Dave Thorpe

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Dave Thorpe or David Thorpe (born 1954) is a British writer whose career began with Marvel UK's Captain Britain character in the early 1980s. He created many of the characters later used by Alan Moore. He helped revamp the character with Paul Neary and Alan Davis in The Mighty World Of Marvel issue 377 and wrote the character till issue 386, Moore took over the writing duties from issue 387.

Thorpe's material was reprinted in 1995, in the X-Men archives : Captain Britain limited series but, unlike the rest of the original UK series, is yet to be reprinted in a trade paperback.

David's next work of note was Doc Chaos (1985-1990). 'Doc Chaos' was a commissioned tv series, two comics series, and a novella. Limehouse Productions commissioned scripts, which were co-written by David with Lawrence Gray. A comics version achieved a cult following. The first series was serialised by Rob Sharp's AntiMatter Comics, then collected into books by Paul Gravett's Escape. In North America it was published by Vortex Comics, with stunning cover designs by Rian Hughes. The scripts were adapted into comics by artists Phil Elliott, Duncan Fegredo and Steve Sampson.

A novella, Doc Chaos: The Chernobyl Effect, was published in 1988 by Hooligan Press with illustrations by comics artists Simon Bisley, Brian Bolland, Brett Ewins, Duncan Fegredo, Rian Hughes, Lin Jammett, Pete Mastin, Dave McKean, Savage Pencil, Ed Pinsent and Bryan Talbot. This is still in print.

David was the winner of the 2006 HarperCollins/Saga Magazine contest to find the 'new J K Rowling' with his novel Hybrids, published by HarperCollins in May 2007.

He has additionally worked as a comics writer or editor with Marvel Comics, Titan Books, Vortex, Eclipse Enterprises (writing The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union trading cards), Escape, Spiderbaby and Mad Love, also with MacdonaldFutura, HarperCollins, Oxfam (How the World Works) and Greenpeace. Various cartoon strips in journals have also been published. David conceived, commissioned and edited a series of titles matching best selling literary authors with the best comics artists, exemplified by Doris Lessing's Playing the Game, published by HarperCollins.

He has had a parallel career as an environmental journalist, including writing and publishing material for Defra and the Centre for Alternative Technology.

He was also a co-founder of the London Screenwriters Workshop.