John William Johnston McCulley (February 2, 1883 – November 23, 1958) was an American writer of hundreds of stories, fifty novels and numerous screenplays for film and television, and the creator of the character Zorro.

McCulley's Zorro character, reminiscent of Baroness Orczy's Scarlet Pimpernel, was first serialized in the story The Curse of Capistrano in 1919 in the pulp magazine All-Story Weekly.

The appearance of the 1920 Douglas Fairbanks silent movie The Mark of Zorro, based on the first novel, was the direct cause for McCulley's reviving what had originally been a one-time hero plot.

Probably his second most popular character from the pulps was "The Black Star", a criminal mastermind who is pursued by Roger Verbeck-Flagellum and Muggs, a millionaire bachelor and his ex-thug partner.

Black Star was what was once termed a "gentleman criminal", in that he does not commit murder, nor does he permit any of his gang to kill anyone, not even the police or his arch enemy Roger Verbeck.

He was injured as a young man and used a wheelchair, but he used his mental abilities to run an international crime ring from his office, "The Spider's Den".

The Crimson Clown appeared in Detective Story Magazine beginning in 1926 and immediately attracted reader interest, so much so that Street & Smith published two hardback collections of his adventures.

The Crimson Clown is Delton Prouse, a wealthy young bachelor, able veteran of The Great War, explorer, and all-around adventurer who functions as a modern Robin Hood, stealing from the unjustly rich and returning money to helpless victims or worthy organizations.

McCulley retired Delton Prouse at the end of 1931, but "The Crimson Clown’s Return" (Popular Detective, Oct 1944) brought him back for one final adventure.