Later in the 1960s, Burns worked on TV Century 21 and its sister magazines, including the Space Family Robinson series in Lady Penelope.
Burns was already well known by the start of the 1980s, but it was when he made the crossover to 2000 AD (along with fellow Look-in alumni Jim Baikie and Arthur Ranson) that his position in British comics was cemented.
Burns co-created (with Robbie Morrison) a contemporary adventure strip, The Bendatti Vendetta, for the Judge Dredd Megazine; this was rare for the title in having no science fiction or fantasy elements at all.
In 2008, he finished an adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, whose script was rendered by Amy Corzine, for UK publisher Classical Comics.
[6] He previously worked on similar adaptions of Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore and, later, Wuthering Heights by Brontë's sister Emily.