ACTION – BEFORE THE BAN Volume 1 9781837866694 Hardback

CELEBRATING FIFTY YEARS OF BRITAIN’S MOST CONTROVERSIAL COMIC!Violent, gritty and unrelenting,Actioncomic was the brainchild of Pat Mills and Geoff Kemp. Tasked with creating a new anthology comic for the IPC’s boys adventure division, the pair rapidly developed a winning formula: reimagining existing story ideas from fresh perspectives and infusing them with a healthy dose of modern realism. With strips such asHookjaw,Dredger,Look Out For LeftyandBlackjack, success was instantaneous but so was the criticism. Many of the press including,The London Evening Standard,The Sunand theDaily Mailwere quick to denounce the comic, while Mary Whitehouse and the pressure group, Delegates Opposing Violent Education, piled pressure on the IPC board to do something about it.In less than a year,Actionwas pulled from circulation, then returned months later, a sanitised, pale shadow of its former self. But the spark had already been lit.Actionhad made its mark and became the catalyst for the evolution of the British comics scene, pathing the way for2000 ADand the British invasion of UK talent into America.Collected here are the first twelve issues ofAction, containing all of the strips and some of the editorial that created so much infamy back in the 1970s.