Nothing to see here

[Skullmo]

I completely disagree with your stance.

I really like the way GFD writes. The kind of twists and the way his stories progress are like stories from the 40s and 50s. I would say that his writing is not the most sophisticated (that would probably be Alan Moore in my view), but his stories were great fun and really enjoyable to read and that is the main aim for a comic, to make the stories enjoyable to read.

I thought the disco Rogue was hilarious.

So what are you missing? You are probably looking for a level of modern complexity and coolness that is not there. If you don't like his stuff, I would suggest not reading it.

[Jon]

In all honesty GFD's stories were my absolute favourites when I originally read the comic (more or less from the beginning), probably because they were perfectly pitched "boy's rip-roaring adventures", or so it felt; very much in the tradition of old war movies but in a more compelling environment. I re-read a lot of the early stuff recently too though, I have to admit, I did skim through a lot of those titles as they were already so familiar to me and sometimes you (well, I) just don't want to risk breaking the nostalgic idea you (I) have of something. At an age where I wasn't really yet equipped to appreciate the - quite adult - subversion of an art form I was pretty new to anyway, they just felt spot on. Perhaps Star Wars had a lot to do with setting the tone for fairly straight-forward, hi-octane, sci-fi adventures. It was a simpler time.

I can go back now and look at a lot of things that just don't hold up - I study art that inspired me to become an artist and, in some cases, struggle to find whatever it was I saw in the first instance*. In some cases I feel I've now surpassed some of the things in my own work that made me want to create art and comics in the first place. Such is progress. But it doesn't at all diminish their relevance in that place or time.

I think Rogue Trooper may have had much of it's appeal for me because of Dave Gibbons, Colin Wilson and Cam Kennedy, but I loved it as a child and then again as a teenager when I re-read a lot of the early stuff. It seemed right that Rogue was paragon of morality and virtue, and this was offset to some degree by his biochips. This was, to my mind, quite a clever way of presenting a narrative and the thoughts of the characters. Also I loved bits of circuitry anyway (like those bionic bits you got in the arm of the Steve Austin doll). And they had skulls on them! None of the later reboots really came anywhere near to capturing the sheer excitement of the original stories.

I think also, in relation to Jim's excellent earlier point, a lot of these stories felt more solid to me as well. Rogue's world was a lot more consistent than Dredd's early world which really did take a long time to settle down. Even having done so, it then threw in carefree new ideas like the Judge Child quest which brought this idea of a hugely diverse universe that, in many ways, diminished the reality of Mega City One in this larger setting. I didn't mind though, still great stories and the trick seemed to be that they were inventive and fun.


*But only some. A very large percentage of early 2000AD art still holds up incredibly well, especially when artists such as McMahon and Gibson really hit their stride.

[Colin YNWA]

Well since this has become about the quality of Gerry Finley Days work rather than trying to define the worst of anything I'll pipe up.

I really don't get on with his stuff at all. On my various re-reads I've tried and abandoned his material more than anyone else's I suspect (that might well not stand up to any investigation done with any rigour but certainly feels that way). There are exceptions, I enjoy Fiends and Ant Wars (nowt like swimming against the tide then!)  but a lot of his well respected stuff I just struggle to read these days. Rogue Trooper, VCs and Harry Twenty I just don't enjoy. Its not aged as well as a heck of a lot of other material from the Galaxies Greatest.

For me he's the Bill Mantlo of UK comics. He has wonderful ideas but is let down in the execution, clunky plotting, wafer thin characterisation. Don't get the love.

Yet the love clearly exists and that fascinates me. As Bongo Clive asks, I often have - What am I missing? I think part of the problem might be the high esteem a lot of the work is held in, I wonder if I find it hard to shake that off. So with a lot of the less renowned stories I go in knowing what I'm getting, simple stories, packed with ideas, written for kids and I adjust accordingly. I wonder if with GFD given his high regard I struggle to make that adjustment expecting more and always getting disappointed.

Likewise he was always given great artists and I wonder if that sets my expectations too high?

Either way I do find the case of GFD absolutely fascinating and its really interesting to hear different perspectives on his work.

[Jon]

...rather than trying to define the worst of anything....

Oh, okay then. I never really liked The Clown. Who wrote that?

[Skullmo]

That was written by Robert Bliss. But I don't like the idea of making a thread saying a writer is rubbish just because you personally did not like their work. It seems a bit childish.

If you were to maybe say the worst / least suited story then maybe that would be more redeeming.

[GordonR]

Robert Bliss was the artist on The Clown. The writer was Igor Goldkind, who was (at that time) the PR guy for the 2000AD group of titles.

[NapalmKev]

...rather than trying to define the worst of anything....

Oh, okay then. I never really liked The Clown. Who wrote that?

The first series of 'The Clown' was excellent IMO. Can't remember who wrote it though.

I've recently finished the Rogue Trooper collection featuring his earliest stories - it was ok, not awful.

Cheers

[dweezil2]

Gerry Finley-Day gets a "get out of jail free card" for all eternity, just for creating Rogue Trooper!   

[dweezil2]

...rather than trying to define the worst of anything....

Oh, okay then. I never really liked The Clown. Who wrote that?

The first series of 'The Clown' was excellent IMO. Can't remember who wrote it though.

I've recently finished the Rogue Trooper collection featuring his earliest stories - it was ok, not awful.

Cheers

I liked The Clown too!

It featured some lovely art too and a nice sense of tragedy in the wwriting. 

[Spaceghost]

I think that you can level some of those criticisms at Pat Mills' work from the same period. As far as weekly reminders go, who amongst us will ever forget 'Grobbendonk spoke gibberish, a Fringe World dialect'? And I'm still struggling through the Ro-Busters collected edition almost two years after buying it because it's such painfully hard work to read.

I recently splashed out on the 3 Rogue Trooper phone books and I was half expecting to have to force myself to read them. On the contrary, They were fantastic (well, the first 2 were anyway...). I agree that Fort Neuro is a little bit cheesy and dated when viewed with adult eyes, but there's plenty of fun to be had there too. As a future war story packed with interesting, off the wall concepts and tons of action and adventure, it works brilliantly.

[Jon]

That was written by Robert Bliss. But I don't like the idea of making a thread saying a writer is rubbish just because you personally did not like their work. It seems a bit childish.

If you were to maybe say the worst / least suited story then maybe that would be more redeeming.

Sorry. Was intended to be a bit tongue in cheek. Clearly missed it's mark. My apologies.

[Colin Zeal]

I really enjoyed the first series of The Clown. I don't remember the second one being as good though. Without checking the prog numbers I have a vague memory of there being a very large gap between the to books which probably didn't help it.

[Greg M.]

I recently splashed out on the 3 Rogue Trooper phone books ... As a future war story packed with interesting, off the wall concepts and tons of action and adventure, it works brilliantly.

I think your comment about the off-the-wall nature of GFD's ideas is spot-on - GFD had a very distinctive authorial voice, one that combined a certain eccentricity with a pleasingly tough edge. To me, that combination of loopy and hard-hitting is pretty much the classic 2000AD formula – GFD may not be on a par with Pat Mills or John Wagner, but his style isn't dissimilar. By all accounts GFD's writing did need hammering into shape, but from a reader's point of view, that doesn't really matter – what we got on the page was excellent.  For my money, he was a master of fast-paced imaginative yarns – he really knew how to keep a story moving.

[Frank]

I think your comment about the off-the-wall nature of GFD's ideas is spot-on ... (b)y all accounts GFD's writing did need hammering into shape, but from a reader's point of view, that doesn't really matter – what we got on the page was excellent.

If the fantastically named Bongo Clive - who must surely be named in memorial of the fact that Dr Clive Gibbons from Neighbours played the bongos - wants to understand the majesty of Finley-Day's creative process, he need only read Thrillpower Overload's account of the editorial team's frustrated attempts to piece together randomly ordered typewritten pages of Burroughs cut-up technique script, with physically impossible stage directions and dialogue which appeared to be written in a language other than English, into something resembling a coherent narrative.

Even if you can find no joy in the work itself *, I think there's entertainment to be had in reading GFD's work with the image of an overgrown, shambolic, military-fixated former public schoolboy bombarding the Nerve Centre with indecipherable and incoherent scripts they couldn't ignore because they knew there was gold buried somewhere in there. I made my peace with the work of another author ** after learning that the arrival of his copious and uniformly awful scripts in Tharg's bullpen *** struck terror in the hearts of copy boys cowering behind walls and ramparts constructed from the stacked volumes of bad fiction, for which he invoiced Fleetway on an almost daily basis.


* and you'd have to be a fairly cold fish not to

** a much more deserving candidate for the laurels mentioned in the OP

*** early nineties editorial were never on my Christmas card list

[TordelBack]

I made my peace with the work of another author ** after learning that the arrival of his copious and uniformly awful scripts in Tharg's bullpen *** struck terror in the hearts of copy boys cowering behind walls and ramparts constructed from the stacked volumes of bad fiction, for which he invoiced Fleetway on an almost daily basis.

No mercy for that one from this quarter.  We'll have no Jonah Hex apologists here.