Paul Neary
Paul Neary (18 December 1949-10 February 2024[1]) was the second editor of Doctor Who Weekly.
He was assistant editor under founding editor, Dez Skinn, from the first issue, then full editor from issue 23 to issue 48. Besides being the comic strip's editor for much of the late Doctor Who Weekly period, he was also a comic strip creator in his own right. By sheer weight of reprints, the two most famous strips that he drew and inked were undoubtedly Timeslip, a Fourth Doctor tale which he co-wrote with Skinn, and K9's Finest Hour, essentially a K9 solo adventure.
He was otherwise heavily involved in the early backup comic stories found in Doctor Who Weekly. He wrote The Touchdown on Deneb-7 and Voyage to the Edge of the Universe, but drew and inked The Final Quest. Additionally, he drew, but didn't ink, The Return of the Daleks, the first-ever original Dalek story in the pages of the magazine.
As editor of the magazine, he naturally was the editor of the comic strip, as well. However, he retained the position of comic strip editor for a few issues beyond when he had — at least partially — relinquished the role of magazine editor to Alan McKenzie. He was the sole credited editor of the comic strip from issue 23 through the conclusion of Dreamers of Death in DWM 48, the comic's final appearance of the pre-JN-T Fourth Doctor. Neary thus created a precedent that some later DWM editors would follow of being the comic strip editor but not the overall magazine editor.
After he left the magazine, he did return to ink The Stockbridge Horror, and may have helped to pencil that story's fifth part, as well. Unclear credits in DWM 74 can be interpreted as him either sharing all artistic duties with Mick Austin, or as inking Austin's pencils, as he had done in the other instalments of the story. In any event, his work on Stockbridge made him the only former editor of DWM to return to provide artwork for the main comic strip — although other ex-editors have returned in a writing or editorial capacity.
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