David J. Howe

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the motorcycle speedway rider, see David Howe (speedway rider)

David J. Howe is a British writer, journalist, publisher, and media historian.

David Howe was born in 1961 and established himself (in the early ‘80s) as an authoritative media historian through writing articles for fanzines (notably The Frame) and other publications. In the early 1990s, he began to write the first in-depth critical texts of the British television series Doctor Who, and as a result has become closely associated with the show's history. He has written or co-written over twenty titles about the show, and continues to be involved with a variety of publications, often acting as consultant or reviewer.

In particular, Howe collaborated on some of the key texts in Virgin Publishing's range of Doctor Who reference works, including the three Decades books (with Stephen James Walker and Mark Stammers), considered to be some of the most in-depth works about the production history of the show. The same authors followed these with guide books which covered the individual tenures of each Doctor in turn.

Howe and Stephen James Walker set up the publishing house Telos Publishing Ltd. in 2002, which initially published Doctor Who novellas until the licence was withdrawn by BBC Worldwide in 2004. Telos continues to publish non-Doctor Who works and unofficial Doctor Who reference works, including the well-regarded 2003 book The Television Companion (by Howe and Walker, and previously released as Doctor Who: The Television Companion in 1998 by BBC Publishing) and The Handbook, collecting the previously written Virgin Publishing guide books Doctor Who The Handbook in one volume in 2005. In 2007 and 2008, Howe also is serving as the editor for Time's Champion, an independent Doctor Who novel based on the late Craig Hinton's final unpublished novel and completed by his friend Chris McKeon, which features the Sixth Doctor and the Valeyard.

Howe also wrote Daemos Rising, an original film directed by Keith Barnfarther, and is planning to write further adventures for the screen. He also wrote a story for the first Virgin Decalog short story collection, his only piece of official Doctor Who fiction to be published. He continues to work as co-director of Telos Publishing, which has expanded to publish a wide range of classic and new science fiction stories.

Howe also has one of the largest collections of Doctor Who merchandise in the world.

Aside from his Doctor Who work, Howe is the reviews editor for the horror film magazine Shivers. He was also a contributing editor to Starburst magazine and edited the book reviews column for that magazine for sixteen years. He edited the British Fantasy Society's bi-monthly newsletter for several years in the 1990s.

[edit] Selected bibliography

  • Doctor Who The Sixties (hardback, co-written with Stephen James Walker & Mark Stammers, 1992, Virgin Publishing. Paperback published 1993)
  • Doctor Who The Seventies (hardback, co-written with Walker and Stammers, 1994, Virgin Publishing. Paperback published 1995)
  • Doctor Who The Eighties (hardback, co-written with Walker and Stammers, 1996, Virgin Publishing. Paperback published 1997)
  • Doctor Who The Handbook: The Fourth Doctor (paperback, co-written with Walker & Stammers, 1992, Virgin Publishing)
  • Doctor Who The Handbook: The Sixth Doctor (paperback, co-written with Walker & Stammers, 1993, Virgin Publishing)
  • Doctor Who The Handbook: The First Doctor (paperback, co-written with Walker & Stammers, 1994, Virgin Publishing)
  • Doctor Who The Handbook: The Fifth Doctor (paperback, co-written with Walker, 1995, Virgin Publishing)
  • Doctor Who The Handbook: The Third Doctor (paperback, co-written with Walker, 1996, Virgin Publishing)
  • Doctor Who The Handbook: The Second Doctor (paperback, co-written with Walker & Stammers, 1997 Virgin Publishing)
  • Doctor Who The Handbook: The Seventh Doctor (paperback, co-written with Walker, 1998 Virgin Publishing)
  • Doctor Who: Drabble Who (hardback, co-edited with David Wake, 1993, Beccon Publishing – collection of 100 short pieces of Doctor Who-related fiction and verse published for charity)
  • Doctor Who: Timeframe – The Illustrated History (hardback, 1993, Virgin Publishing – The official 30th anniversary of Doctor Who book. Paperback published 1994)
  • Doctor Who: Companions (hardback, co-written with Stammers, 1995, Virgin Publishing. Paperback published 1996)

Text and photograph coordination for Doctor Who 1996 Diary (hardback, 1995 Mallon Publishing, Australia)

  • Reflections: The Fantasy Art of Stephen Bradbury (text, limp-back, 1996, Paper Tiger)
  • Doctor Who TX File (text for filofax insert book, 1996, BBC Publishing)
  • Doctor Who: I Am The Doctor (hardback, co-written with Jon Pertwee, 1996, Virgin Publishing – Jon Pertwee’s Doctor Who autobiography)
  • Doctor Who: A Book of Monsters (hardback, 1997, BBC Publishing)
  • Doctor Who: The Television Companion (paperback, co-written with Walker, 1998, BBC Publishing)
  • Howe’s Transcendental Toybox: The Unauthorised Guide to Doctor Who Collectibles (paperback, co-written with Arnold T Blumberg, 2000, Telos Publishing)
  • The Television Companion: The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to Doctor Who (paperback/hardback, co-written with Walker, 2003, Telos Publishing)
  • Howe’s Transcendental Toybox: Second Edition: The Unauthorised Guide to Doctor Who Collectibles (paperback, co-written with Arnold T Blumberg, 2003, Telos Publishing)
  • Howe’s Transcendental Toybox: 2003 Update Edition (paperback, co-written with Arnold T Blumberg, 2004, Telos Publishing)
  • The Handbook: The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to the Production of Doctor Who (paperback/hardback, co-written with Walker & Stammers, 2005, Telos Publishing)
  • The Target Book: A History of the Target Doctor Who Books (paperback, 2007, Telos Publishing)

[edit] External links