Countdown (Polystyle Publications) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Countdown
Countdown, issue 1
Publication information
Publisher	Polystyle Publications
Schedule	Weekly
Format	Ongoing series
Genre	Action, Adventure, Science fiction, Spy-fi, Techno-thriller
Publication date	20 February 1971 – 25 August 1973
Number of issues	132
Creative team
Artist(s)	John M. Burns
Letterer(s)	Matt Anderson (1970–73) Danny Fox (1973)
Editor(s)	Dennis Hooper Robin Hilborn (assistant editor, 1970–71) Peter Levy (assistant editor, 1971–73) Roger Perry (art editor) Bill Kidd (assistant art editor)

Countdown was a British comic published weekly by Polystyle Publications – ultimately, under several different titles – from early 1971 to late summer 1973. The pages in each issue were numbered in reverse order, with page 1 at the end – a gimmick which was derived from the comic's title in order to create a countdown to the number one every week.

Countdown initially featured comic strips based on Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation TV shows which had been popular throughout the 1960s. (Much of this material was reprinted from an earlier publication called TV Century 21.) It was a high-quality (but expensive) publication, featuring full-colour art on the cover and on many of the inside pages, and was printed on coated paper. After 58 weeks, the publisher cut costs by relaunching the comic under the title TV Action, in a much cheaper format. The relaunch saw a shift in emphasis away from Gerry Anderson content, instead focusing on comic strip stories based on popular TV series of the era.

A notable feature of Countdown was the inclusion of nonfiction articles about current space exploration which often included a level of technical detail more typical of technical trade journals aimed at adult professionals.

Content

Countdown era

Countdown was unusual in carrying both weekly serials and complete stories, rotating the latter among the various TV programmes that it featured. Countdown featured an original strip based on the latest Anderson production, the live-action series UFO, along with reprints of strips from earlier Anderson successes like Stingray, Thunderbirds and Fireball XL5. In addition, it carried a totally original strip, Countdown, drawn by John M. Burns and including spacecraft designs from the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Countdown was distinctive for its highly-detailed nonfiction articles — five or six pages in a 24-page issue — with an emphasis on space exploration. The space articles were written by Robin Hilborn until issue #32 and Peter Levy (often writing as "Arnold Kingston" and "Peter Brosnan") thereafter, with contributions from freelancers Dan Lloyd and Peter Newark. These articles included a level of technical detail more typical of technical trade journals: for example, in a 1971 issue of Countdown, the fourth installment of a series on unmanned satellites, entitled "Space Lighthouses," explained the Doppler effect and gave details of US and Soviet navigation satellite programmes.

TV Action era

To capitalise on the continuing popularity of the Doctor Who strip, featuring the likeness of Jon Pertwee (the actor who was then playing the Doctor on TV), that strip became the regular cover feature of TV Action. As an added inducement, the publisher had obtained a licence to include popular villains the Daleks in the strip. Hence the first relaunch issue had a colour cover featuring the Third Doctor and the Daleks. Doctor Who had an unshakeable popularity; it had emerged from, and would ultimately return to, the pages of TV Action's sister publication, TV Comic.

A comics version of the action-comedy series The Persuaders! debuted in issue #35 of Countdown, and this continued into the TV Action era, alongside Hawaii Five-0, Tightrope, Cannon, and other contemporary TV series.

The Man From TV Action

Art editor Roger Perry was often present at filmings of Doctor Who, and finding a suitable picture from the files to go with a feature written about the recording was easy, and also gave the magazine a feeling of greater flexibility. Additional "filler pages" typically took the form of a competition (giving away items such as Airfix construction kits), or something quick and easy to write such as a hastily penned "profile" by Peter Levy.

One of these last-minute filler pages had come about after Perry needed to attend a funeral in Stuttgart. Several months earlier, on a particularly blustery day in late March 1972, Perry had driven down to Pegwell Bay in East Kent, taking with him science writer Dan Lloyd, who from 1959 through to 1968 had been Eagle magazine's chief sub-editor. It had been Lloyd's plan to create an in-depth feature on hovercraft but at Pegwell Bay, gale-force winds had prevented the hovercraft from flying. "Hoverlloyd" had been very cautious, as earlier that same month – on 4 March 1972 – an SR.N6 traveling from Ryde, Isle of Wight, to Portsmouth had overturned in similar winds on the Solent, killing five of the 27 passengers. The freak accident had happened just 400 yards off Southsea beach. To compensate for their disappointment, Lloyd's press officer suggested that when they next were in the vicinity, Lloyd and Perry would be most welcome to be given a free ride over to France.

Perry telephoned Lloyd's press officer and was immediately invited to the launching of the company's third SR.N4 craft. The launching would be blessed by the inventor of the hovercraft, Sir Christopher Cockerell, CBE. Taking assistant art editor Bill Kidd along as staff photographer, Perry found he had enough material to create the first in a long line of The Man From TV Action features.

This was not the first time that Perry had been involved in this type of informative journalism. In 1961, while employed as a designer on Eagle, Perry's image had been used in a weekly continuity strip called The Roving Reporter. Although Perry never actually left the confines of his office, the illustrations created, by (amongst others) Countdown artists John M. Burns and Eric Kincaid (better known for his Toad of Toad Hall and Riverbank Tales), gave the impression that Perry (a.k.a. Larry Line) was always out and about somewhere in the ever-expanding world.

Production and distribution problems

Countdown was unique in that some of its content changed from week to week. This was not by intent, but purely from necessity. Hooper worked long hours writing scripts for many of the strips. Nonetheless, the problem was that Perry was not being given the scripts early enough for the artists to create and deliver the completed artwork on time.

Ideally, there would be a five-week lead time between "press day" (the date on which all text and artwork was handed over to the printer) and the cover date (the day on which the magazine went on sale to the public). This five-week period allowed time for the typesetters to set the text copy, and for the planners to produce a visual "dummy" (an exact-size page-for-page mock-up of what the magazine will look like, having followed the designer's layouts). This "dummy" is put together from cut-and-pasted pieces of paper that show all the pictures scaled to their correct size (using what used to be called "photostats") and with text and headings in their correct positions. The dummy is sent to the publisher for the editing staff to re-read the copy, to make sure there are no mistakes, and to make any changes necessary. As there were no computers in the publishing industry in those days, it was part of a designer's job to make sure the text fit the space allotted for it. Invariably it was either just too long or just too short to fit snugly, so extra writing or the cutting of some text had to be done. Once the "dummy" went back to the printer's, no more changes could be made.

Two weeks after returning the dummy to the printer (still several days before copies went on sale, thus allowing time for distribution of copies throughout the country), advance copies were made available to the staff. Although there was a small amount of leeway, such that if the printer had been warned some artwork could be up to a week or ten days late, Perry very often did not receive Hooper's script until press day itself ... and it still had to be illustrated by the artist and balloon-lettered before sending it off to the printer.

A second problem was that the artists being employed to create the continuity strips did not solely work on Countdown but often took on other work to fill their week's workload. One such artist used to deliver his work a day later with each succeeding week. The answer to this was to let the story run its course of four, five or six weeks, and then drop in something else for a couple of weeks, thus giving him the chance to catch up. Leaving Hooper to carry on writing his scripts, this decision had been made by Perry; and it was being said (as first uttered by Dennis Bosdet, a representative from Linden Artists) that Countdown was no longer being edited by Hooper but by Perry.

Distribution was also a problem. Although matters improved after the first 26 weeks, initially the distribution of the new comic was patchy, with some issues failing to go on sale at all in some regions, as they could not be printed in sufficient quantities in time to reach the newsagents by the cover date, perhaps as a consequence of the production problems.

Strips

Countdown strips (issues #1–58)

The strips, many of which were reprinted from TV21, included:

• Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
• Countdown – the eponymous "Countdown" strip
• Dastardly and Muttley
• Doctor Who
• Fireball XL5
• Joe 90
• Lady Penelope
• The Persuaders! — debuted in issue #35
• The Secret Service
• Stingray
• Thunderbirds
• UFO
• Zero-X

TV Action strips (issues #59–132)

• Alias Smith and Jones
• Autocat and Motormouse
• Cannon
• Dad's Army
• Doctor Who
• Droopy
• Hawaii Five-O
• Mission Impossible
• The Protectors
• Tightrope

Images for kids

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  TV Action #1, 1 April 1972