Британский комикс «Action»: История, скандал и влияние.

British weekly comic
the DC Comics comic book

Action was a British weekly boys' comic published by IPC Magazines from 14 February 1976 to 5 November 1977, when it merged with war comic Battle after 86 issues. The comic was created by Pat Mills and Geoff Kemp. While initially a sales success, the comic quickly received media criticism for its violent content, causing a moral panic that ultimately saw it withdrawn from sale by IPC in October 1976, amid rumours it was to be banned. Action returned two months later in a much sanitised form, quickly losing readers and being cancelled the following year. Despite its short lifespan, Action was highly influential on the British comics scene, and was a direct forerunner of the long running 2000 AD.

After a successful stint working on various IPC girls' comics, Pat Mills had interviewed for the vacant position of managing editor at the company. Mills felt the company's output had grown stale and outdated and told the board so, and wasn't offered the job due to his forthright criticism. However, his fresh ideas had been noted by editorial director John Sanders, who likewise felt the company's comics needed an overhaul but found it politically difficult to do so due to the long serving, well connected nature of much of the company's staff. He was impressed enough to remember Mills when charged with creating an answer to DC Thomson's Warlord comic, assigning Mills and his fellow freelancer John Wagner to create Battle Picture Weekly in 1974. Despite internal friction from the bypassed staff the comic was a major triumph, and Sanders quickly moved to use them elsewhere in IPC's boys adventure division. Having learnt about Mills' perfectionism in the launch of Battle – which required the guidance of veteran Dave Hunt to make its launch date – Mills was given a choice of staff editors to work with, picking the experienced Geoff Kemp. Kemp had a long history with the company, including a sizeable stint as assistant editor of Lion) but was identified by Sanders and Mills as one of the staff most open to new ideas. The pair were given three months to put the comic together from scratch; while Mills felt this was a "ridiculously short time", the more seasoned Kemp would later note it was the longest run in he had ever known. The pair quickly settled on a formula of taking extant story ideas, approaching them from a different angle and injecting a large amount of contemporary realism. Mills envisioned making a title that appealed to children that didn't read comics rather than simply trying to draw an audience from other titles, and as such aimed to make the title streetwise and more in touch. (which was eventually used as a one off in the 1976 Action Special).

With the attention not going away, the BBC arranged for Sanders to be interviewed live on their popular prime time magazine show Nationwide. At the time the programme's main studio anchor was Frank Bough, who was – before his private life was revealed by the press to involve wearing lingerie for cocaine fuelled orgies with prostitutes – one of the most trusted faces on television. Sanders was given a list of questions he would be asked, which Bough promptly ignored in favour of excoriating his guest for warping children. A blindsided Sanders attempted to rally, but after the broadcast the IPC board intervened and after the 16 October 1976 issue Action was pulled from circulation. Sanders reportedly only found out about the withdrawal by reading about it in newspapers when on holiday in Spain. The decision to withdraw had actually been made some seven weeks before, that being the lead in for the printing cycle; IPC resisted calls to pull production on comics they had already paid for. However, the 23 October edition only got as far as a small run of 30 copies (an internal policy allowing a comic to be given final checks before a full print run was made). The precise reason for this step, unprecedented for a publisher that valued sales above all else, has been a matter for debate; Baker has speculated several factors combined to lead to the title being withdrawn. It is often stated that newsagents threatened to either refuse to stock Action or all IPC comics. However of the two largest distributors in the UK at the time John Menzies only sent a note expressing concern about the criticism of Action, while Baker's research was only able to conclusively verify that WHSmith only threatened either only honour orders for reserved copies or not provide promotional support for any relaunches, though he found there were many second hand accounts of the threat from those inside IPC at the time. The new, safer Action failed to sell as well as readers swiftly realised it was largely the same as previous boys' comics and in November 1977 it was merged into Battle after sales fell to an unprofitable 70,000. ), "Dredger" and "Spinball" would continue, though the latter pair were reconfigured and only "Hellman of Hammer Force" would run for any considerable length of time. In the meantime, Mills and Wagner had been reunited by Sanders, and successfully launched the science fiction boys' weekly 2000 AD in 1977. This was a history of the comic, as well as a study of the effects of the ban. In this book Barker revealed that 30 copies of the pulped 23 October 1976 issue were saved and the book prints many of the strips from that issue, plus following issues thanks to Barker coming into possession of unpublished art. The book reveals just how much Action was being censored at an editorial level, and the route the title was heading in before it was cancelled. In 2007, Spitfire Comics released a collection of the pre ban "Hook Jaw" strips in Collected Hook Jaw vol.1.

Since 2016 the rights to Action and its contents have been owned by Rebellion Developments. In 2017, Rebellion leased the rights to "Hook Jaw" to Titan Comics, who produced a five part mini series written by Simon Spurrier and drawn by Conor Boyle, and also published a collected edition of the Action strips to tie in with the series. In spring 2020 Rebellion published an Action Special 2020 under its Treasury of British Comics imprint. The special included new strips for "Kids Rule O. K." (by Ram V and Henrik Sarlström), "Hellman of Hammer Force" (by Garth Ennis and original artist Mike Dorey), "Hook Jaw" (by Quint Amity and Dan Lish) and "Dredger" (by Zina Hutton and Staz Johnson), as well as Henry Flint's "Hell Machine". The Special also included a cover to cover reprint of the previously unpublished 23 October 1976 edition of Action. Ennis won the 2021 Irish Comics News Award for Best Irish Writer for his story. but other elements of the special were not as well received. The company also published a collected edition of the "Hellman of Hammer Force" collected edition in 2021. In June 2022 they followed up with a hardcover Battle Action Special with new stories featuring characters from both comics, all written by Ennis and with various artists, with new "Dredger" and "Kids Rule O. K." stories. This had a more positive reception. Starting in May 2023, Rebellion published a five issue series of Battle Action, with each issue featuring two complete stories, once again written by Ennis.

Title ISBN Publisher Release date ContentsAction – The Story of a Violent ComicTitan Books11 August 1990Material from Action 14 February to 16 October 1976The Collected Hook Jaw Vol. 1Spitfire Comics1 February 2007Material from Action 14 February to 16 October 1976Hook JawTitan Books26 September 2017Material from Action 14 February to 16 October 1976 Hellman of Hammer Force Rebellion Developments8 December 2021Material from Action 14 February to 18 December 1976.