Despite an early interest in comics and role-playing games, Johnston started his career as a graphic designer. He began his writing career with work for role-playing magazines before the Mark Salisbury-edited
Writers on Comic Scriptwriting (Titan Books, 1999) rekindled his interest in comics. Drawing on his design skills, he now designs many of his own comics and 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." Between 2001 and 2004, he contributed a mostly-monthly Editorial entitled "Cassandra Complex," and for five years formed one-third of the infrequent "Triple A" discussions, including the last (on June 19, 2006).
His fiction debut,
Frightening Curves, was an illustrated horror novel with artwork by Aman Chaudhary, published by now-defunct Cyberosia Publishing in 2001. The book won the Best Horror Award in the 2002 IPPY awards at Book Expo America. Johnston would also produce a graphic novel -
Rosemary's Backpack - and a contribution to the first
PopImage anthology for Cyberosia in 2002.
In June 2008, Johnston held a Writing Masterclass workshop as part of the Thought Bubble Sequential Art Festival in Leeds.
Johnston "lives in northwest England with the loves of his life: his partner, Marcia, his dogs... and his iMac."
Oni and Avatar
Johnston's early comics work consisted primarily of non-serialised graphic novels for Oni Press, and authorised comics adaptations of prose and poetry works by Alan Moore for Avatar Press.
Oni
In 2002, he began his association with Oni Press by writing the five-issue miniseires
Three Days in Europe (with art by Mike Hawthorne). Described by the publisher as a romantic comedy, Johnston revealed the origins of the series as being borne out of his "want[ing] to avoid being branded as a one-trick pony." Initially, Johnston (who had been writing for comics journalism website NinthArt.com) produced a proposal for Oni Editor-in-Chief Jamie S. Rich, and with editor Jamie Lucas Jones transformed it into a title to be called
Emily Spook. While this, and Johnston's
150 West, a "crime/horror serial for the Warren Ellis-edited anthology
Night Radio," were in the works, Johnston wrote the "completely different" series
Three Days in Europe.
After this initial mini-series, Johnston penned a number of graphic novels for Oni Press -
Spooked (with Ross 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 2005, Johnston became the first - and thus far only - other writer to pen a story for Greg Rucka's award-winning espionage comic series
Queen & Country, writing the three-issue
Queen & Country: Declassified miniseries with artist Christopher Mitten. A year later, Johnston and Mitten launched
Wasteland (2006), an ongoing post-apocalyptic series, again for Oni Press.
Avatar
Meanwhile, Johnston began an association with Avatar Press adapting work by Alan Moore. Announced in September 2002, Moore's Lovecraft tale
The Courtyard was 'sequentially adapted' for comics by Johnston, described then as "one of the industry’s rising stars." Praised by writer Warren Ellis, after collaborating with Moore personally on
The Courtyard (initially intended to be published as part of Moore's
Yuggoth Cultures, but ultimately published independently) Johnston went on to adapt a number of Moore's prose writings for Avatar Press. These included:
- Another Suburban Romance (adapted from Moore's performance work),
- "Me and Dorothy Parker" (adapted from a song in Alan Moore's Songbook, and published in Yuggoth Cultures and Other Growths #3)
- Hypothetical Lizard (adapted from Moore's novella, originally printed in the shared-world anthology Wizard's Row (Ace, 1987))
- Light of Thy Countenance
In addition,
Yuggoth Creatures and the four-issue
Nightjar (with input from Bryan Talbot) were inspired by Moore's earlier Cthulhu mythos works, but largely written by Johnston alone. Johnston's script for
The Courtyard saw print in 2004 alongside the original short story which inspired the comics adaptation.
Johnston has also worked on non-Moore titles, including the adult story "Spellbound" for
Vivid Girls (with Juan Jose Ryp) starring Vivid Entertainment stars Jenna Jameson and Tawny Roberts, "Vivid Comix: Vivid Girls Volume One - Spellbound". Accessed August 7, 2008 and the final Avatar release tying into the 2003 remake of cult horror film
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre:
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Fearbook #1 (with Daniel HDR), released in 2006.
Other projects
2006 also saw the release of
The Graphic Novel, the first of Johnston's adaptations of Anthony Horowitz's
Alex Rider series for Walker Books. In 2007 Del Rey Manga announced Johnston as the writer of a Marvel Comics-licensed original English-language manga version of
Wolverine, due for publication in 2009.
Most recently, Johnston began writing the comic book prequel to the Electronic Arts videogame Dead Space, illustrated by Ben Templesmith and published through Image Comics, for whom he had previously written a number of short stories. Shortly after, he was also announced as the game's scriptwriter. He also continued working on titles at Marvel, writing
Daredevil with Andy Diggle, a one-shot
Daredevil: Cage Match and
Shadowland: Blood on the Streets a tie-in to a major Daredevil storyline.
