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First Issue: | 14th February 1976 | |||||
| Last Issue: | 12th November 1977 | ||||||
| Copyright: | IPC Magazines Ltd | ||||||
| Genre: | Action and Adventure | ||||||
| Incorporated Titles: | |||||||
| Incorporated By: | Battle (19/11/1977) | ||||||
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| Covers | Characters And Stories | First Issue | Memory Lane | Annuals | ||
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| When Action hit the shelves on Valentines Day 1976, the comic world was about to be turned upside down by a new, no holds barred pictorial for boys. It was fast moving, violent and bang-up to date. It was famous on two counts. One, it was one of the few comics that got banned in Britain (1950's Horror comics were the others), and Two, from the ashes of this ban, came the artists, writers and editors of another ground-breaking publication, 2000AD. The writing and artwork of Action was simply different to everything which had gone before. Whereas, boys were bought up on a comic diet of Eagle, Valiant, Lion, Wizard, and Hotspur, Action took its readers into a whole new and shocking arena. Readers of the time (myself included), simply relished it. The seventies had started to witness a new breed of boys comic. First of these was D.C.Thomsons, Warlord, in 1974. A noticably tougher comic, devoted entirely to war stories. It had a 9-page story starring the main character, Lord Peter Flint, code-named Warlord. The publication proved to be very successful. IPC had to respond, and 6 months later Battle Picture Weekly was released. Much in the same vein as Warlord, Battle was also dedicated to war stories and also proved to be very successful. Although both these comics developed more robust characters and storylines, the formula of the 'goodies' triumphing over the 'baddies', was still very evident. Battle Picture Weekly was edited by John Sanders, who brought in two outsiders to produce it, namely Pat Mills and John Wagner. Because of Battles' runaway success, Pat Mills was asked to start work on another comic. This time, a comic which captured the mood of the time. A comic which would shock people and make them sit up and take notice of it. A comic which looked at situations from the 'baddies' perspective. This comic was to be Action! |
| Names for the new comic were interesting. They ranged from Boots, Dr Martens (a-ha) up to Action '76. The intention was to increment the number every year, to stress how up to date it was. A great idea I think, but alas, the perplexed newsagents didn't like it, so it became just plain old Action! In fact, the Topper comic (D.C.Thomson) adopted this idea in 1989, when the Topper became Topper '89 followed the next year by Topper '90! You have to remember what was going on in 1976. Films like Dirty Harry and Jaws was still fresh in everyones mind. People liked the yeuck! factor. Victims getting chewed up by 'rubber' sharks, limbs floating on the ocean waves. People wanted more! So why not put all these ingredients into a comic? Well, apart from the X-rating of the films, and the free availability of comics to youngsters ........nothing! The new editorial team of John Sanders, Pat Mills and Geoff Kemp were given just three months to create the new comic, and they went for a series of blatant 'rip-offs'. Jaws became Hook Jaw, Dirty Harry became Dredger (Did DREDger become Judge DREDd in a later incarnation?!?). The |
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| cult TV program, The Fugitive had become The Running Man. However, the writers used their creative flair and put their own unique stamp on the stories to give them their Action flavour. The first issue also introduced us to Kurt Hellman, WW2 tank commander, and we saw the war from the German perspective. Very unusal. We also had the more traditional storylines with Sports Not For Losers, Play Till You Drop and the very unpopular, The Coffin Sub. As time went on, the more traditional stories got replaced by their more famous stablemates. Greens Grudge War (early Massimo Belardinelli), Death Game 1999, Look Out For Lefty, Kids Rule OK and Probationer. What a line-up! The stories were simply harder hitting. Even the peripheral sections were different. Steve McManus would give his weekly brief of the past seven days, and tell how he and his mates would get drunk on all night drinking binges, and how they used to play football in the office while "ol' Wooden Leg (the ed)" was away. This approach was a very far cry from the days when the editor referred to the readers as his "Chums". It's worth pointing out that Steve McManus only stayed with the comic for 20 issues, but his name and picture lived on. Steve was also Action Man, and got paid £10 a stunt for being photographed riding super-bikes to Brighton, working down sewers and going on an army assault course. He also wrote Sport's Not For Losers and The Running Man Other great features were, 'Twit Of The Week'. Where you could nominate someone who irked you, and their photo would appear in the 'Twit Of The Week Frame'. Even your annoying little sister could be nominated. There was Knowall, Milton Finesilver, who was a chap who answered all the readers obscure questions. Money Man was Stuart Wales, who would go around to different towns every Saturday between 10-11am, and give £5 to the first reader, armed with last weeks issue of Action, and who challenged him by saying, "You are Money Man of Action, and I claim my prize". There were five runners-up £1 prizes. Stuart also wrote one of the stories which got cancelled, Probationer. Other features included Krazy Caption and Guess What? Initial sales were 250,000. This reduced, as was common with all comics, to 160,000 - 170,000, but at a much slower rate than normal. Then, as the comic started to get established, sales actually picked up again. A concept which was simply unheard of in the comic world of the 1970's. At time of closure, sales had increased to 180,000 a week. |
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In the very last issue before the ban, 16th October 1976, this prophetic letter (left) appeared. A.Whyte got his wish the very next week. The lead up to the ban wasn't exactly sudden. After just two issues, the London Evening Standard voiced its outrage with the headline, 'Aargh lives - but the blood is printed red' - Feb 23rd 1976. The Sun had a double page spread headlined, 'The Sevenpenny Nightmare'. However, this report approached the argument from both angles, and a psychologist suggested that children would pass off such stuff as fantasy. Mary Whitehouse had her usual 'holier than thou' say against the comic, as did, surprisingly, Mr Denis Gifford, who was asked to compare Action with pre-war favourites like Happy Days and Radio Fun. A bit unfair really. There were also some cutting remarks on the Radio and TV. I particularly remember Bill Grundy, from the Today programme, jumping on the 'Ban Action' bandwagon, while I was eating my egg and chips one evening. Frank Bough of Nationwide went one step further and actually interviewed John Sanders. The rehearsed set of questions were set aside, as Bough |
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lambasted John and Action. John defended admirably. But the die was being cast. There were the moral pressure groups of the time like D.O.V.E. (Delegates Opposing Violent Education), the Mary Whitehouse National Viewers And Listeners Group, the Responsible Society and the Christian evangelical movement. All these bees (or is that B's) gathered round the Action honey-pot and did their utmost to make parents aware of what their children were reading. DOVE, referred to a 1933 Childrens and Young Persons Act, stating that Action prohibited, "Assault, ill-treatment, abandonment, neglect and/or mental derangment of the child to age 16" (There is now a Childrens Act 1989). They actually defaced copies of Action with a sticker stating they were, "On the side of the child only - Britain's future". However, all these outbursts from all these groups could have been absorbed, and life would have continued normally. But concern had manifested itself within the ranks of the main distributors, John Menzies and W.H.Smith. John Menzies contacted IPC and requested that they give the matter some consideration. W.H.Smiths took a much stronger stand. There are two rumours about what Smiths said to IPC. The first one suggested that if the violence and gore was not toned down, that Smiths would only supply Action to fulfil specific orders and not sale-or-return. This would have cut sales dramatically. The second, unsubstantiated threat, was that Smiths would refuse to handle all of IPC's publications. IPC decided to pull the plug on it's most successful comic! Johnny Johnson, IPC Production Director, called a meeting of all the editoral staff while John Sanders was away on holiday. He instructed the new editor, Sid Bicknell, to make Action safe again by. "Taking all this adult, political stuff out of it and turn it into a boys adventure comic". This instruction explains why Action returned on 4th December 1976, with a far more traditional-comic feel about it. Not that I'm knocking that, but Action was a little bit special and who knows where it would have gone had it have kept going. On the 19th November 1977 (almost a year after the re-release) the 'tamed' Action breathed it's last and joined forces with Battle Picture Weekly. It took with it Dredger, Spinball Wars and Hellman. The fact that it was banned means that it keeps a special place in comic history, but I like to think that it could have developed into a more adult, thought provoking publication as time went on. Basically, it could have grown-up with its readers, similar to what 2000AD currently seems to be doing. Maybe it's time to re-release it under its original name format and call it Action 2010 |
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| Most of the information on this page has been gleaned from Martin Barker's book, Action - The Story Of A Violent Comic. In it, he goes into much greater detail of the shenanigans which happened at IPC during this period. Including interviews with editors and producers of the time. There are also re-prints of the banned strips which would have appeared in the 23rd October issue. All in all, a great comic read. Al |
 Moose Harris' excellent fan site dedicated to the comic that was so near the knuckle back in the 1970's that it actually got banned. |