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''Countdown'' was a British comic published weekly by Polystyle Publications – ultimately, under several different titles – from 1971 to 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. Under the title ''Countdown'', the comic ran for 58 weeks, beginning with the issue cover-dated 20 February 1971. It was re-launched as ''TV Action + Countdown'' from issue 59 in 1972, dropping many of the original strips from ''Countdown'' and substituting new ones based on contemporary television programmes. After 100 issues, its title became simply ''TV Action''. The final issue, number 132, was cover-dated 25 August 1973. Initially 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. From issue 59, ''Countdown'' dropped the glossy printing that had distinguished it, and reverted to cheap newsprint-quality paper, also abandoning the photogravure printing that had also been a feature until then. ''Countdown'' was unusual in carrying both weekly serials and complete stories, rotating the latter among the various TV programmes that it featured. 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''. Another remarkable feature of ''Countdown'' was the inclusion of non-fiction articles about current space exploration, mostly written by Arnold Kingston. These included a level of technical detail more typical of the technical trade journals aimed at adult professionals: 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. ==Publishing history== Polystyle were uncertain as to the most effective name for the new comic (an uncertainty which was to lead to five changes of name for it), initially registering it as ''Countdown and Rocket'',〔''Countdown'', issue 13, p. 22.〕 although publishing the first nineteen issues under the title ''Countdown''. It was launched on 20 February 1971. On the positive side, the magazine had a very small in-house staff of just four, and easy access to a wealth of ready-made artwork, created by the best continuity strip artists of the day – artwork which had been used just once before, in ''TV21'', and was now filed away in the vaults beneath the bustling traffic of Farringdon Road, London. Why re-use artwork? Although the stories had already been seen in print, that was four or five years earlier. Those readers who had perused ''TV21'' had now grown into young adulthood and were no longer reading comics. So to the intended new readership of ''Countdown'', these reprint strips would appear entirely new. Another fortuitous aspect was that both editor Dennis Hooper and art editor Roger Perry had for several years had a close professional association with Gerry Anderson and his wife Sylvia, and therefore had intimate knowledge of the "Supermarionation" TV shows. At the onset of ''TV21'' magazine, Hooper had been art editor of the various spin off magazines including ''Lady Penelope'' and ''Candy'', while Perry had been art editor overseeing the books and the Christmas annuals. Having been employees of Century 21 Publishing between 1964 and 1968, it had been natural for them to make regular visits to the parent company, Century 21 Productions, whose film studios were to the west of Greater London, near Windsor. With the idea of launching ''Countdown'', it had been a simple matter to get Anderson's blessing and secure the appropriate franchising licenses. The third beneficial break to land in Polystyle’s lap was due to another company’s misfortune. Sun Printers Ltd of Watford had been unable to find enough work to keep their own photogravure presses running. Before Eric Bemrose (Liverpool) eventually took over the job, in the twelve months it took Bemrose to design and build new ten-unit rotogravure machines, Sun temporarily handled the job. In April 1950 the boys’ comic ''Eagle'' first saw the light of day on Sun Printers' machines at Watford. With them already familiar with this type of work, a deal was struck between Sun and Polystyle to print ''Countdown'' for one calendar year (52 issues) for the cost of the materials only – all machine-time was free of charge. To fully understand the problems ''Countdown'' faced requires greater understanding of what happened to ''TV21'' (plus its sister magazines), and why the reasons behind their demise had such an adverse effect on the wholesale trade at large, who can make or break a perfectly good magazine. During the 1960s, not only had there been huge advances in electronic technology – for TV was slowly metamorphosing from the post-war images consisting of 405-lines in black and white to that of 625 and in full colour. With this technological advancement, so too were boys and girls – once having been content with the stringed-puppet series ''Supercar'' (1960), ''Fireball XL5'' (1962) and ''Stingray'' (1964) now they wanted something a good deal better to fire up their furtive imaginations. With the advent of ''Thunderbirds'' (1965) coming onto their screens and then, two years later ''Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons'' (1967), this was surely a whole new ball game and had fitted the bill nicely. Maybe the draw had been due to the advancement of electronics, for with continual miniaturisation, the smaller lip-sync mechanism allowed the puppets to be built closer to normal human proportions. But when the more "kid-friendly" ''Joe 90'' (1968) arrived, the magic had gone and it failed to satisfy. With viewing numbers dropping wildly, ''Joe 90'' was to be the last in a long line of classic Anderson marionette series. What children wanted now were live-action series – the likes of ''Doctor Who'' – these had very suddenly were all the rage. With that in mind, in 1968, Century 21 Productions began to venture into the world of live-action – first with ''Doppelganger'', followed by ''UFO'' and then with ''Space: 1999'', this last project turning into what became the most expensive TV series ever to be made at that time. Century 21 Productions became financially over-stretched and within a few short months, they had disbanded their three ware-house-sized studios on the Slough Trading Estate, and in June 1969 the entire staff of Century 21 Publishing woke up one morning to discover that they had been given one month to clear out their desks and seek alternative employment. Although the entire staff of Century 21 Publishing had found themselves redundant, not all was entirely lost as ''TV21'', ''Lady Penelope'' and ''Candy'' magazines struggled on for a few more months. They – together with a small nucleus of staff from the disbanded Century 21 Publishing company – were taken on board by Leonard Matthews (ex-managing editor of Fleetway Juvenile Comics) and Alfred Wallace (ex-managing editor of ''Eagle'' magazine), who were now operating an independent studio off Fleet Street under the name of Martspress. With the non-appearance of Supermarionation programmes on TV, plus the sudden demise of Century 21 Publishing, this effectively triggered truly negative vibes within the comic magazine industry generally. In a nutshell, the wholesalers had had their fingers burnt by having large stocks of merchandise – not just the weekly comics but through APF (Anderson Provis Films) – another of Gerry Anderson's innovative ventures – they found themselves with huge stocks of toys, books, games and other related merchandised items that could no longer be moved off their shelves. Understandably, when ''Countdown'' appeared, it was regarded as such a close relation to the ''TV21'' disaster that it became common knowledge that wholesalers were very cagey about placing large orders. The second negative aspect had been that within one week of the first issue of ''Countdown'' being placed onto the news stands, ''TV Times'' had also launched their own "in-house" publication for juveniles, ''Tivvy'' – admittedly not exactly the same type of product, but ''TV Times'' (who had a print run of several million) had had the advantage (and the clout) to do plenty of string-pulling resulting in lots of free air-time for advertising their new product together with the fact that it was also being looked upon as ''TV Times'' Apart from Hooper and Perry, the other two staff members employed to work solely on ''Countdown'' were Peter Levy (assistant editor) and 54-year-old Bill Kidd (assistant art editor), who in the late summer of 1972 died of stomach cancer. He was replaced by a young balloon-lettering artist who had been working on ''Countdown'' 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Countdown (Polystyle Publications)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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