a breath of fresh air in May 1986.

The piggy-themed fortnightly (then weekly and - finally - as a kiss-of-death monthly) soon adopted a formula of following a different theme each issue.  This, the 24th outing (25 if you count the freebie preview issue bundled with the existing IPC weeklies), was designated the Time-Travel Special and - inevitably - WHO was one of the targets.

It was cover-dated 21 March 1987.

Then current (but not for long) current Doc Colin Baker appeared on the cover and in a strip inside.  Unfortunately, Oink's unusual page dimensions mean that I couldn't scan any of the interior pages without chopping-off some of the page.  Doh.

Oink ultimately ran until October 1988 (becoming the latest of a long stream of titles to end their days in the pages of BUSTER), clocking-up 68 regular issues and various spin-offs and annuals.  Even a computer game.

Why did it fail: perhaps the novelty wore off.  Almost certainly, it was more expensive to produce thanks to its superior format and high origination costs.  But - ultimately - it probably succumbed to the same nose-diving sales that was decimating the whole British comics business during the 1980s.

And, lets briefly mention the 50th anniversary itself…

I saw THE DAY OF THE DOCTOR on the big screen and I'm very glad I made the effort.  It looked spectacular in 3D and stood-up very well against any reasonably budgeted feature film.  The cinema-exclusive introductions were also great fun and a nice "value added" touch for fans who'd paid the going rate (some £15-odd in London) to see it.  I hadn't really planned it like that but I also saw it at the cinema just across the road from BBC TELEVISION CENTRE which, for me, will always be the spiritual home of the show (sorry Cardiff!).

THE FIVE(ISH) DOCTORS, courtesy of writer/ director/ star (and MY Doctor) Peter Davison was a lovely little bonus feature which was a real joy to watch.  It's packed full of brilliant cameos and cheeky moments which will tickle the cockles of any fan.  Anyone who's not tracked this spoof documentary down on the iPlayer or BBC Red Button service should do so now.

I saw AN ADVENTURE IN TIME AND SPACE last night and really enjoyed it as well.  I thought the storytelling and attention to detail (allowing for artistic license) was top-notch.  It was lovely, and also bittersweet, to see BBC Television Centre on screen one last time.  And Barnes Common was a nice nod to the Dalek Target novelisation.  Hurrah.

1986: OINK LAUNCH AD (IPC)

The big news from the bottom shelf of the newsagents in May 1986 was the launch of IPC's new humour comic: the promisingly subversive, porcine-themed fortnightly OINK.  Plus: the first two issues came with a free flexi-disc (oh, how I wish I'd kept that.  The Oink Rap still plays in my head!) AND a badge-making kit.  What's not to love?

I was never much of a reader of humour comics, the compulsory appeal of the likes of the BEANO and the DANDY, along with the IPC humour comics, had entirely passed me by.  I'd bought a few issues of NUTYY but that was strictly for Banana Man.  I was always more of an action/ adventure kinda guy... something that i think comes through loud and clear in this blog.

That said, OINK looked like it was going to be something a bit different and I loyally lapped-up the early issues before slowly drifting away.  I'd read copies of IPC's previous humour comics and I'd found - no matter what the theme - they all largely followed a formula which - I figured - had been set in stone since time in memorial.  If that was my reaction, I'm certain that other would-be readers were thinking the same thing... no wonder sales were dropping.  Oink, packaged out-of-house and given higher production standards than the rest of the IPC line (oh how that must have pissed the Thargster off), was like a breath of fresh air.

It was an experiment that wasn't to last and the writing was clearly on-the-wall when the frequency was suddenly cut to monthly (a sure sign, unless you are DOCTOR WHO, that cancellation is imminent) and - sure enough - Oink suffered what must have been the ultimate humiliation: merger with the staid and conservative BUSTER (which - to its credit - did become last-man-standing in IPC's humour line).

This four-page centre-section takeover, following the same formula as the DICEMAN ads I've posted previously, appeared in the EAGLE cover-dated 10 May 1986.