Gerry Finley Day, Sunday 4th, ICA London

[paulvonscott]

Well, if only I knew about this, I would have booked some time off.  If anyone goes, can they report back on what it was like?  Cheers!

Paul

Hi there!

Phew, do hope some of you can come this Sat and/or Sun, Comica's last big weekend - with Nov 5th and 6th evening polishing off this year's festival at London's ICA.

On Saturday Nick Abadzis launches his Laika graphic novel baout the world's first living creature in space, a cosmonaut dog - and Abouet & Oubrerie from Paris talk about their African teen romance AYA.
http://www.ica.org.uk/Enter%20A%20World%20of%20Your%20Own%3A%20Laika%20and%20Aya+15106.twl

On Sunday there's a whole afternoon from 2.30 to 7pm on British comics, tying in with Comics Britannia - girls' comics with guests Stella Duffy, Nina Myskow from Jackie and more - War Comics with experts Steve Holland and David Roach - and the IPC Revolution, Tammy to 2000AD with Pat Mills, Kevin O'Neill, Gerry Finley-Day and Ramon Sola.

Many of you will want to catch the Mart on Sun, so you could go there first from noon and maybe come by later to iCA. You can also catch COMICA COMIKET, the small press fair which runs till 7pm, free to ICA members or for the price of day admission - £3 or £2 conxs -. This gets you into the ICA bar, signings and fair but not the talks.

Lots of info here:
http://www.paulgravett.com/comica/comica07/comica07.htm

and booking for ICA here:
www.ica.org.uk/comica

[Art]

Wow, it's a shame I'll be missing that, if only for the oportunity to ask Pat Mills about his "House Characters" theory in front of Gerry Findley Day.

[paulvonscott]

Ugh.

[Bolt-01]

Did anyone go? Was it any good?

Bolt-01

[petemaskreplica]

I was there, it was interesting stuff. The first half was Pat Mills and Gerry Finley-Day, mostly talking about Tammy.Interesting titbit: GFD joined the TA in the late 60s, basically for research purposes for the war scripts he was writing at the time. He looks a bit like Lou Carpenter out of Neighbours, too. In the middle of all this, a bloke snuck in and sat down next to me, it was Kevin O'Neill. He then joined Pat for the second half, where they mostly talked about their experiences on Whizzer & Chips and the early days of 2000ad. Lots of entertaining banter about what a bunch of tossers the IPC management were, and the rather depressing revelation that Pat still doesn't get any royalties for the Charley's War reprints (although he has told the rights owners that sooner or later he will be seeing them in court). Apparently there was a rejected pitch by Ken Reid for a strip floating about in 1976 that Pat was desperate to get for 2000ad, but it was mysteriously "lost" by the IPC bigwigs.

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

Who is Gerry Finley, and why does he have a day to celebrate himself?

[+rufus+]

  Pat extrapolated on how GFD's temure as Editor of Tammy led to the hiring of Pat and John Wagner, and without GFD's contributions we wouldn't have had Action, or 2000ad, as GFD laid the groundwork at IPC for more innovative editorial direction (for Pat and Kelvin Gosnell).
 

[paulvonscott]

Cool, hopedully this stuff was recorded and will play on Resonance FM (according to Paul Gravett).

Thanks guys, really interesting to know this, just wish I could have been there.

[Huey2]

For years I thought Gerry Finlay-Day had died. He stopped writing Rogue right in the middle of one story and I distinctly remember reading Dave Gibbons in an '80s "Speakeasy" interview saying he wasn't going to slag off people who weren't here to defend themselves.

So, why did he stop writing and why in the middle of a goddamn story?

- huey