We’re sorry to report the passing of artist and colourist John Michael Burns, who we have just learned passed away in February, aged 75. He was the nephew of 2000AD artist John M. Burns, who died late last year, his credits spanning over 40 years in the industry, including work on Lion in the 1970s, James Bond Jr., Slash Moron, Doctor Who Adventures, Shaun the Sheep, and Wallace & Gromit.
John, a deeply religious man and lifelong bird lover, grew up reading comics such as Eagle and enjoyed strips such as “PC49”, eventually landing a job at Fleetway, working on comic titles such as Lion, alongside creators such as Chris Lowder, Annie Parkhouse, John Aldrich, and others.
An occasional artist as well as a colourist, he often provided illustrations for annual text stories, and drew some strips for the publisher, too.
“That’s sad news about Johnny Burns, as we used to know him,” Chris Lowder, aka writer Jack Adrian says. “I suppose I knew him from 1968, right through to 1975/6, when I left IPC and went freelance. He was art assistant on Lion throughout that time, what was then referred to as a bodger – this wasn’t a term of contempt at all, just a description of lowlier-than-art-editor status. Basically, Johnny filled in the gaps left by an artist for the letterer’s speech balloons. He was brilliant at this, and he was also a terrific colourist.
“For most of his life he lived under the shadow of his brilliant uncle I suppose, but he never seemed to mind. I was never sure if he ever worked for John senior.
“I remember I wrote a ‘Spellbinder’ script for either a Lion Annual or Summer Special, sometime around 1973/74, and we couldn’t get an artist, so we gave it to Johnny – I seem to remember it involved Sylvester (the Spellbinder) magicking a load of knights through a hole in space. As ever, he did a good pro job.
“I’ll always remember him as a cheerful cove, larking around but in a modest sort of way, but could certainly put his nose to the grindstone when needed. I was in touch with him only a couple of years back.
“I recall, when I left IPC, I ‘liberated’ a beautiful Reg Parlett ‘Mowser’ original – a Christmas page, full of festive cheer, plum puddings, riotous funny action – and got Johnny to colour it for me. He did a superb job! – I still have it.”
Last year, former Fleetway editor David Hunt jokingly recalled on the Battle Fans Facebook group how, very often, while John was working on colouring covers and centrespreads for Battle, he was his workmule, “because in the dead of the night he would leave completed colouring pages in my porch at home for me to take to the offices. I never minded doing this for John and at Xmas the various bottles of booze he also left in the porch was very much appreciated.”
“On various occasions I nearly killed my self driving into London in the middle of the night after having struggled through covers and spreads to meet the deadlines,” John himself recalled, “obviously to make ends meet I was keeping up with everyone else’s deadlines at the same time. I’m surprised that I’ve made it to 75!
“I may add, I loved every minute of it and working for great editors like yourself, Geoff Kemp, Dave Hunt, Alan Cummings, Gil Page and Bob Paynter, Barrie Tomlinson. If I’ve left anyone out, I apologise, put it down to old age!”
John also coloured all the covers for Buster throughout the 1990s. “His rich, vibrant colours were always distinctive, comic creator and archivist Lew Stringer notes. “I usually coloured my own work, but whenever ‘Tom Thug’ appeared on the covers of Buster, John would be assigned to colour it. He did a great job!”
Introduced to the Marvel UK by Jenny O’Connor and Etta Saunders, I had the occasional pleasure of enjoying his work on some of my projects at the company, providing colour, for example, on the cover for an Amazing Spider-Man annual over Todd McFarlane art; but he worked more often with editors Bambos Georgiou, Stuart Bartlett, David Leach and Tim Quinn.
“John was special,” recalls Jenny O’Connor. “Apart from being the most amazing, hardworking colourist I ever knew, bringing his special blend of brilliance to everything he worked on, he was just so damn down to earth.
“He told me once that he started work as a window cleaner in Ilford. ‘If the work ever dries up I’ll just go back to window cleaning.’ I don’t think he was aware how special his work was. Feel so sad that he’s gone.”
“I have lots of fond memories of John who was lovely to work with,” Etta Saunders, a former MUK Group Editor, today, Head of Autumn Publishing, recalls. “His sense of colour was wonderful and anything he touched became vibrant and enchanting.
“It had been very difficult to find a colouring artist whose work scanned well – work often became dull once reproduced,” she notes. “But John’s work always kept its sharp vivid quality and made the most of the upgraded paper quality we had started to use back in the 1980s.
“I particularly remember the covers he coloured for the Care Bears comic; I’m sure the magical feel his colours brought contributed to the high level of sales the publication had back then.
“He was a quiet hero of the comic world – a pleasure to work with and never missed a deadline.”
“John was a phenomenal artist, whose reputation was firmly established at Marvel long before I had the pleasure of working with him,” Stuart Bartlett tells downthetubes. “He was a totally reliable professional, whose colour work elevated every cover I ever sent to him, from Thomas the Tank Engine, Care Bears to The Real Ghostbusters.”
“John was a very private individual,” Bambos Georgiou recalls. “I don’t think any of us at Marvel UK, for whom he did a lot of colouring work, ever met him. He was always a total professional, sending top quality work in, on time!
“There are countless times he enhanced my feeble efforts with his wonderful airbrush colouring, the It’s Wicked covers being the most notable examples.
“I worked with John again on the ‘Wallace & Gromit’ strip for The Sun, and when that was stopped by Aardman I reached out to John to keep working with him and his old friend, Jim Hansen, who he met when they both worked at Fleetway. Jim worked on Buster (I think) and John worked on Lion, removing cigars and cigarettes from re-printed strips and re-lettering “Buffalo Bill” as “Texas Jack” etc. He also drew two pages of ‘The Spider’ to wrap up a re-printed strip (‘The Spider vs Spider Boy’). He also drew a two-page ‘Steptoe & Son’ strip.”
“John became a vital part of the Slash Moron strip, published in Aces Weekly, with his lush colouring taking it to a whole new level. He will be sorely missed and a tough act to follow.”
I’m so sorry to hear about John,” says editor, writer and Tim Quinn, who workd with him at Marvel UK and commissioned him while producing his Blue Moon magazine. “A master colourist, we worked together on countless pages over the years. His talent brought Winter to Summer on the printed page, and it was always a joy to receive a package from him. His colouring made such a difference to all artwork and brought out details even the artist hadn’t realised. A jolly nice chap too. He knew exactly the right time to pull back on pushing his religious views in my direction.
“It was a blast, JMB, may all the colours of the rainbow be lifting your spirit.”
“I was lucky enough to work with John in my early days at Marvel UK and Panini,” editor, writer and artist Scott Gray commented on X. “His colour work was extraordinary. He was a really nice guy. My condolences to his family and friends.”
“I was a fan of John long before I ever got to work with him,” former MUK, now Titan Comics editor David Leach tells downthetubes. “I first discovered his work at Marvel UK, when I found some original artwork he’d coloured for, I believe, Motormouth and Spider-Man, indeed years later when Marvel UK shut down their London office they threw away much original artwork, some of it being John’s, and I was able to rescue some of it.
“As a colourist myself, I was in awe of his skill, his abilities far surpassed my meagre abilities. I was amazed at his use of colour. It had a quality unlike any other colourist, his work was always so rich, and had such depth, and he enhanced whosever work he coloured, and you could always tell a page he’d worked on. This was back in the days before computers and he used gauche and Dr. Martin’s Inks. I gotta admit I was a tad jealous of his abilities.
“Years later I was lucky enough to work with him when I was the editor of the ‘Wallace and Gromit’ newspaper strip in The Sun. He was the colourist of the strip and once again enhanced each episode, giving the strip, which had several regular artists, a unifying style. He was always on time with his work, even when given a very short deadline and was the consummate professional.
“I remember that he wasn’t initially a fan of the computer and yet he went on to mastered it and to create brilliant work on ‘Slash Moron’, once again bringing it to genuine dazzling life.
“He was a lovely man, always friendly and sincere and I enjoyed our email conversations. Sadly as is all too often the case, I didn’t stay in touch as much as I would have liked and now I’ll sadly never get to talk to him again. I will miss him.”
“Like many will be, I was deeply shocked to hear the news of John’s passing,” says Mychailo Kazybrid. Whilst we never met, we had a fair amount of contact, as both Bam and I had the great pleasure of working with him for close to 40 years.
“His colour work had a true unique and special stamp upon it, yet him always remaining very humble and a real gentleman. I remember once when telling him this, that he found my comment really funny, replying with, whilst you’re very kind, however, I think that you may be mistaking me for another John Burns. However, I always knew that I was right and that it was always a real honour to work with this amazing master of his craft, from characters such as Shaun the Sheep, Wallace & Gromit to Mr Custa.
“John’s going to be greatly missed. A powerful amount of colour and energy has left our industry.”
John was married to Patricia Ann Burns, nee Spencer for 40 years, who sadly passed away in 2007 from MND. He is survived by a younger sister.
Our sympathies to John’s family and friends at his loss.
Further Reading…
Bear Alley Books’ Lion King of Picture Story Papers is a massive, 262-page volume covering the story of one of the most popular titles released in the post-Second World War “silver age” of British comics. Launched in 1952, Lion was Amalgamated Press’s answer to Eagle, featuring its own space hero, Captain Condor on its cover.
• Also on downthetubes: “Lost” Doctor Who strip materialises
Our thanks to Colin Brown for letting us know of John’s passing
The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.
He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.
Categories: British Comics, Comics, Creating Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News, Features, Obituaries
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