John Michael Butterworth (10 January 1924 – 4 October 1986) was a British

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

writer, best known for his comic strip '' The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire'' in the British weeklies ''

Ranger A Ranger is typically someone in a military/paramilitary or law enforcement role specializing in patrolling a given territory, called “ranging”. The term most often refers to: * Park ranger or forest ranger, a person charged with protecting and ...

'' and ''

Look and Learn ''Look and Learn'' was a British weekly educational magazine for children published by Fleetway Publications Ltd from 1962 until 1982. It contained educational text articles that covered a wide variety of topics from volcanoes to the Loch Ness ...

''.

Life

Butterworth trained as an artist at

Camberwell College of Arts Camberwell College of Arts is a public tertiary art school in Camberwell, in London, England. It is one of the six constituent colleges of the University of the Arts London. It offers further and higher education programmes, including postgrad ...

and worked briefly as a tutor in drawing at Nottingham College of Art.Mike Butterworth (comic artists & creators)
www.comicvine.com After briefly working as a salesman, he joined the Amalgamated Press (later renamed Fleetway Publications) after submitting samples of artwork to them. Although these were turned down, he tried again, submitting a script for a sea-going adventure strip. This was accepted and Butterworth was hired as a scriptwriter, at first working primarily

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

strips featuring ''

Billy the Kid Billy the Kid (born Henry McCarty; September 17 or November 23, 1859July 14, 1881), also known by the pseudonym William H. Bonney, was an outlaw and gunfighter of the American Old West, who killed eight men before he was shot and killed at th ...

'' and Buffalo Bill. His interest in history (particularly naval history) led him to pen many historical comic strips for '' The Comet'' and ''

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

'', including the Napoleonic era adventures of ''Max Bravo, the Happy Hussar'' and

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

air-ace ''

Battler Britton Battler Britton is a British comics character created by Mike Butterworth and Geoff Campion.McNeil, Jamie"Battler Britton" ''The Slings & Arrows Graphic Novel Guide''. Retrieved April 7, 2021. He first appeared in Amalgamated Press' ''Sun'' in 19 ...

''. Aside from his writing, Butterworth was a gifted editor and created a number of new papers for the firm including Playhour Pictures (soon after abbreviated to

Playhour ''Playhour'' was a British children's comics magazine published by Amalgamated Press/Fleetway/ IPC between 16 October 1954 and 15 August 1987, a run of approximately 1,700 weekly issues. ''Playhour'' contained a mixture of original tales for you ...

), Valentine and the teenage girls' magazine Honey. In 1965, he became one of the main script writers for ''

'' where he penned the sprawling science-fantasy '' The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire'' which remains one of the most popular boys' adventure strips published in the UK to this day. Butterworth left Fleetway Publications and turned freelance. His first novel, ''The Soundless Scream'', appeared in 1967 followed over the next few years by a number of well-received crime novels which appeared under his full name, which has led to some confusion between his work and that of

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

writer and Savoy Books publisher Michael Butterworth. Butterworth also turned his hand to

Gothic romance Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name is a reference to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of ea ...

novels under the pen-name Carola Salisbury. He died of a heart attack at the age of 62.

Books

* ''The Soundless Scream'' (1967) * ''Walk Softly in Fear'' (1968) * ''Vanishing Act'' (1970) * ''Flowers for a Dead Witch'' (1971) * ''The Black Look'' (1972) * ''Villa on the Shore'' (1973) * ''The Man in the Sopwith Camel'' (1974) * ''Remains to be Seen'' (1976) * ''Festival'' (1976) * ''X Marks the Spot'' (1978) * ''The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo'' (1983) * ''A Virgin on the Rocks'' (1985) * ''The Five Million Dollar Prince'' (1986) Novels as Carola Salisbury * ''The Pride of the Trevallions'' (1975; also published as ''Mallion's Pride'') * ''Dark Inheritance'' (1975) * ''Dolphin Summer'' (1976) * ''The Winter Bride'' (1978) * ''The Shadowed Spring'' (1980) * ''Count Vronsky's Daughter'' (1981) * ''An Autumn in Araby'' (1983) * ''Daisy Friday'' (1984) * ''A Certain Splendour'' (1985) * ''The Woman in Grey'' (1987)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Butterworth, Mike English crime fiction writers British comics writers 1924 births 1986 deaths 20th-century English novelists English male novelists 20th-century English male writers