Biography
Paul Johnson orbited the peripheries of the British comic book industry in the early Eighties, self-publishing and appearing in influential but short-lived publications such as Psst! and Escape Magazine. His first major comics work was the graphic novel London's Dark but he came to international attention when he painted the art on The Road to Nowhere, The fourth and final chapter of The Books of Magic mini-series, written by Neil Gaiman and released by DC/Vertigo in 1993.
Unlike most of the Brit-pack artists from the Nineties, Johnson found recognition abroad first with work for Marvel Comics (Interface, Hellraiser, Children of the Voyager), DC Comics (The Books of Magic, Mercy, Invisibles, Legends of the Dark Knight) and Dark Horse Comics (Aliens) before working in Britain's home-grown industry for Crisis, 2000 AD, and the Eaglemoss publication Spinechillers.
In 2000 Johnson was awarded a grant by the Arts Council of Great Britain to run a series of comic book workshops with Ed Hillyer (AKA Ilya) at Great Ormond Street Hospital, resulting in the publication of Hospitales, which was distributed free of charge in hospitals across the UK.
In addition to his interest in comics, Johnson was also obsessed by contemporary music, and wrote regularly for the IPC music magazine Uncut from 1999 to 2004.
Hugely impressed by the work of European Bande Dessinée artists such as Moebius (AKA Jean Giraud), Hugo Pratt, Alberto Breccia and Lorenzo Mattotti, Johnson struggled to find work that interested him as most commercial publishers failed to make the jump from producing superehero comics to the more esoteric genres of their continental counterparts.
Disillusioned with the opportunities available to him, Johnson retrained as an acupuncturist and herbalist. He is now in private practice and lectures regularly at LCTA, England's largest college dedicated to teaching Traditional Chinese Medicine. He is the chief presenter on How To Locate Acupuncture Points - The Definitive DVD, released in 2008.
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