Born in 1957, Nick Burns studied Fine Arts at the University of Manitoba where he worked with filmmaker John Paizs on his early animated cartoons, live-action films, and comic strips in the university newspaper. In 1980, he started work at the Provincial Department of Health Education Graphics, where he met Francophone artist, Real Berard, who asked him to join the Manitoba Snow Sculpture team. In 2003, his script for Snoring was one of six winners chosen to be financed and produced, which premiered at Hot Docs 2003. He was the artist of the Canadian alternative comic book Arctic Comics in the 1980s. In the 1990s, he contributed to the underground magazine Sunburn.