ACTION - BEFORE THE BAN Volume 1

The Archival Collection

By: Gerry Finley-Day, Tom Tully, Steve MacManus, Pat Mills, Kelvin Gosnell

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Hardcover | 24 February 2026 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Hardcover
368 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
28.2 x 21.8 x 2.8

Hardcover

RRP $120.00

$96.75

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A brand-new hardback containing the first 12 issues of Britain's most controversial comic, Action, published to coincide with its 50th anniversary.

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 formula: 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.

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