Gerry Finley-Day

Gerry Finley-Day was a British comics writer active in the field from the 1960s to the 1980s. He began his career at DC Thomson before becoming editor of IPC's girls title Tammy in 1971, writing several strips for it in cluding The Camp on Candy Island, Slaves of War Orphan Farm, Serfs of the Swamps, Father's Footsteps, Cross on Court, Rae Rules OK, Jaws Three and Ella on Easy Street. He became deputy managing editor of the girls comic department at IPC but resigned to become a freelancer, and in 1974 was hired by Pat Mills to help develop IPC's new war title Battle Picture Weekly, for which he would go on to write instalments of Rat Pack, Bootneck Boy, D-Day Dawson, The Sarge, Return of the Eagle, Cold Steele, Sergeant Without Stripes, Action Force, Glory Rider, Cooley's Gun, Skreamer of the Stukas and numerous others. He also created Hellman of Hammer Force for Action; the strip lasted transferred to the pages of Battle after Action's cancellation. He also wrote Dredger and Green's Grudge War for Action and specialised in creating sympathetic, honourable German characters; Hellman is the best known of these, but Sea Wolf, Fighter from the Sky, Panzer G-Man and Commando King were among his other creations. When IPC launched 2000AD in 1977 Finley-Day soon become one of its mainstays, writing strips such as Dan Dare, Ant Wars, Invasion, M.A.C.H One, Fiends of the Eastern Front, Harry Twenty on the High Rock, The V.C's and the occasional Judge Dredd story, though he is best remembered as the co-creator of the original Rogue Trooper (along with artist Dave Gibbons). He also worked on the short lived Tornado title, writing episodes of Black-Hawk, and on the revived Eagle, for which he worked on Saddle Tramp, Jake's Platoon, The Hand, The Collector and Sergeant Streetwise, amongst others. He disappeared from British comics in the mid 1980s, apparently after disagreements with 2000AD's editorial team, but returned to write a one-off Rogue Trooper story in 2010.