Missing in Action: the end of a comic

 

The Demise of TV Action – August 1973

It’s always a shame to see a favourite comic come to an end, rather less so when the comic has become a shadow of its former self. It was towards the end of the long summer holiday in 1973 when TV Action, formerly Countdown disappeared suddenly, and without any warning. The comic had got off to a promising start in February 1971 with a line-up that felt like a throwback to the classic era of TV21. All of Gerry Anderson’s productions from Fireball XL5 onwards were featured in rotation over the coming weeks, alongside articles on current developments in science and space hardware, but it was Dr. Who, flown in from sibling title TV Comic that really pulled in the readers.

As the months rolled by, the Gerry Anderson content dropped off like needles from a Christmas tree. At issue 35, a minor revamp ushered in the exploits of TV’s latest playboy adventurers, The Persuaders! Brett and Danny were still in the line-up when the comic drew its last breath in August 1973, but by this time the title was barely recognisable, and as of April ‘72 had changed its name to the less sci-fi oriented TV Action. The revamp was necessitated by the end of an arrangement with Sun Printers, who had offered Polystyle a year's worth of machine time on their under-utilised rotogravure machines for the cost of materials only (Sun had also handled the first year of the Eagle comic). To keep production costs down, TV Action would henceforth be printed on cheap pulp paper, a far cry from the glossy magazine stock of the Countdown era.

The Countdown name was still appended to the rechristened comic, and Dr. Who was promoted to the cover, albeit losing over a page of colour artwork in the process, but this was now a very different entity from the space and sci-fi oriented title it had started out as. Only a handful of Gerry Anderson titles remained on board – UFO, drawn in black and white by Brian Lewis, Thunderbirds (Don Harley), and colour reprints of Ron Embleton’s Stingray spreads from TV21 (John Burns' Countdown strip, the comic's only original creation, had ended at issue 70). Signalling the move away from science fiction content, new strips comprised Hawaii 5-0 (nicely drawn in black and white by Leslie Branton), the Hanna Barbera cartoon Motormouse and Autocat (which the comic insisted on calling Autocat and Motormouse), and ATV’s teenage drama Tightrope. The latter seemed an unusual choice given that it was a standalone serial that didn’t lend itself to further development. It merited only a single monochrome page, with artwork from Stanley Houghton. 

The comic continued in this format, with minor content changes until January 1973 by which time Dr. Who was down to just two pages (including the cover), and other strips comprised UFO (John Burns), Mission Impossible (John Burns again) and The Persuaders! (Frank Langford). Motormouse and Autocat were still on the back cover and still titled in reverse order. UFO aside, there was no other Gerry Anderson content apart from a colour photo spread of his current series The Protectors. Harry Rule and co were the cover stars when the comic was once again revamped, in January 1973, entering what would prove to be its final phase.

With a redesigned masthead, a painted montage cover and calling itself ‘The New TV Action’, the comic’s line-up now included a weekly complete story (running across seven pages in black and white); Dr. Who (still in the capable hands of Gerry Haylock), Hawaii 5-0 (Leslie Branton), Mission Impossible (John Burns), and The Persuaders! Comic relief was provided by Dad’s Army (drafted in from sibling paper TV Comic) and Tex Avery’s Droopy, whose cartoons had recently been enjoying a revival on BBC1. An incongruous collection of pop star photos occupied the colour centre spread, perhaps aimed at readers’ little sisters, but aside from Dr. Who and The Persuaders! all the comic strip content was in black and white. Further new arrivals over the coming weeks included the portly Frank Cannon and western heroes Alias Smith and Jones, but even these TV heavyweights couldn’t stave off the inevitable.

Last editions of comics (or those preceding a merger with another title from the same publisher) usually came with cover splashes proclaiming ‘great news inside’. By contrast, TV Action’s last cover gave no hint that the game was up. The first clue came on page two where a single column promo listed the contents to be found ‘next week in TV Comic’, a line-up including Dr. Who, Dad’s Army, Droopy and Basil Brush. Given that three of them were currently featuring in TV Action, readers may have been forgiven for thinking ‘huh?’ I certainly did. It was, as Dr. Who’s teaser promised, ‘a most puzzling tale.’

TV Action directs readers towards its sibling comic without owning up to the fact that this is the final edition.

Countdown may have started with a bang, but TV Action went out, quite frankly, on a bit of a whimper. The week’s complete story was a risible Persuaders! tale about a hypnotic, exploding musical box, scrappily drawn by Jose Ortiz. Mission Impossible was still in the hands of John Burns, whose colour sense did not sit happily on the very absorbent pulp paper, and frankly came across in print as a murky mess*. The plot, wrapping up a Middle East conspiracy, wasn’t up to much. Droopy was still present and correct, and one-hit wonders Blackfoot Sue (already a year beyond their only UK chart action) made unlikely colour pinups across the centre pages. 

The following spread was given over to a cruel trick devised to entice readers across to next week’s TV Comic: the first in a two-part competition with the chance of winning one of 10 Raleigh Chopper bikes – a most desirable prize in 1973. To enter, you had to cut up and assemble a jigsaw of TV Comic characters, and colour in the results… and then wait for next week. Presumably, you were in with a much better chance of winning if you knew the correct colours for characters such as Texas Ted, Basil Brush and TV Terrors (to be in the know, you’d have had to be in possession of last year’s TV Comic Annual).

Dad’s Army occupied the next two pages, which were followed by TV Action’s very last colour strip, the last part of a cranky Protectors adventure, drawn by Mario Capaldi (Italian artists’ names were always a sure sign of a comic with a dwindling budget). The last four pages comprised a full-page advertisement for Brooke Bond’s latest set of collectable cards (Adventurers and Explorers) and the end of the disappointing Persuaders! strip. On the back cover, Harry Rule and Paul Bucket (sorry, Buchet) prepared to desert the sinking ship in a helicopter.

And with that, we were done.

My original copy of that swansong edition is still in reasonably good condition, but has worn a lot less well than older copies of Countdown: the uncoated pulp paper is now quite discoloured. It’s interesting, though, to reflect on the demise of a comic whose content was so closely tied in with television. It’s all well and good bringing on board the likes of The Persuaders! or The Protectors when the series themselves are brand new, but by August 1973, The Persuaders! was nearly two years old and reduced to random repeats across the ITV regions – not a great enticement to readers. Cannon was, if anything, too adult in tone to appeal to kids who liked Dr. Who (it never appealed to me), and Alias Smith and Jones was, well, a western – and western comic strips hadn’t been popular in Britain since the 1950s.

Countdown had been an interesting experiment. All experiments are devised to prove a theory, and in this case we can conclude that, by 1971, there was next to no market left for a comic devoted to Gerry Anderson content, or indeed any comic so closely wedded to an ephemeral medium like television. And so it proved. The 1990s brought short-lived comic revivals for Thunderbirds, Stingray and others, always piggybacking on repeat runs, but these endeavours had even shorter life spans than TV Action.

TV Action was, ultimately, a product of its time, reflecting an era of glossy, action-packed television series. Its editorial style harked back to the tone of Eagle, blending adventure strips with well-written factual material, and like Eagle, it gave employment to some of the best creatives in the British comics industry. There’s been nothing like it since. Today, you’ll find remnants of its DNA in Dr. Who Weekly, but there will never again be a weekly comic offering such diversity of content, produced to the same style or quality.

[* Interestingly, when John Burns contributed a strip to Network's one-shot TV21 revival, he remarked to me about the poor quality of the paper – perhaps he was reminded of the awful print quality of those TV Actions.]