If you were to head into your local newsagents exactly 40 years ago today you'd probably spot a copy of TV Action + Countdown sitting on the counter or stacked on a shelf crammed with dozens of different comics! TV Action is in fact, Countdown, and the two comics never merged, instead Countdown changed its name (for the last few issues it was called "Countdown for TV Action!")! The comic lasted a little longer under it's new title (although personally I prefer the name Countdown), surviving 56 issues as Countdown, and 76 under the new name.
The cover star for this issue was Dr. Who, at that time played by Jon Pertwee and the artwork comes from the hands of Gerry Haylock.
Just like in Countdown there are a few features on Space, the first was an article entitled 'Power Stations in Orbit'.
The new title means the comic is going to be showing strips about television shows. Hawaii Five-0 is one of them, a popular series that ran from 1968 - 1980, with art by Leslie Branton.
The first full-colour strip is a story about a Gerry Anderson spaceship, Zero X, which is a reprint from TV21 with fantastic, bright colours on amazing artwork by Mike Noble.
Another Gerry Anderson based strip is Fireball XL5 which, unlike Zero X actually had its own T.V. show, and was reduced from two pages to just one when the comic revamped. The original series was drawn by Malcolm Stokes, but I'm unsure of the artist on this one.
The back page featured Hanna-Barbera's Autocat and Motormouse, the only humour strip to appear in the publication. The artwork and story weren't particulary strong on this strip, so personally I'd have kept Countdown's humour story Dastardly and Muttley.
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