Bring back the blood and guts! (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Bring back the blood and guts!

8:55am Friday 3rd February 2012 in Dave Barnett By David Barnett

I am seven years old and one of the biggest thrills of my life is buying a comic every week. Since I could read by myself I have been pestering my mum and dad to have a comic delivered with the newspapers.

I eventually get my wish, and the first comic I have delivered is Monster Fun, which is full of humorous strips about spooks and ghouls.

I also like to buy a comic called Action, a comic that is full of violence, blood and gore. I love it. There is a strip about a gigantic shark, called Hookjaw (this is the time of Jaws, remember) and something about a futuristic and violent sport. Also, a story about Britain being invaded by vague foreign people, and the resistance fightback.

Then, Action goes away. It is not until many years later that I find out the comic was deemed so unsuitable for children that questions were asked about it in the House of Commons, and everyone’s favourite party-pooper Mary Whitehouse led a campaign for it to be toned down. The newsagent chains took fright and the decision was made to stop publishing Action before fearful and frenzied parents started burning it in the street.

A few months later – 35 years ago this month, as it happens – a new comic replaced Action. It was called 2000AD. It was pretty much full of the same violence and blood-and-guts – maybe not as overt as Action – but because it all happened in some indistinct “future” it was just science fiction and thus OK.

I can remember buying the first edition of 2000AD. If I recall correctly, there were some stickers given away with it that you stuck to your arms and which made you look like you were not, in fact, a flesh and blood boy but had bionic insides.

The following week a new character made his debut – Judge Dredd. From the lofty position of a 42-year-old man, Judge Dredd is actually an uber-fascistic representative of a dystopian state that has dispensed with jury trial in favour of brutal on-the-spot justice.

To a seven-year-old boy he was a guy with a helmet and big guns who drove a cool motorbike, called criminals “perps” and swore in a futuristic lingo that I could reproduce (“Drokk!”) without attracting the ire of my parents.

I’m glad to see that 2000AD is still going strong, and that a new magazine – Strip – is reproducing those old Hookjaw comics from Action. But those are pretty much aimed at people my age; I’m less enthused by the comics on offer to my own children.

The shelves are littered with plastic-bagged comics that seem to be sold on the basis of what piece of tatty plastic or boiled sweet is given free, and the mags themselves are little more than pages and pages of thinly disguised ads.

Bring back blood, guts and ultra-violence for kids comics, I say. Never did me any harm.