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Martin Barker's research has covered a wide range of areas, from censorship campaigns: A Haunt of Fears (1984), The Video Nasties (1984), Action - The Story of a Violent Comic (1990), Ill Effects (with Julian Petley 1997, 2001), comic books and their readers: Comics: Ideology, Power and the Critics (1989), film traditions and analysis: The Lasting of the Mohicans (with Roger Sabin, 1996), From Antz to Titanic (with Thomas Austin, 2000), and most recently film audiences: Knowing Audiences: Judge Dredd, its Friends, Fans and Foes (with Kate Brooks, 1998), The Crash Controversy (with Jane Arthurs & Ramaswami Harindranath, 2001), and smaller researches into the audiences for Straw Dogs, A Clockwork Orange, and Being John Malkovich. At the time of writing, he was directing a major research project into the launch and reception of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, funded by a grant from the Economic and Social Research Council, and coordinating an international consortium of research groups in 14 countries who were studying the reception of the film across the world. Here are a few words from the author about the said tome: | |||
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| I have worked on this book for several reasons. First, to let the bereaved readers of Action have their comic back and to let them finally read the ends of the stories they were denied by the comic’s forced removal. I’d like to think that those kids in Brixton, now men and women in their mid-twenties, might get to hear that their old friend had come back to them: or that the entire school, both boys and girls (for Action had a surprisingly large female readership) who petitioned IPC to bring back “their Action” in place of the anodyne second series they were offered, might have a reunion to celebrate its belated return. Second, to enable readers to wonder what the fuss was all about. Why was so much pressure put on, and what were its results? For this reason I have deliberately put side by side in some cases the pages from the “lost issue” with the cut-and-paste job that came out on December 4. See the changes for yourself. What exactly was the problem with the old stories, and how did they feel it necessary to change them? So let it be a source-book both for people thinking about issues of censorship, and for those interested in the arguments about “effects”: both very fraught areas but ones where heat is invariably greater than light. One of the problems with a comic like Action is that at the time it was attacked, the people who might defend it - its ordinary, loyal readers - don’t have much of a voice, They aren’t used to speaking in public, even if they could get anyone to listen. So the defence of some thing like Action goes by default. But having once been condemned it enters the demonology of the censors and the moralists - and is no longer around for any of us to re-examine, to see if they were right. So, here it is. Judge for yourselves. Third, to present a little piece of history. Action was part of the process whereby the most powerful alien in the universe - Tharg the Mighty Green ‘Un - got his Earth entry visa. It is almost certain that without Action there would have been no 2000ad. For 2000ad was Pat Mills’ next little project. And in many ways, Action built a platform on which 2000ad could be built. Writers and artists cut their teeth on Action, and then moved on to 2000ad. Action was the living proof that new kinds of comics could reach new kinds of readers, and create a rare kind of loyalty. Action also proved that you could deal with themes and issues that had previously been forbidden. If 2000ad hid them for the time being in the safety of an imagined future, where it was harder for critics to reach them, well and good. But Action made it all possible - perhaps even provided the guidelines, by testing the limits of what was then permissible. For those of us interested in the history of comics, it is a major milestone. It is, of course, quite different from what came after it. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it is inferior. I am willing to make a case that Action managed to do some things that no other British comic has done. But again, judge for yourself There is also the fact that certain names now commonplace to fans effectively began their artistic careers on Action. There is a simple interest in seeing where they began, and how their styles evolved: and the same is also true, in less public fashion, for the writers. I have long regretted the fact that, with a few exceptions, comic scriptwriters don’t get the acknowledgement they deserve, Artists, rightly, now get praise and a touch of hero-worship for their work, Yet, for all the recent prominence of one or two names, the writers have generally stayed much more in the shade. There are exceptions: authors of graphic novels, for example. who combine the roles of writer and artist, and those who are now contributing to the new wave of adult comics, like the updated Batman epics. Marshall Law and Crisis. The rest tend to be overlooked, let this book of Action be a celebration of writers’ skills, as well as artists’ realisations. For all these reasons I offer this book of Action reprints for your thoughts and enjoyment. | |||
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