Johnston McCulley (Ottawa Illinois, Feb. 2, 1883 - Los Angeles California Nov. 23, 1958) he was active as a pulp writer and authored hundreds of stories, fifty novels, numerous screenplays for film and television which he wrote under a plethora of pseudonyms. He is especially known for the creation of Zorro, initially serialized as the Curse of Capistrano in All-Story Weekly (vol. 100 No. 2 - vol 101 No. 2). He started his writing career as a police reporter for The Police Gazette and served as an Army public affairs officer during World War I. After the War, he went on to a career in pulp magazines and screenplays, often using a Southern California background for his stories. Apart from Zorro he created several other characters that were popular during the Golden Age of the pulps, inspiring many of the fictional masked vigilantes of today.