Comic Books Comic strips Obituary

Paul Neary – RIP

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D. D. Degg February 16, 2024 1 minute 0 comments

British comic artist, writer, and editor Paul Neary has passed away.

A number of places have reported Paul’s death, here is John Freeman:

I’m very sad to report the passing of award-winning comic artist, writer and editor Paul Neary, who has died after a long illness.

I first saw Paul’s work in what turns out to be his first work. More from Freeman:

Paul’s first comic work was for Warren Publishing in the 1970s, initially on Eerie, perhaps best known for illustrating the ‘Hunter’ series that appeared in that title in the mid-1970s … He began working with Dez Skinn at Marvel UK later in the same decade, drawing, for example, some of the back-up strips for Doctor Who Weekly, as well as work for 2000AD, drawing several “Future Shocks”.

In the 1980s, he created Madman for Dez Skinn’s Warrior anthology, and enjoyed a period as a penciller on various Marvel US titles, such as Ka-Zar, for its closing issues, then, more significantly, jumped over to Captain America for an extended run.

He became a regular inker for Alan Davis’ work for DC Comics, including on Detective Comics and they would continue to work together on many projects down the years. And, of course, he continued to draw and ink during his tenure as Marvel UK’s Editorial Director.

At some time early in his career he became an assistant to British comic strip creator Sydney Jordan, beginning with Jordan’s Lance McLane comic strip. This was just after the Jeff Hawke strip had ended.

Not long after that United Features contracted to syndicate Jeff Hawke reruns in the United States (1977 – 1978). The daily strips didn’t take much reworking other than toning down the racy drawing into G-rated art for the American papers. But Jeff Hawke never had a Sunday page and Paul helped Jordan transform two British daily adventures (“Selena” and “The Comet’s Tale”) into the American Sunday format for which Paul was credited. The Sunday page ran from November 13, 1977 to October 8, 1978.

The Sunday pages along with a few comparisons are available at Mariano Bayona’s Jeff Hawke page.