JOHN M. BURNS (1938 - 2023)

John Burns, who died on December 29th, aged eighty five, was one of Britain's greatest and most prolific comic strip artists. He was one of a very small group of artists who contributed to both versions of  EAGLE. For the original version he illustrated the famous Wrath of the Gods strip, which joined EAGLE from Boys' World in 1964. He also illustrated episodes of the non fiction series 'Bids for Freedom' and 'Roving Reporter'. For the 1980s EAGLE he illustrated 'The Fists of Danny Pike', 'Dolebusters' and a 'Dan Dare' adventure. But EAGLE forms just a small part of his contribution to comics. His work in comics began with illustrations for Girl's Crystal and School Friend in the 1950s. After completing his National Service, he illustrated strip versions of several classic novels for D.C. Thomson. He illustrated 'Wulf the Briton' for Express Weekly in 1961 and then several strips and story illustrations for EAGLE's companion paper Robin, 'Kelpie the Boy Wizard' for Wham! and in the late sixties and early seventies, many strips for the TV based comics TV 21, Lady Penelope, Countdown and TV Action. He subsequently contributed many strips for the long running TV based magazine  Look-In. He is well known on the continent for the Dutch sword and sorcery strip Zetari.

Excelling in both black and white and colour work, he also drew many newspaper strips, including 'The Seekers' for The Daily Sketch, 'The Tuckwells' for The Sunday Citizen, 'Jane' and 'Girl Chat' for The Daily Mirror, 'George and Lynne' for The Sun, 'Danielle' and 'Smythie' for The Evening News, 'Julia' for the German newspaper Bild and briefly, 'Modesty Blaise' for the Evening Standard. In recent years he became a major contributor to 2000 A.D. weekly, illustrating 'Nicolai Dante', 'Sinister Dexter', 'The Order' and 'Judge Dredd'. He also illustrated 'The Bendatti Vendetta' for the Judge Dredd Megazine.   

John had been in poor health for some time, finally retiring from illustration earlier this year. I was fortunate enough to meet him and his wife, Julia in 2005 at the Bristol Comic Expo and he kindly drew this pencil sketch of Arion, the hero of 'Wrath of the Gods' for me. Our condolences to Julia and his family. He will be greatly missed. 

Steve Winders