Photo Courtesy John Clements © Copyright
John Clements
Born in Bombala,News South Wales, Australia, 1930. The
son of a mounted policeman, Paul was educated in Goulbum and Muswellbrook.
In 1947 he headed for the big smoke, Sydney, to find work and to contact
Stan Pitt (creator of SILVER STARR). Becoming friends, Stan gave Paul the
job of inking pages of YARMAK and CAPTAIN POWER Paul also also created covers
for Fiction House at the time.Unable to make a full time living out of comic
books, Paul went to work as a powder monkey in Armidal. In 1955 he joined
Young's Merchandising, thus starting as a full time comic artist. His version
of Davy Crockett (1955) even outsold the Lee Falk classic and big seller
in Australia THE PHANTOM. Then in in 1957 he created what was to become
an icon of the Aussie comic book industry, THE PANTHER! Yes, the original
lithe, unarmed, all black garbed, chief of an African tribe, crime fighter!
Paul at the time produced, that is, wrote, penciled, inked up to six pages
per day, producing THE RAVEN, REX STRONG of the SPACE PATROL, and THE PANTHER.
After the publisher Charles Young died, Paul went to Cleveland Press as
a writer of western novels, so far he has written over eight hundred novels
under Brett Mckinley and Emerson Dodge. Paul's westerns are presently being
published by English publisher ROBERT HALE. Gerald Carr's Meteor Comics
revived The PANTHER in 1992 in VIXEN No.1 with new stories.THE PANTHER's
original stories were recently republished by Buzz Productions So, the Icon
goes on...
BIO AND NEW ART: GERALD CARR ©
Original Panther art © TM Paul Wheelahan
The Panther (No.1) with sidekick Shah