OINK! A PUERILE PIECE OF PUTRID PISH FIT ONLY FOR THE PIGSTY...

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Who misses WHIZZER & CHIPS, BUSTER, VALIANT, LION, EAGLE, TV21, TIGER, and - well, I could go on and on, but I'm sure you get the point.  The aforementioned periodicals were, in the main, quality comics, but that's not always why we miss things from our past, sometimes we miss them mainly because they represent a happy and carefree period when we were young and thought we had forever.  However, kids my age were lucky in that the comics on sale in our day were usually produced to a high standard.

Such nostalgia must surely explain why anyone would look back with any degree of fondness on a weak title like OINK! though.  What a putrid pile of pish it was, with badly-drawn strips and puerile humour by adults trying just a tad too desperately to be anarchic and 'down-with-the-kids'.  There were some good artists working on the comic as well, but sadly not enough to elevate it above where it belonged - in a pigsty along with all the other sh*t to be found there.

Believe it or not, there are some deluded individuals out there who claim that Oink! was a success and one of the all time greats, but here's a few facts to consider.  Back in the day when this country actually had a comics industry (a real one that is, not the pale, shrinking shadow that clings on today by its decaying fingertips), it took a publisher around two years to recoup the expense of launching a new comic onto the market.

Basic, repetitive art and overwhelmingly bad lettering.
H'mm, now I see where The Dandy took its cue from

However, Oink! only lasted for 68 issues over a two and a half year period.  It started as a fortnightly, changed to a weekly at the end of its second year, then turned into a monthly before being merged into Buster.  Newsagents didn't like the comic, but neither did enough kids, otherwise it surely would've lasted longer than it did.  The fact that the page count was soon reduced and the mag switched to cheaper paper after only around 26 issues seems to indicate that it was struggling pretty early on, so claims of it being a success should be regarded with some degree of scepticism.

However, if you liked the comic, don't worry - you're allowed to.  Nobody will come to your house and arrest you, although it could be argued that bad taste should be a chargeable offence - with capital punishment as a possible option when it comes to sentencing.  So your memories are secure, but face the facts - a crime was committed and the comics-buying public were the victims.

So - Oink?  Ouch!  Perhaps that was when the decline set in.

BABE Of The DAY - ELKE SOMMER...

Now that's what I call a face!  Gentlemen,

the electrifying ELKE SOMMER - wow!

HAMMY HOUDINI - HE DEFIED DEATH, BUT ONLY ONCE, ALAS...

When I was - oh, I dunno - around ten I suppose, me and my brother had a pet hamster called (you'll never guess) HAMMY.  The name was inevitable, both of us having grown up on TALES Of The RIVERBANK, one of the WATCH WITH MOTHER TV shows for kids.  Hammy had a cage which was sometimes kept in the kitchen, sometimes in the garden cellar.  We would watch in rapt fascination as he raced 'round his wheel for what seemed an absolute age, presumably enjoying himself.  Now I realize it was probably out of frustration and because he was 'stir-crazy'.

One day, my brother announced that Hammy was dead, and with the morbid curiosity that most kids are heir to, we examined the corpse.  Poor Hammy.  We tenderly wrapped him up in a brown paper bag and gingerly laid him in the refuse bin in the back garden, then retired back to the living-room to mourn our departed pet.  But then I had a sudden brainwave.  "Maybe he's only hibernating" I speculated, so we retrieved Hammy from the bin and laid him before the electric fire in an attempt to revive him.

Sure enough, after a while, Hammy came out of his state of suspended animation and sniffed the air.  What a narrow escape and no mistake.  I'm unsure as to just how long Hammy was with us after his Lazarus impersonation, but one day I noticed he was missing from his cage in the cellar and a search of the confined space afforded no joy.  Perhaps a week or so later, I found him dead in our watering can (in the cellar), and even today I cringe in horror at the thought of his despair as he waited for a rescue that never came.

I think this time we buried him in the garden instead of the bin, but at least there was absolutely no doubt he was actually dead.  No consolation of course, but thankfully he was spared the awful fate of waking up as he was consigned to the grinding cogs of a bin lorry and meeting, perhaps, an even worse fate than the one which eventually claimed him.

Nearly 50 years later, I still think of Hammy on occasion, and find myself hoping he didn't suffer too much or for too long. Any Criv-ites out there ever have a childhood pet which they still fondly remember today?  Resurrect them for a brief period by telling us all about them in the comments section.