Donne Avenell

Donne Avenell (born 11th September 1925) was a comics writer born in Croydon, Surrey. He began his career as an edittor with Amalgamated Press (later IPC), working on Radio Fun before serving in the Navy during World War II. After this, he returned to AP, where he edited a magazine about architecture for six years while also writing radio dramas and romance stories under a number of pseudonyms including Alec Ashton and Charles King. In the 1950s he began writing for War Picture Library and for the newspaper strip Tiffany Jones, moving on to write stories for IPC's Lion including Adam Eterno, The Spider, The Phantom Viking, Oddball Oates and Dr Mesmer's Revenge. In 1975 he co-wrote the Nigerian superhero comic Powerman with Norman Worker, and from 1978 to 1986 he wrote the newspaper strip Axa, drawn by Enrique Romero, for The Sun. From 1977 to 1996 he worked for the Swedish publisher Semic, writing strips including The Phantom, Buffalo Bill and Helgonet (The Saint), and in the early eighties he worked for Egmont on various Disney stories. In 1981 he wrote the official comic adaptation of the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, drawn by John M. Burns, and he also collaborated with Burns on the newspaper strip Eartha. In the mid 1980s he created the strip Django and Angel for the Swediah Agent X9 magazine. He also wrote for television, including episodes of The Saint, and wrote two novels about The Saint in 1979 and 1980. He died in Brighton in November 1996.