| Antony Johnston | |
|---|---|
 Johnston at the 2012 New York Comic Con | |
| Born | 25 August 1972 Birmingham,[1][2] England |
| Area(s) | Writer |
Notable works | Wasteland The Coldest City Dead Space |
| Awards | "Best Horror" American Independent Publishing Award |
Antony Johnston (born 25 August 1972) is a British writer of comics, video games, and novels. He is known for the post-apocalyptic comic series Wasteland, the graphic novel The Coldest City (adapted for film as Atomic Blonde), and his work on several Image Comics series. In May 2023, Johnston published The Dog Sitter Detective, the first in a series.[3]
Johnston started his career as a graphic designer.[4] He began his writing career with work for role-playing magazines, then used his graphic design skills to design graphic novels.
In May 2001, Johnston was one of the three founding editors of NinthArt.com, an attempt at taking a literary and critical approach to the comics medium designed to act as a journal and aimed at "the discerning reader".[5] Between 2001 and 2004, he contributed a mostly-monthly editorial entitled "Cassandra Complex",[6] and for five years formed one-third of the infrequent "Triple A" discussions, including the last (on 19 June 2006).[7]
His fiction debut, Frightening Curves, was an illustrated horror novel with artwork by Aman Chaudhary, published by Cyberosia Publishing in 2001. The book won the Best Horror Award in the 2002 IPPY awards at Book Expo America.[8] Johnston also produced a graphic novel – Rosemary's Backpack – and a contribution to the first PopImage anthology for Cyberosia in 2002. (Cyberosia appears to have ceased after 2020.)
Johnston's early comics work consisted primarily of non-serialised graphic novels for Oni Press,[9][10] and authorised comics adaptations of prose and poetry works by Alan Moore for Avatar Press.[11]
In 2002, he began his association with Oni Press by writing the five-issue miniseries Three Days in Europe (with art by Mike Hawthorne).[12] After this initial mini-series, Johnston penned a number of graphic novels for Oni Press – Spooked (with Sophie Campbell), Julius (with Brett Weldele) and Closer (with Mike Norton) released between February and May 2004; The Long Haul (with Eduardo Barreto) and F-Stop (with Matthew Loux) released in February and April 2005.
In 2006, Johnston and Christopher Mitten launched Wasteland (2006), an ongoing post-apocalyptic series, for Oni Press.[13] It ran for 60 issues and concluded in April 2015.
In 2012, Johnston wrote The Coldest City,[14] an original hardback graphic novel in the Cold War espionage genre, intended to be the first in a series of books all set in Berlin during the Cold War.[14] A prequel, The Coldest Winter, was released in 2016. Both titles were published by Oni Press.[15]
At the Cannes Festival 2015, Focus Features announced they had acquired North American distribution rights to The Coldest City. Starring Charlize Theron and directed by David Leitch,[16] the film, retitled Atomic Blonde, premiered in March 2017 at the South by Southwest festival.[citation needed]
Johnston began publishing a series of spy thriller novels about elite MI6 hacker Brigitte Sharp in 2017. The series follows her after being sidelined for years at a desk job after her first field operation went sour through conspiracies and threats to global stability.
The series currently consists of The Exphoria Code (2017), The Tempus Project (2020), and The Patrios Network (2022).[17][18][19] In 2020, Red Planet Pictures optioned the first book for a TV series.[20]
Johnston signed with Allison & Busby in 2022 to deliver a series of books in the cozy mystery genre.[3] The first, the eponymous The Dog Sitter Detective, was released in May 2023. The second, The Dog Sitter Detective Takes the Lead, was published in January 2024. The publisher extended the deal in 2023 to a third and fourth book, which are expected in January 2025 and 2026 respectively [21]
In 2006, Johnston adapted Anthony Horowitz's Alex Rider series for Walker Books,[22] beginning with Stormbreaker: The Graphic Novel. Johnston also wrote Wolverine: Prodigal Son, a Marvel Comics-licensed original English-language manga version of Wolverine, .[23] Other Marvel work by Johnston included several Daredevil comics.[24][25]
In 2008 Johnston wrote the script for the video game Dead Space[26] as well as a comic book prequel to the Electronic Arts videogame.
In 2013 Johnston began publishing with Image Comics,[27] starting with the "dark fantasy" Umbral in November 2013,[28] and sci-fi/crime series The Fuse in February 2014.[29] In 2015, he launched Codename Baboushka, an espionage thriller.[30]
Johnston worked with doom metal band Waves of Mercury on their 2013 EP As Seasons Fleet.[31] In 2015, he launched a dark ambient/drone music project, SILENCAEON.[32]
In 2020, Johnston published The Organised Writer, a book describing a productivity system for writers.[33][34]
Johnston appears regularly on podcasts on The Incomparable network, where he produced Unjustly Maligned for 87 episodes from 2015 to 2017.[35] He independently produces the heavy-metal podcast Thrash It Out.[36] Johnston also hosts and produced Writing and Breathing, a podcast in which he to spoke to authors about their working methods, across 32 episodes in 2020 and 2021.[37]
Johnston's 2001 novel Frightening Curves won the 2002 American Independent Publishing (IPPY) "Best Horror" award at Book Expo America.[8][38] His scriptwriting for the character Lady Dimitrescu in Resident Evil Village had won him a D.I.C.E. Award for "Outstanding Achievement in Character" in 2022.[39]
Additionally, Johnston has been nominated for the following awards:
