Mike Butterworth (January 10, 1924 – October 4, 1986) was a British

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

 comic book

Comic book

A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...

 writer, best known for his comic strip

Comic strip

A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

 The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire

Trigan Empire

The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire, later called simply The Trigan Empire was a science fiction comic series written mainly by Mike Butterworth and most notably drawn by Don Lawrence...

in the British weeklies Ranger

Ranger magazine

Ranger was a British weekly comic/text magazine published by Fleetway Publications which debuted on 18 September 1965 and ran for 40 un-numbered issues until 18 June 1966...

and Look and Learn

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 Monster; a long running science fiction comic strip, The...

. He is not related to the novelist Michael Butterworth

Michael Butterworth

Michael Butterworth is a British author and publisher who has written many novels and short stories, particularly in the genre of science fiction...

, author of the Hawklords series and the Space: 1999

Space: 1999

Space: 1999 is a British science-fiction television series that ran for two seasons and originally aired from 1975 to 1977. In the opening episode, nuclear waste from Earth stored on the Moon's far side explodes in a catastrophic accident on 13 September 1999, knocking the Moon out of orbit and...

novelizations.

Life

Butterworth trained as an artist at Camberwell College of Arts

Camberwell College of Arts

Camberwell College of Arts is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London, and is widely regarded as one of the world's foremost art and design institutions. It is located in Camberwell, South London, England, with two sites situated at Peckham Road and Wilson Road...

 and worked briefly as a tutor in drawing at Nottingham College of Art

Nottingham Trent University, School of Art and Design

Founded in 1843, the School of Art and Design at Nottingham Trent University is one of the oldest in the United Kingdom and currently has more than 2,500 students.-History:...

. After briefly working as a salesman, he joined the Amalgamated Press (later renamed Fleetway Publications

Fleetway

Fleetway, also known as Fleetway Publications and Fleetway Editions, was a UK publishing company which mainly produced comic magazines. For a time owned by IPC Media, they are now a division of Egmont Publishing....

) 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 (genre)

The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...

 strips featuring Billy the Kid and Buffalo Bill

Buffalo Bill

William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody was a United States soldier, bison hunter and showman. He was born in the Iowa Territory , in LeClaire but lived several years in Canada before his family moved to the Kansas Territory. Buffalo Bill received the Medal of Honor in 1872 for service to the US...

. His interest in history (particularly naval history) led him to pen many historical comic strips for The Comet and Sun, including the Napoleonic era adventures of Max Bravo, the Happy Hussar and World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 air-ace Battler Britton.

Aside from his writing, Butterworth was a gifted editor and created a number of new papers for the firm including Playhour Pictures

Playhour

Playhour was a British children's comic published between 16 October 1954 and 15 August 1987, a run of approximately 1,700 weekly issues....

 (soon after abbreviated to Playhour

Playhour

Playhour was a British children's comic published between 16 October 1954 and 15 August 1987, a run of approximately 1,700 weekly issues....

), Valentine and the teenage girls' magazine Honey.

In 1965, he became one of the main script writers for Ranger

Ranger magazine

Ranger was a British weekly comic/text magazine published by Fleetway Publications which debuted on 18 September 1965 and ran for 40 un-numbered issues until 18 June 1966...

 where he penned the sprawling science-fantasy The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire

Trigan Empire

The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire, later called simply The Trigan Empire was a science fiction comic series written mainly by Mike Butterworth and most notably drawn by Don Lawrence...

which remains one of the most popular boys' adventure strips published in the UK to this day.

Butterworth left Fleetway Publications

Fleetway

Fleetway, also known as Fleetway Publications and Fleetway Editions, was a UK publishing company which mainly produced comic magazines. For a time owned by IPC Media, they are now a division of Egmont Publishing....

 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

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...

 writer and Savoy Books publisher Michael Butterworth

Michael Butterworth

Michael Butterworth is a British author and publisher who has written many novels and short stories, particularly in the genre of science fiction...

. Butterworth also turned his hand to Gothic romance

Gothic fiction

Gothic fiction, sometimes referred to as Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. Gothicism's origin is attributed to English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, subtitled "A Gothic Story"...

novels under the pen-name Carola Salisbury.

He died 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 of 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)