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Action: Before The Ban - Volume 1
CELEBRATING FIFTY YEARS OF BRITAIN'S MOST CONTROVERSIAL COMIC!
Violent, gritty and unrelenting, Action comic 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 reimagining existing story ideas from fresh perspectives and infusing them with a healthy dose of modern realism. With strips such as Hookjaw, Dredger, Look Out For Lefty and Blackjack, success was instantaneous but so was the criticism. Many of the press including, The London Evening Standard, The Sun and the Daily Mail were 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, Action was pulled from circulation, then returned months later, a sanitised, pale shadow of its former self. But the spark had already been lit. Action had made its mark and became the catalyst for the evolution of the British comics scene, pathing the way for 2000 AD and the British invasion of UK talent into America.
Collected here are the first twelve issues of Action, containing all of the strips and some of the editorial that created so much infamy back in the 1970s.
Violent, gritty and unrelenting, Action comic 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 reimagining existing story ideas from fresh perspectives and infusing them with a healthy dose of modern realism. With strips such as Hookjaw, Dredger, Look Out For Lefty and Blackjack, success was instantaneous but so was the criticism. Many of the press including, The London Evening Standard, The Sun and the Daily Mail were 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, Action was pulled from circulation, then returned months later, a sanitised, pale shadow of its former self. But the spark had already been lit. Action had made its mark and became the catalyst for the evolution of the British comics scene, pathing the way for 2000 AD and the British invasion of UK talent into America.
Collected here are the first twelve issues of Action, containing all of the strips and some of the editorial that created so much infamy back in the 1970s.
Kindle Edition
Published February 18, 2026
About the author
Ken Armstrong
19 books19 followersKen Armstrong, who joined ProPublica in 2017, previously worked at The Marshall Project and Chicago Tribune, where his work helped prompt the Illinois governor to suspend executions and empty death row. His first book, Scoreboard, Baby, with Nick Perry, won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for non-fiction. He has been the McGraw Professor of Writing at Princeton and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 7, 2026
For the uninitiated, Action was a 1970s boys adventure comic that was so violent in its story-telling, and so graphic in its art-work, that it was eventually banned following the Mary Whitehouse-flavoured outrage of the time's self-appointed, moral vanguard.
Created by Pat Mills and Geoff Kemp, many stories was basically cribs of popular films of the time - Hook Jaw for Jaws, Dredger for Dirty Harry, etc. - with a couple of sports stories (football and boxing), thrown in for good measure. Other legendary comics' names who contributed were Gerry Findlay-Day, Carols Ezquerra, John Wagner, Steve McManus, and Massimo Belardinelli, all of whom would join Mills in his next IPC venture, 2000AD.
This book compiles the first twelve issues of Action, and while there's plenty to admire here, the best was yet to come. Brace yourself for Hook Jaw's Paradise Isle showdown with Rick Mason and Dr. Gelder, plus the Rollerball rip-off of Death Game 1999, the latter a tale of such desperation, savage violence and mercilessness, that it's a miracle Action ever made it beyond a six-month life-span.
Why not set the table with this first three months? You'll be desperate for the next three.
Thoroughly recommended.
Created by Pat Mills and Geoff Kemp, many stories was basically cribs of popular films of the time - Hook Jaw for Jaws, Dredger for Dirty Harry, etc. - with a couple of sports stories (football and boxing), thrown in for good measure. Other legendary comics' names who contributed were Gerry Findlay-Day, Carols Ezquerra, John Wagner, Steve McManus, and Massimo Belardinelli, all of whom would join Mills in his next IPC venture, 2000AD.
This book compiles the first twelve issues of Action, and while there's plenty to admire here, the best was yet to come. Brace yourself for Hook Jaw's Paradise Isle showdown with Rick Mason and Dr. Gelder, plus the Rollerball rip-off of Death Game 1999, the latter a tale of such desperation, savage violence and mercilessness, that it's a miracle Action ever made it beyond a six-month life-span.
Why not set the table with this first three months? You'll be desperate for the next three.
Thoroughly recommended.
May 19, 2026
Decent but dated
Action's reputation is huge given the outcry against it - but it now pretty dated and some of strips, Coffin Sub and Sports not for losers, similar stories were in Victor and other earlier British comics. Then "ground breakers" like Hookjaw & Dredger are pretty two-dimensional characters.
Interesting but not a patch on Charleys War, V for Vendetta or Dredd.
Action's reputation is huge given the outcry against it - but it now pretty dated and some of strips, Coffin Sub and Sports not for losers, similar stories were in Victor and other earlier British comics. Then "ground breakers" like Hookjaw & Dredger are pretty two-dimensional characters.
Interesting but not a patch on Charleys War, V for Vendetta or Dredd.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews