ACTION BEFORE THE BAN Volume 1

<B>CELEBRATING SIXTY YEARS OF BRITAIN'S MOST CONTROVERSIAL COMIC!</B><BR> <BR>Violent, gritty and unrelenting, <B>Action</B> 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 formula: reimagining existing story ideas from fresh perspectives and infusing them with a health dose of modern realism. With strips such as <I>Hookjaw</I>, <I>Dredger</I>, <I>Look Out For Lefty</I> and <I>Blackjack</I>, success was instantaneous but so was the criticism. Many of the press including, <B>The London Evening Standard</B>, <B>The Sun</B> and the <B>Daily Mail</B> 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.<BR> <BR>In less than a year, <B>Action</B> had been pulled from circulation, then returned months later, a sanitised, pale shadow of its former self. But the spark had already been lit. <B>Action</B> had made its mark and became the catalyst for the evolution of the British comics scene, pathing the way for <B>2000 AD</B> and the British invasion of UK talent into America.<BR> <BR>Collected here are the first tweleve issues of <B>Action</B>, containing all of the strips and some of the editorial that created so much infamy back in the 1970s.