Item - Barry the Butcher at the Unfair Funfair

Oink was a genuinely anarchic addition to the British comics scene - not as puerile as, say, The Viz, but it definitely pushed the boundaries of good taste... in a fun way, of course. Did any of that subversive gross-out humour make its way into this choose-your-own-adventure comic? Well, the fact that there's only one ending - Barry the Butcher ends up in a pile of nasty-looking swill - probably counts.

Oh, sorry, didn't mean to spoil the ending to a 3-page parody story from a comic that's at least 35 years old at the time of writing.

Yeah, the big joke is that you always end up in the same situation. There's even a note in the letters page that points out that it's the Unfair Funfair, so what were you expecting?

In all fairness, the idea doesn't really give itself time to wear out its welcome, being over and done with in just 3 pages. Plus, artist Ralph Shephard manages to give the story a surprising amount of creepy menace to it, with Barry the Butcher having a sort of ligne claire look to him that easily conveys his haplessness.

There are many reasons to reread Oink today. Its contribution to the medium of gamebooks is not one of them. I can't really grade it because... well, that's not why this story was made, is it?

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