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TV Action was the final title of a weekly comic published by Polystyle Publications, Ltd that began its run under the name Countdown. Published in Britain between 1971 and 1973, the publication contained comic adaptations of various television programmes, including Doctor Who, but targeted a slightly older readership than its long-established sister publication TV Comic. Under the Countdown title it also published a range of well-researched and surprisingly sophisticated science-based and space-related factual articles.
Overview[]
Origins[]
By 1970, Polystyle Publications, Ltd was eager to launch a weekly comic that appealed to a slightly older audience than its de facto television adaptation flagship, TV Comic. Whereas that publication had debuted in 1951 with "funny animal" strips and adaptations of young children's shows like Muffin the Mule, the publisher now wanted something in the style of mid-1960s success TV Century 21, which had been replete with comic strips based on the numerous puppet series produced by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson.
By the time TV21 was finally amalgamated into weekly comic Valiant, the publication had dropped its license to print any comic strips based on the numerous Supermarionation series. Polystyle seized the opportunity to buy not just the rights to publish new strips based on the various Andersons' shows, but also reprint strips originally commissioned by TV21 (which would help reduce costs). Anticipating that the Andersons’ first full live-action series, UFO, was going to be a big success, the comic's editor, Dennis Hooper, ensured that new strips based on the show would appear prominently on many of the comic’s front and back covers.
However, to further widen the appeal of the new comic, Hooper – a longtime fan of the show – successfully persuaded his colleagues at TV Comic to let him take on Polystyle's ongoing licence to produce a Doctor Who (generally branded as Dr. Who) comic strip in the new title. Despite – or perhaps because of – the largely Earth-based focus of the television series at the time, the Third Doctor's adventures would ultimately prove to be the longest-running strip in the publication’s entire run, missing just six issues in total.
Countdown[]
There was some initial uncertainty within the company about the new comic’s name: Countdown was eventually chosen, given the “space-age” themes of much of its contents and especially shows like Thunderbirds, UFO and Fireball XL5. However, the original indicia listed the title as Countdown and Rocket: the latter name references “The First Space-Age Weekly”, which had been published for 32 weeks by one of Polystyle’s predecessors back in 1956.
To reinforce the Countdown name, the comic's pages were numbered backward, so that readers were effectively "counting down" from page 32 (the front cover) to page one (the back cover).
Wishing to also repeat the high production values of TV21, Polystyle managed to make what they initially considered a good deal: Sun Printers Ltd, based in Watford, agreed to print Countdown for one calendar year (52 issues) for material costs only, as a way of ensuring their photogravure presses kept rolling. Despite this saving, however, Countdown remained an expensive proposition on the UK’s newsagents’ shelves, its glossy paper and significant number of full colour pages requiring a cover price of 5p (one shilling)—effectively double that of most other (largely monochrome, newsprint) weekly comics published in the UK at the time.
Even once the comic's initially problematic distribution improved across the UK, it soon became clear that Countdown – from issue 19 subtitled “The Space-Age Comic!” – was failing to attract sufficient sales to cover its costs and ensure its long-term survival. It was eventually agreed that Polystyle had simply overestimated continuing public enthusiasm for the various Supermarionation properties, especially those no longer being transmitted anywhere in the UK. Nor did it help that, thanks to inconsistent scheduling across the ITV Network, UFO had failed to attract the big audiences everyone had hoped for.
'Countdown for TV Action'[]
The first indication of the pivot that would subsequently redefine Countdown came with issue 35, cover dated "Week ending 16 October 1971". The comic introduced a new strip based on the highly popular ITC action/adventure series The Persuaders!, starring Roger Moore and Tony Curtis. This decidedly non-space-focused strip was assigned not just a prominent regular position on the front cover (plus two full colour interior pages) but also the skills of artist Harry Lindfield, previously responsible for the first 32 instalments of Dr. Who in Countdown.
Consequently, following a largely-monochrome single story illustrated by Frank Langford, the Dr. Who strip was re-assigned (from late 1971) to former UFO artist Gerry Haylock. The artist would remain working on the strip until March 1975, by which time it had returned to the pages of TV Comic.
The comic’s masthead switched to the descriptive "Countdown for TV Action!" from issue 45; heralding the "pivot" that was about to come, issues 57 and 58 ran with "TV Action in Countdown".
TV Action + Countdown[]
After 58 weeks, and the end of their favourable printing deal with Sun Printers Ltd., Polystyle relaunched the title as TV Action + Countdown, re-orienting their publication towards action/adventure and crime shows still in production or at least still on air in the UK. Overall production costs were also reduced with the publication featuring fewer full colour pages, on cheaper newsprint. The printer also changed to David Brockdorff Ltd of Walthamstow and Harlow.
In a letter to readers in the first new-look edition – number 59 – editor Dennis Hooper explained that the comic's change in emphasis was because few new space-related programmes were being made—even Gerry Anderson was working on a crime action series, The Protectors. Consequently, both the space-based articles and, in particular, strips based on old Anderson-produced shows – with the exception initially of Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, and UFO – were gradually dropped from the revised comic's pages. They were replaced by strips based on shows including Hawaii Five-O, Tightrope, Alias Smith and Jones, and Cannon.
Ironically, there was one space-based strip which had been requested by readers, but was out of Polystyle's reach—Star Trek. At the time, the British comic strip rights to Captain Kirk and his crew were held by Fleetway Publications (later IPC Magazines), publishers of the newly combined Valiant and TV21.
The new TV Action + Countdown continued the tradition of its front page incorporating the opening frames of one of the publication’s regular comic strips: however, with The Persuaders! now no longer in production (thought still on British TV screens), this honour was switched to Dr. Who, underscoring the show's continued popularity with readers. A two-part competition, designed to help encourage readers continue buying the new-look weekly, also centred around designing a new Doctor Who monster, which would later feature in the Dr. Who comic strip itself.
TV Action[]
With the comic having reached its 100th issue (Week ending 13 January 1973), the editorial team opted for one more “relaunch” which saw the masthead initially change to "The New TV Action". ("The new" was almost immediately dropped.) The revised title’s new “USP” was the official introduction of a seven-page, complete “Big Story” based on one of TV Action’s regular strips. (This would also inspire a full-page illustration on the front cover, often painted by Gerry Haylock, regardless of the artist working on the strip.) The first "Big Story", featured in issue 101, was based on the comic's latest acquisition, The Protectors. The first Dr. Who "Big Story" followed three weeks later, in issue 104. This would be followed by a further four "Big" Dr. Who stories before the publication's ultimate merger into TV Comic.
Given that the overall pagination of each issue had not increased, including a strip with an additional five pages required some of the regular serialised strips to be "rested" for several issues—normally after they had featured in the "Big Story" slot. (This also, at least in theory, gave artists more time to work on subsequent, often full-colour strips.) Dr. Who necessarily took its turn with the rest, and did not always appear in subsequent issues of TV Action; indeed, it "missed" the final issue, number 132. Nevertheless, it could be argued that Dr. Who featured slightly more regularly in TV Action than some of its peers, possibly suggesting an editorial bias in its favour.
Merger into TV Comic[]
The relaunch failed to significantly improve TV Action’s fortunes and the decision was made to close down the title. However, following the then traditional habit of weekly comic publishers to “hatch, match and despatch” titles, TV Action was officially “merged” into its long-established sister-title TV Comic.
However, the small size of the TV Action name on the revised TV Comic masthead (from issue 1133, week ending 1 September 1973) made clear which was the senior title of the two. Of the nine regular strips run in the latter issues of TV Action, only three initially made the jump into TV Comic— Dr. Who, Droopy and Dad's Army. It should be noted that all three of these strips had first appeared in TV Comic before shifting to Countdown/TV Action.
Several years later, TV Comic ran new comic strips based on TV Action regular Cannon, but these were illustrated by John Canning rather than their TV Action artist Martin Asbury, and there was no indication of a connection to TV Action.
Titles[]
The oft-changing title of this publication has created mild confusion amongst some fans of Doctor Who, who are generally uninterested in the historical specifics of British weekly children's comics. Some have mistakenly believed that TV Action and Countdown were originally two contemporaneous weekly comics which merged to create TV Action + Countdown. However, the change in title only appeared to be a merger; in fact it was merely a rebranding which was sufficiently gradual to ensure no bright dividing line between what was originally Countdown and what was finally TV Action. A majority of issues were actually published under both names. Moreover, the numbering system for the title was preserved throughout, confirming they were a single publication.
Cover titles[]
Although the title on the cover changed every few months, it was stylistically similar throughout the first hundred issues. While the word Countdown appeared on the cover, the title was always placed in a red banner across the top sixth of the page. After the title became plain TV Action, this practice was abandoned. On the final thirty-two issues, a bullet hole-ridden TV Action masthead appeared at the top of a full page illustration—often by Gerry Haylock, regardless of the actual "Big Story" strip's illustrator .
- 1-18 Countdown
- 19-45 Countdown The Space-age Comic!
- 46-56 Countdown for TV Action!
- 57-58 TV Action in Countdown
- 59-100 TV Action + Countdown
- 101-132 TV Action
Indicia titles[]
The situation is even more confusing if one looks at the indicia, or legal, title:
- 1-45 Countdown
- 46-56 Countdown to TV Action
- 57-58 TV Action incorporating Countdown
- 59-100 TV Action & Countdown
- 101-132 TV Action
Legacy[]
Thanks to the perceived higher quality of the Dr. Who strips in Countdown/TV Action (a significant number of which were originally published in full colour), the comic was generally well-remembered by contemporary Doctor Who fans, particularly in comparison with the show's relatively poor "consigned towards the back" treatment in later issues of TV Comic.
By 1977 there were some reports in the DWAS fanzine TARDIS that Polystyle Publications were considering launching a new TV-related title – again aimed at a somewhat older demographic than TV Comic – which was suggested as a possible new home for Dr. Who. However, when this new stablemate for TV Comic did finally arrive in April 1978, it was focused specifically on "current" police and crime dramas such as Kojak, Charlie's Angels, Hazell and titular show Target.
Thanks to remarkably poor production values and particularly uninspiring front covers, Target – its masthead boldly describing itself as "Your TV Action Paper" – survived just 19 weeks before it was "merged" into TV Comic. Although most of its featured comic strips were new, several of the Cannon strips published in its later issues were "Big Story" reprints from TV Action.
Stories by issue[]
Special issues[]
Holiday specials[]
- Countdown Holiday Special 1971
- TV Action + Countdown Holiday Special 1972
- TV Action Holiday Special 1973
Annuals[]
- Countdown Annual 1972
- Countdown for TV Action Annual 1973
- TV Action Annual 1974
External links[]
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