Action Man

Mere words cannot explain the hallucinatory experience that was my six-month stint as a writer and editorial assistant on Action Man comic. The publisher wanted to sell the same kind of numbers as their other titles -- Penthouse, say, or Asian Babes. We tried to explain that we weren't really aiming for the same demographic. The licensors wanted to make sure we pushed the right toys. And if Action Man was in the middle of a desert that issue and they wanted to plug their new dinghy, we were damn well going to write in a sudden oasis with a dinghy in it so he could have a PR paddle. And yet, my days on Action Man had their moments. It was I, dear reader, who wrote the Action Man Rap, the Kid's Guide to Torture, and the Ask Doctor X letters page, in which children from all of the country competed to be Minion of the Month. Did the licensors like it? Well… try and imagine having this conversation three times a week.

___

I'm quite convinced I can hear Beth screeching through the glass. She is sitting in a chair, leafing through a sheaf of page run-outs, twirling a lock of her hair absent-mindedly.

"And this one," she is saying to Blitz as I walk in, "is quite definitely Not Approved. Oh, hi!" The teeth-grating enthusiasm with which she greets me is always off-putting.

"How are you?" she beams.

I mumble something incoherent, desperately trying to understand what gives her the impression we get on so well, when we all quite obviously detest her.

"And where are the rest of my boys?" she says smugly.

"They're all... busy," says Blitz carefully. "Doing... stuff." But Beth isn't listening to the Worst Excuses Known to Man, because she's already reading and twirling, reading and twirling, reading and twirling and murmuring. "That's marvellous, that's great, that's really... great."

Blitz and I stare at each other for what seems like an age.

"And this is great too," says Beth, not looking up from the pages. "I just love this story, it's marvellous, simply…' Pause for a flick through that massive thesaurus she calls a brain. "…well, marvellous."

I nod, struck dumb by the many, many previous meetings with Beth in which I had made the chronic mistake of saying something.

"But..." she begins, and the relief as she returns to business is tangible. "There are just a few little teency problems with the story in the next issue. But they're nothing to worry about, and I'm sure my boys can sort them out in plenty of time."

In unison, Blitz and I reach for our cigarettes. Too much smoke in the air has been known to get rid of Beth faster.

"The thing is," says Beth, turning to me with her special Patronising But Earnest face on, "this is a little bit too... too... what's the word I'm searching for here? You know what I mean, don't you?"

"Could you be more... specific?" I ask carefully.

"Well, it's just that this story here, oh, what's it called now? Yes. Cutting Edge. It sounds a bit, well, violent, you know?"

"The story's too violent?" asks Blitz.

"Er... no, not the story itself," says Beth. "I think that's more or less all right. It's just the title, really."

"The title?"

"Yes, really, I thought my boys would have realised by now. This is for consumers who like the toy brand and want to read more placement adventures featuring our new product lines," her voice speeds up as she ventures into familiar territory. "But our consumers are still only in the pre-teen bracket, and we don't want to encourage adverse parental reaction, do we?"

"And the words 'cutting' and 'edge'?" I ask.

"Well," says Beth. "They're a little bit... dangerous sounding. Could you change it something a little more... blunt?"

"Like Blunt Edge?" suggests Blitz through his teeth.

"Maybe."

"Or Sharp Blunt?" I add.

"That sort of thing," says Beth cheerfully.

"Or Blunt Instrument?" says Blitz.

Beth waves her hands backwards and forwards non-commitally, a pained expression on her face.

"Something like that."

"Blunt Instrument?"

"Yes, it sounds much less violent, don't you think. Not quite so... sharp."

"Gotcha," says Blitz enthusiastically, scribbling meaningless doodles on his notepad for effect.

"Perhaps I ought to remind you," I say gently, knowing that I'm going to kick myself for it, "that this particular story is about the theft of an antique sword, and that the whole edgy-sharpy thing kind of relates to the plot."

"Don't worry about that," says Beth nervously, suspecting that she might be digging herself a little hole. "I'm sure the kids won't notice."

"But they'll get scared if we use the word 'sharp'."

"I think so. Or their parents might not like to encourage that sort of language." In for a penny...

"In a comic called Killer Aardvarks?"

"Yes."

"With the word 'killer' in the title," I say icily. Beth chuckles indulgently.

"Oh... now I see," she says with a smile. "No, no, no. You're assuming that the "killer" of Killer Aardvarks is a nasty word. Whereas it's got nothing to do with violence at all."

"Killer Aardvarks has nothing to do with violence?"

"That's right."

"The tale of a gang of crime-fighting martial artists in military uniforms, beating the living shit out of the baddies every week with guns and-"

"The word 'killer'," says Beth oozingly, "is slang. It means that something is 'cool'. You know, that something is... 'wicked'."

"I see."

"Good."

___

And so, six months later, I became a full-time freelance. I found the experience of being my own boss immensely fulfilling. The meetings, for a start, were so much more endurable.