Gerry Finley-Day Question

[paulvonscott]

Oh yeah, I've heard that too. Time constraints are mentioned a lot.  And with only one editor and his assistant they must have to do what they can in the time they have.  

Also if you rewrite stuff it may not be any better (you can't polish a what?) and in doing so you may just piss off one of the few decent writers you have.  Also as you rightly say, if something turns up and the deadline's tight, then how can you ask the writer to take it away and have another go?

Still makes you wonder where McEnzie got the time from (but then we saw the results of that).

I often heard that there wasn't time to read Submissions either, but then I also heard that they get about five a week.  If they work a five day week and only read the synopsis thats five minutes a day.  Say they like one of them, read the script, what's that another half hour?  Put a bit of thought into how it might work in AD, take that up to two hours.  You could just pay a herbert ?10-20 a week to read them all and seperate the wheat from the chaff (even if it is a high chaff to wheat ratio).

Editing 2000AD obviously isn't a piece of piss, but it seems in life there's always plenty of excuses for mediocrity.  

I heard rumours rebellion was getting some more staff in, it would seem a good idea, if it gives them time to develops series properly.  If you have a great series you get increased sales, merchandise, cudos etc.  Certainly if an editors job goes beyond 9-5 (and I've heard it does) then they simply need more staff.

Course, then you need more money for them...  but 2000AD has been on a downward spiral as far as sales go for a long time and you don't change that by clickin' yer heels together.

Anyway I'm sure there's lots of lessons to be learned from the nineties and keener minds than mine understand that.  I just like talking about this stuff.  Perhaps I should try and understand football, cars or get a life.

[jdmobius]

In case you're still interested, Gerry Finley-Day wrote the following stories for Action: "Green's Grudge War" which was pants, and the excellent "Hellman of Hammer Force" which of course continued in Battle once the two comics were merged. Pat Mills wrote the seminal episodes of "Hookjaw" while Steve McManus wrote the forgettable "Sport's not for losers" and "The running man". Tom Tully's work was on "Death Game 1999" and "Look out for Lefty". John Wagner wrote "Blackjack" about a boxer who fights on despite being just a hair's breadth away from being blind.

One noticeable thing about the original run of Action is that the names of many of the artists whose work was used aren't known. The work went out to agencies in Europe and due to the lack of creator rights at the time they were never, and probably never will be, credited for their work. Fortunately some work is instantly recognizable: Ian Gibson and Massimo Bellardinelli on "Death Game 1999" and Ramon Sola on"Hookjaw".

[Ol^ Marbles]

A-ha !! Thanks that's great - just the info I was after JD.  
However, that still leaves me none the wiser as to who wrote two strips in 'Battle' (pre- Action merger) - 'Fighter from the Sky' and 'Panzer G-Man' (I strongly suspect GFD for both)....

[Art]

"Carver Hale (apart from a suspicion that it was a demo for Vertigo so Mr Carey could pitch for Hellblazer)? I thought that much more could have been made of London as a location - the city can be very dark and very creepy when portrayed correctly ... "

Yeah, and the scariest bits of Luton certainly aren't churches.