Book Palace Books has teased three of its upcoming limited edition books, all available now, including the eagerly-anticipated JMB: The Unseen Art of John M. Burns, featuring some of the late 2000AD artist’s incredible, little-known unpublished newspaper strip work.
Illustrators #47 leads with feature on Steve Stone, a fantastic photo and digital artist, followed by an article about Spanish-born comic book artist, RPG designer Pepe Moreno, well known for his work for US publisher Warren, as well as pioneering early digital comics with one of the first computer-generated comics, Batman Digital Justice, which became the best-selling graphic novel of 1990.
Also in the spotlight is Pete Von Sholly, aka ‘Mr Monster-Mania’, and a surreal humorous ex MAD magazine artist, Gideon Kendall. All this before we arrive at an article discussing the work of Charles Dana Gibson… That’s as diverse as it gets in one single publication!
The Limited Edition JMB: The Unseen Art of John M. Burns featuring A Surfeit of Assassins 1888 by John Dakin is an absolute brain basher of a book, the content leaning toward the adult.
John M. Burns was one of Britain’s, if not the world’s, finest continuity artists. In a career spanning over 60 years, he produced vast amounts of work for numerous British weeklies including TV Express, The Hotspur, Boys’ World, Diana, Wham!, Lady Penelope, TV Action, Look-in, 2000AD and Judge Dredd Megazine, as well as working for publishers in Europe and the United States.
He also drew hundreds of newspaper strips, including “The Seekers”, “Danielle”, “George and Lynne”, “Modesty Blaise”, “Eartha”, “Jane” and early episodes of “Psycops”, to name but a few.
Although always in demand, John found time between his numerous long term work commitments to help John Dakin in his quest to revive the British newspaper comic strip. Unfortunately, this revitalisation never happened, but over a 15 year period, both Johns created characters, strips and full colour pages that, until now have barely been seen by the public.
Reproducing 40 colour pages, including all 25 pages of their unfinished epic, “A Surfeit of Assassins”, numerous strips, sketches and roughs, JMB: The Unseen Art of John M. Burns truly reveals the unseen art of John M. Burns.
“We all have John Dakin to thank for his 15 years of persistence and communication with JMB,” enthuses Geoff West of Book Palace Books. “I had no idea that JMB had even worked on this story.
“It seems a lot of this was drawn or created in secrecy and I for one am extremely glad to see this in print,” he continues. “There are a few ‘fruity’ pages so I will be keeping this higher up on the bookshelf, but, blimey! What fantastic work!”
The Don Lawrence Art Exhibition Catalogue, a Limited Edition, ties in with an incredible collection of original Don Lawrence artwork from the 1960s and 1970s on the Book Palace Books website. Rarely, if ever, has so much of the Trigan Empire and Storm artist’s artwork been available to purchase at one time in one place.
“Basically, it’s a mini Don Lawrence artist edition,” explains Geoff, “all pages reproduced from the original artwork, so this is as good as it gets without owning the originals.”
The exhibition comprises over 60 originals, all available to purchase from the Book Palace Books website. Featured are pages of “Karl the Viking”, which appeared in Lion from October 1960 to September 1964 (and was reprinted in Lion as “Rolf” in 1967 and as “Erik the Viking” in Smash); “Olac the Gladiator”, which appeared in Tiger from April 1960 to August 1960; “The Trigan Empire”, which appeared Ranger/Look and Learn from September 1965 to 1976; and “Maroc the Mighty”and “The Hand of Zar”, which appeared in Lion from October 1964 to June 1966.
Each art page has been meticulously scanned in high resolution to capture Don Lawrence’s superb pen and ink work. The black-and-white pages have been scanned in colour (showing the graphite, colour pencil, markers and stamped indications on the artboards along with white gouache corrections) to showcase his original pages and all the subtlety of his art.
“Each page in this catalogue is the very next best thing to holding the artwork in your hand,” say the Book Palace team.
• Check out all three titles, and much, much more, on the Book Palace Books website at bookpalace.com
• illustrators Issue 47 | Available to order here (Issue 47 – 50 Subscription Page)
Author: Diego Cordoba
Artists: Steve Stone, Pepe Moreno, Peter Von Sholly, Gideon Kendall
Publisher: Book Palace Books, from Spring 2025
Number of pages: 96
Format: Soft Cover; Full Colour illustrations
Size: 9″ x 11″ (216mm x 280mm)
Code: IQ47SUB4
• JMB. The Unseen Art of John M. Burns (Limited Edition) |Available to order here
Limited edition of only 500 copies with 4 FREE prints included with every advance order.
Authors: John Dakin, John M Burns
Artists: John M Burns, John Dakin
Publisher: Book Palace Books, April 2025
Number of pages: 68
Format: Hard Cover; Full Colour illustrations
Size: 13″ x 10″ (340mm x 245mm)
ISBN: 9781913548728
Code: JMB
• The Don Lawrence Art Exhibition Catalogue (Limited Edition) | Available to order here
Author: Don Lawrence
Artist: Don Lawrence
Publisher: Book Palace Books, April 2025
Number of pages: 68
Format: Hard Cover; Full Colour illustrations
Size: 13″ x 10″ (340mm x 245mm)
ISBN: 9781913548742
Code: DLCATALOG
An exclusive Don Lawrence Art Exhibition with rare original comic strips by the maestro, including “Karl the Viking”, “Olac the Gladiator”, “Maroc The Mighty”, “The Trigan Empire” and more
- About the Author
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as 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, British Comics - Books, British Comics - Current British Publishers, Comics, Creating Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News, Exhibitions