Action Transfers

I lurk on the web site Action Transfers web site on a recurring basis ever couple of years, mostly waiting for them to post the Battle of Midway set I had as a kid. Action Transfers was the brand name for the dry-rub decals made by the Letraset company. Aside from making the lettering that 80’s zine makers (and graphic designers, I presume) loved so much, they also made sets containing illustrations you could place on the provided scenery. This is essentially Colorform sets that were permanent once applied. Sure, you could do that with stickers too, but this method somehow seemed more glamorous. What you are looking at above, however, is a plain old iron on t-shirt transfer. It turns out “Action Transfers” occasionally produced t-shirt transfers as well, and why not? It was originally all screen printed. These two skateboard designs are among the few documented shirt transfers on the Action transfers site.

T-shirt transfer and cover pics courtesy of Action Transfers.

These t-shirt transfers came with a kids newspaper called TV Comic. The UK had several of these types of publications aimed at kids. They were sort of a hybrid of a newspaper and a comic book, and have been featured here on S&A before (see: Jinty). There’s a lot of them out there, and In fact I’ve got a backlogged set of bookmarks waiting to be written up for S&A, including this one (below,right) that looks like the infamous Skatewing!

Both of these transfers have a 1978 copyright. Downhill Flyer appears to be a direct copy of the Pro/Am Skateboard Racing Association that appeared at least as early as 1975.

This guy looks vaguely familiar too, and might be based on some advert of the time.