John M. Burns is an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 comics

Comics

Comics denotes a hybrid medium having verbal side of its vocabulary tightly tied to its visual side in order to convey narrative or information only, the latter in case of non-fiction comics, seeking synergy by using both visual and verbal side in...

 artist, with a career stretching back to the mid-1960s.

Biography

His initial work was as an illustrator for Junior Express and School Friend. During the 1960s, Burns worked on TV Century 21

TV Century 21

TV Century 21, also known as TV 21, was a weekly British children's comic of the 1960s and early 1970s. It promoted the many television science-fiction puppet series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's Century 21 Productions...

 and its sister magazines, including the Space Family Robinson series in "Lady Penelope".

For a while he drew daily comics strips for newspapers The Daily Sketch, The Daily Mirror

The Daily Mirror

The Daily Mirror is a British national daily tabloid newspaper which was founded in 1903. Twice in its history, from 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was changed to read simply The Mirror, which is how the paper is often referred to in popular parlance. It had an...

and The Sun

The Sun (newspaper)

The Sun is a daily national tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and owned by News Corporation. Sister editions are published in Glasgow and Dublin...

, including The Seekers

The Seekers (comics)

The Seekers is a British comic strip drawn by John M. Burns, written by Les Lilley, succeeded by Phillip Douglas and Dick O'Neil. The strip ran from 1966 to 1971 in The Daily Sketch.-Synopsis:...

, Danielle and, for a period succeeding Enrique Romero

Enrique Romero

Enrique Fernández Romero is a retired Spanish footballer who played as a left defender.He played for four different clubs during his professional career over the course of 16 seasons - notably Deportivo de La Coruña, which he helped win four major titles, including its only La Liga championship -...

 during 1978-79, Modesty Blaise

Modesty Blaise

Modesty Blaise is a British comic strip featuring a fictional character of the same name, created by Peter O'Donnell and Jim Holdaway in 1963. The strip follows the adventures of Modesty Blaise, an exceptional young woman with many talents and a criminal past, and her trusty sidekick Willie Garvin...

.

He moved on to illustrate TV tie-in

Tie-in

A tie-in is an authorized product based on a media property a company is releasing, such as a movie or video/DVD, computer game, video game, television program/television series, board game, web site, role-playing game or literary property...

 strips for now-defunct title Look-in

Look-in

Look-in was a long running children's magazine centred around ITV's television programmes in the United Kingdom, and subtitled "The Junior TVTimes". It ran from 9 January 1971 to 12 March 1994...

, always scripted by Angus P. Allan

Angus Allan

Angus Peter Allan was a British comic strip writer and magazine editor who worked on TV Century 21 in the 1960s and Look-in magazine during the 1970s. Most commonly known as Angus Allan and sometimes credited as Angus P...

, Burns was already well-known by the start of the 1980s. He also worked on the title story for Countdown.

It was when he made the crossover to 2000 AD

2000 AD (comic)

2000 AD is a weekly British science fiction-oriented comic. As a comics anthology it serialises a number of separate stories each issue and was first published by IPC Magazines in 1977, the first issue dated 26 February. IPC then shifted the title to its Fleetway comics subsidiary which was sold...

, along with fellow Look-in alumni Jim Baikie

Jim Baikie

Jim Baikie is a British comics artist, who is best known for his work with Alan Moore on Skizz.-Biography:Baikie began his career illustrating Valentine for Fleetway. Over the next twenty years, he built a solid reputation working for TV comics such as Look-in, including adaptations of The Monkees...

 and Arthur Ranson

Arthur Ranson

Arthur James Ranson is an English illustrator, whose fine line penwork and attention to visual detail has led to the misapplied epithet 'photo-realistic'...

, that his position in British comics was cemented.

Burns began by working on Judge Dredd

Judge Dredd

Judge Joseph Dredd is a comics character whose strip in the British science fiction anthology 2000 AD is the magazine's longest running . Dredd is an American law enforcement officer in a violent city of the future where uniformed Judges combine the powers of police, judge, jury and executioner...

, a strip to which he continues to contribute to this day. By his own admission (in a 2004 interview with David Bishop

David Bishop

David Bishop is a screenwriter and author. Born in New Zealand, he was a UK comics editor during the 1990s, running such titles as the Judge Dredd Megazine and 2000 AD, the latter between 1996 and the summer of 2000....

 in the Judge Dredd Megazine

Judge Dredd Megazine

Judge Dredd: The Megazine is a monthly British comic magazine, launched in October 1990. It is a sister publication to 2000 AD. Its name is a play on words, formed from "magazine" and Dredd's locale Mega-City One.-Content:...

), Burns does not enjoy drawing science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 strips, and the look of Judge Dredd is one that he finds particularly unpleasant to draw: this is ironic, as his version has drawn much reader acclaim.

Recently, Burns lobbied

Lobbying

Lobbying is the act of attempting to influence decisions made by officials in the government, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. Lobbying is done by various people or groups, from private-sector individuals or corporations, fellow legislators or government officials, or...

 to work on the Nikolai Dante

Nikolai Dante

Nikolai Dante is a comics series starring a hero of the same name and published in the weekly British science fiction anthology 2000 AD. Created by writer Robbie Morrison and artist Simon Fraser, Dante first appeared in 1997 in Prog 1035...

strip, and has proved so successful that he is now considered the lead artist on the story. He has also co-created (with Robbie Morrison

Robbie Morrison

Robbie Morrison is a British comics writer most known for his work in 2000 AD and as the co-creator of popular character Nikolai Dante .-Biography:...

) a contemporary adventure strip, The Bendatti Vendetta, for the Megazine, this is unique for the title in having no science fiction or fantasy elements at all.

He recently finished an adaptation of Charlotte Brontë

Charlotte Brontë

Charlotte Brontë was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood, whose novels are English literature standards...

's Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre is a novel by English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published in London, England, in 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. with the title Jane Eyre. An Autobiography under the pen name "Currer Bell." The first American edition was released the following year by Harper & Brothers of New York...

, whose script was rendered by Amy Corzine, for UK publisher Classical Comics

Classical Comics

Classical Comics is a British publisher of graphic novel adaptations of the great works of literature, including Shakespeare, Charlotte Brontë and Dickens.-Overview:...

. Having previously worked on similar adaptions of Lorna Doone

Lorna Doone

Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor is a novel by Richard Doddridge Blackmore. It is a romance based on a group of historical characters and set in the late 17th century in Devon and Somerset, particularly around the East Lyn Valley area of Exmoor....

by R. D. Blackmore

R. D. Blackmore

Richard Doddridge Blackmore , referred to most commonly as R. D. Blackmore, was one of the most famous English novelists of the second half of the nineteenth century. Over the course of his career, Blackmore achieved a close following around the world...

 and, which is more, Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights is a novel by Emily Brontë published in 1847. It was her only novel and written between December 1845 and July 1846. It remained unpublished until July 1847 and was not printed until December after the success of her sister Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre...

by Brontë's sister Emily

Emily Brontë

Emily Jane Brontë 30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848) was an English novelist and poet, best remembered for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, now considered a classic of English literature. Emily was the third eldest of the four surviving Brontë siblings, between the youngest Anne and her brother...

, Burns was able to bring considerable experience to the project.

Burns's recent work is fully painted, and very solidly crafted.