Action Force Palitoy Collectors’ Guide (Bloodforthebaron.com)

I’ve long sung the praises of Blood for the Baron, the premiere online resource for all things Action Force. For a collector with a historical bent, it’s a gargantuan resource of information regarding the small-scale GI Joe’s UK cousins. Now there’s an equally exhaustive reference book for the toys and ephemera.

The Palitoy Collectors’ Guide was a Kickstarter project that piqued my interest as soon as I saw it. I’m a sucker for guide books, particularly when they’re full of pretty pictures. To say that the guide is jam-packed with images is an understatement. Figures and vehicles are pictured from multiple angles, and the images are accompanied by packaging copy as well as art.

The book is organized according to the release schedule of the series, from the early Action Man inspired military figures to the increasingly diverse offerings that branched the group into the sea and space, and put them up against the Red Shadows’ more fanciful troops like Muton, Skeletron and Kraken.

Good design always adds an extra element to guide books, and the vintage Action Force styled layouts, Palitoy package colors, comic references and a military file folder theme add interest to what could have just been a staid layout of toy photos.

Kickstarter extras included mini-posters featuring all Action Force figures, comic covers and a classic Ironblood reproduction, as well as a mini-comic and replica of a vintage pack-in codebook. Fun stuff.

On a final note, BFTB is really a one-man band. That fact and the singular vision here makes the final product even more impressive. Oh, and Baron Ironblood also reports that the guide was put together to Lords of Black on repeat at full volume.

9 comments

  • ”Looks like European copies of American Hasbro G. I. Joe vehicles and action figures.”

  • That p38 pistol looks familiar

  • Nice book, but, the Hasbro folks should have never allowed the Palitoy folks to call the G.I. Joe figures, vehicles, etc., Action Force, and allow them to change some, or all, of those characters’ birth places. Instead, the G.I. Joe toys should have been sold as G.I. Joe toys, and also have their own comics, and then just have them do cross overs with the Action Force characters in some separate comics, like the G.I. Joe And The Transformers comics that were made by Marvel Comics here in the United States. I could only imagine the confusion of some of those kids over there when they would watch the so called Action Force cartoons, and they did not see any of the real Action Force characters, and vehicles, appearing in any of those episodes. Poor kids. Anyway, I was just thinking if it would be possible for the Red Laser, or Black Major folks, to remake the heads of the Action force figures like Baron Ironblood, Black Major, and other figures, and put them into the torsos of their o-ring custom figures. Some Action Force figures like Muton, would have to have their entire torso with the head recreated, and then maybe fit the legs from one of the early G.I. Joe Vs Cobra figures onto those torsos to see if it works. As for the arms, I don’t know if those would fit on those torsos. But, they should probably try to make those custom figures anyway, and see if they sell.

    • As a Brit I couldn’t agree less with the above. Firstly if you knew the full history of action force you would know it was originally made by palitoy as a shrunk version of their successful large action figure action man and had a full blown history before they started to include gi joe Moulds.
      Secondly, as time wore on and Hasbro took more control of figures over here in UK the joeifaction of action force took hold until finally they ripped up the uk history and fully aligned to gi joe. This was the death of series IMO.
      Lastly not everything has to confirm to yank standards. We had plenty of US toys here in 80s like he man and transformers which we very much enjoyed but let us have somethings of our own!

  • Some of the toys look pretty cool, but I’ve always thought the Star Wars articulation Action Force and the G.I. Joe articulation Action Force should really be two separate toy lines.

  • I’ve launched a new Kickstarter campaign for the Action Force guide:

    https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bloodforthebaron/action-force-palitoy-collectors-guide-0

    Cheers, Jim.

  • Pingback: Action Force 30th Anniversary Commemorative Special (bloodforthebaron.com) – Joe A Day

  • Hi does any one no if you can still get copies off the action fore-force-30th-anniversary-commemorative-special-blood for the baron book pleas

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