Harry Flashman Harry Flashman Sir Harry Paget Flashman is a fictional character created by Thomas Hughes (1822–1896) in the semi-autobiographical "Tom Brown's School Days" (1857) and later developed by George MacDonald Fraser (1925–2008). Harry Flashman appears in a series of 12 of Fraser's books, collectively known as "The Flashman Papers", with covers illustrated by Arthur Barbosa. Flashman was played by Malcolm McDowell in the Richard Lester 1975 film "Royal Flash". In Hughes' 1857 book, Flashman (a relatively minor character) is portrayed as a notorious bully at Rugby School who persecutes Tom Brown, and who is finally expelled for drunkenness. Fraser decided to
Tom Thug Tom at school, the strip underwent a title change to Tom Thug's Skooldayz (a spoof in name only of "Tom Brown's Schooldays"). There, Tom Thug continued to run until December 1999 ("Buster"'s final issue), although the last couple of years were reprints of earlier stories due to budget cutbacks by the publisher. However, during its run, "Tom Thug" had become one of the comic's most popular strips and even replaced the lead character "Buster" on the cover on occasion. In the final issue of the comic at the beginning of 2000 in a segment written and drawn by Jack Oliver,