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Action Force (comic strip)
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Action Force (comic strip)
Action Force is a British comic war story published in the weekly anthology Battle from 8 October 1983 to 29 November 1986 by IPC Magazines; for most of the period the comic was retitled Battle Action Force. The story is based on the toyline of the same name produced by Palitoy, and portrayed multinational Europe-based anti-terrorist military organisation Action Force's attempts to thwart the ambitions of the Red Shadows and – later – Cobra. "Action Force" ended when the toyline's new owners Hasbro discontinued the licence with IPC in favour of a dedicated title produced by Marvel UK.
While Battle was still among IPC's best-selling comics in the early 1980s, sales of weekly titles on the whole were sliding. In response, editor Terry Magee and group editor Barrie Tomlinson relaxed the title's all-war format in favour of allowing stories less anchored in realism. However, this was only a partial success and from 1981 the comic's budget was such that it had to begin reprinting older stories.
Meanwhile Coalville-based toy company Palitoy had been producing Action Man since 1966, initially as a licensed version of American company Hasbro's G.I. Joe. Action Man had gone on to become something of a cultural icon in Britain, but like boys' comics the market was in decline due to the relatively high price of the 12" 1⁄6-scale figure and its accessories. Since 1977, the 3¾" toys based on the Star Wars had been a smash success, and showed the size of the market for vast numbers of cheap action figures based on a franchise. As British distributor of Star Wars figures, Palitoy had first-hand experience and created Action Force in 1982 – effectively a range of 3¾" Action Man figures, albeit with non-removable sculpted uniforms. Priced at £1.50 – closer to the pocket money of the average British child – sales were strong.
The initial batch of figures had largely been modelled on real-life soldiers, much like the uniforms of Action Man. However, for the second year of the line Palitoy decided to push the series in a more fantastical direction, devising the idea of Action Force being a European taskforce facing off on the conquest-hungry Baron Ironblood and his Red Shadows minions as a unifying fiction. As part of the line's promotional push they contacted IPC, paying them for a four-week strip in Battle, written by Gerry Finley-Day with art from Jim Watson and based on the toyline's background information. The result was viewed as a success, and Palitoy asked IPC to produce a series of five promotional mini-comics, which were given away as a free gift with the publisher's boys comics (Tiger, Battle and Eagle) weekly between 16 July and 10 September 1983.
Again the experiment was well-received and Palitoy offered to underwrite a regular "Action Force" strip in Battle. From the 8 October 1983 edition the comic was retitled Battle Action Force and featured three "Action Force" strips. Due to the toyline splitting up the Action Force organisation into four branches – Z-Force, SAS Force, Q-Force and Space Force – the comic was able to rotate the focus of the strips, allowing the creative teams for each concurrent serial to not worry overly about what others were doing. The third strip in each episode would focus on a particular member of Action Force; another device was flashback origin stories for the characters. Palitoy underwrote the costs of the "Action Force" material, effectively halving Battle's production costs, while also opening it up to a younger audience.
Despite this steady source of funding, the strips were not entirely popular with the IPC staff. Tomlinson would later bemoan the slow process of getting Palitoy – who he described "weren't really comic people" to approve the art and scripts while keeping to the rigid weekly schedule. Finley-Day felt there was some flexibility, but artist John Cooper was less than impressed after being taken off "Johnny Red" to draw some of the strips, later recalling "I thought it was rubbish... I thought then, 'It's going downhill, this comic'" and particularly disliking Ironblood.
The strips did at least allow the title's falling sales to level out, and in addition to paying for the strips Palitoy would fund a number of circulation-boosting free gifts based on the toyline – arguably reaching its apex when the 14 July 1984 edition featured a cover-mounted Action Force figure, sold in shops for £1.50, with the 24p comic.
However, in 1985 Palitoy took the cheaper route of simply importing figures from Hasbro's own 3¾" toyline, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero and simply altering some elements of their toy biographies to make them fit in with the European-themed Action Force. This not only meant an influx of characters for the comic but also the outright replacement of the Red Shadows as villains by Cobra. Finley-Day was left with the unenviable job of trying to cope with the overnight change in the strip, coming up with the concept of Ironblood betraying the Red Shadows and taking on the identity of Cobra Commander to raise a new army. While older characters would continue to appear in strips, they were generally only featured in secondary roles.
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Action Force (comic strip)
Action Force is a British comic war story published in the weekly anthology Battle from 8 October 1983 to 29 November 1986 by IPC Magazines; for most of the period the comic was retitled Battle Action Force. The story is based on the toyline of the same name produced by Palitoy, and portrayed multinational Europe-based anti-terrorist military organisation Action Force's attempts to thwart the ambitions of the Red Shadows and – later – Cobra. "Action Force" ended when the toyline's new owners Hasbro discontinued the licence with IPC in favour of a dedicated title produced by Marvel UK.
While Battle was still among IPC's best-selling comics in the early 1980s, sales of weekly titles on the whole were sliding. In response, editor Terry Magee and group editor Barrie Tomlinson relaxed the title's all-war format in favour of allowing stories less anchored in realism. However, this was only a partial success and from 1981 the comic's budget was such that it had to begin reprinting older stories.
Meanwhile Coalville-based toy company Palitoy had been producing Action Man since 1966, initially as a licensed version of American company Hasbro's G.I. Joe. Action Man had gone on to become something of a cultural icon in Britain, but like boys' comics the market was in decline due to the relatively high price of the 12" 1⁄6-scale figure and its accessories. Since 1977, the 3¾" toys based on the Star Wars had been a smash success, and showed the size of the market for vast numbers of cheap action figures based on a franchise. As British distributor of Star Wars figures, Palitoy had first-hand experience and created Action Force in 1982 – effectively a range of 3¾" Action Man figures, albeit with non-removable sculpted uniforms. Priced at £1.50 – closer to the pocket money of the average British child – sales were strong.
The initial batch of figures had largely been modelled on real-life soldiers, much like the uniforms of Action Man. However, for the second year of the line Palitoy decided to push the series in a more fantastical direction, devising the idea of Action Force being a European taskforce facing off on the conquest-hungry Baron Ironblood and his Red Shadows minions as a unifying fiction. As part of the line's promotional push they contacted IPC, paying them for a four-week strip in Battle, written by Gerry Finley-Day with art from Jim Watson and based on the toyline's background information. The result was viewed as a success, and Palitoy asked IPC to produce a series of five promotional mini-comics, which were given away as a free gift with the publisher's boys comics (Tiger, Battle and Eagle) weekly between 16 July and 10 September 1983.
Again the experiment was well-received and Palitoy offered to underwrite a regular "Action Force" strip in Battle. From the 8 October 1983 edition the comic was retitled Battle Action Force and featured three "Action Force" strips. Due to the toyline splitting up the Action Force organisation into four branches – Z-Force, SAS Force, Q-Force and Space Force – the comic was able to rotate the focus of the strips, allowing the creative teams for each concurrent serial to not worry overly about what others were doing. The third strip in each episode would focus on a particular member of Action Force; another device was flashback origin stories for the characters. Palitoy underwrote the costs of the "Action Force" material, effectively halving Battle's production costs, while also opening it up to a younger audience.
Despite this steady source of funding, the strips were not entirely popular with the IPC staff. Tomlinson would later bemoan the slow process of getting Palitoy – who he described "weren't really comic people" to approve the art and scripts while keeping to the rigid weekly schedule. Finley-Day felt there was some flexibility, but artist John Cooper was less than impressed after being taken off "Johnny Red" to draw some of the strips, later recalling "I thought it was rubbish... I thought then, 'It's going downhill, this comic'" and particularly disliking Ironblood.
The strips did at least allow the title's falling sales to level out, and in addition to paying for the strips Palitoy would fund a number of circulation-boosting free gifts based on the toyline – arguably reaching its apex when the 14 July 1984 edition featured a cover-mounted Action Force figure, sold in shops for £1.50, with the 24p comic.
However, in 1985 Palitoy took the cheaper route of simply importing figures from Hasbro's own 3¾" toyline, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero and simply altering some elements of their toy biographies to make them fit in with the European-themed Action Force. This not only meant an influx of characters for the comic but also the outright replacement of the Red Shadows as villains by Cobra. Finley-Day was left with the unenviable job of trying to cope with the overnight change in the strip, coming up with the concept of Ironblood betraying the Red Shadows and taking on the identity of Cobra Commander to raise a new army. While older characters would continue to appear in strips, they were generally only featured in secondary roles.