Dave Thorpe

Dave Thorpe (born 1954) is a British writer who is best known for his work on Captain Britain.

Biography

Thorpe's 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 Marvel Superheroes issue #377 and wrote the character till issue #386 (Moore took over the writing duties from issue #387). Thorpe and Davis (both doing some of their earliest professional comics work) created Mad Jim Jaspers and wrote the story that would lead into the Jaspers' Warp storyline. 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.

Davis credits Thorpe with coming up with the term Earth-616, the designation for the main universe in the Marvel Multiverse. He says it was based on 616, a variation on the Number of the Beast, because "Dave Thorpe, who wasn't a fan of the modern superhero genre, was responsible for most of the more madcap or satirical elements — such as recording his opinion of the Marvel Universe with the designation 616."^[1]

Thorpe'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 Thorpe 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 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.

Thorpe 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.

Thorpe 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. Thorpe conceived, commissioned, and edited a series of titles matching best-selling literary authors with notable comics artists, exemplified by Doris Lessing's Playing the Game, published by HarperCollins.

Thorpe 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.

Bibliography

Comics

• Captain Britain (with Alan Davis, in Marvel Superheroes #377-386, 1981)
• "I Was a Teenage Target" (with Lin Jammet, in AARGH!, 1988)
• "After Life" (with Aidan Potts, in Taboo #7, 9, 1992, 1995)

Novels

• Hybrids (HarperCollins in May 2007)

Notes

References

External links

• Official website