Before becoming a fulltime writer, Mather worked as a political and sporting cartoonist with newspapers. He wrote and illustrated a new science fiction comic book, Captain Atom, for ten years from the age of twenty. It became one of Australia's most famous comic-book icons.
With the decline of the comic book market, Mather became Art Director, and later Creative Director and Associate Director, for George Patterson Advertising, one of Australia's largest advertising agencies. Mather abandoned advertising to write fulltime with the publication of his first novel, The Pawn, in 1975. Mather began as a science fiction writer but most of his novels were thrillers with a 'sci fi' background set mainly in America..
