David Bishop (writer)


David James Steven Bishop, also known as D. V. Bishop, is a New Zealand comic book editor and writer of comics, novels and screenplays. He lives in the United Kingdom.
In the 1990s he edited the UK comics titles Judge Dredd Megazine and 2000 AD.
He has since become a prolific screenwriter and novelist, and has won awards for his Cesare Aldo mystery novels which are set in Renaissance Florence.

Biography

Bishop was born in Cambridge, New Zealand and grew up in Auckland. He studied journalism at Auckland Technical Institute, and worked as a journalist for the New Zealand Herald. He emigrating to the UK in 1990.
He completed an MA in Screenwriting at Scotland's Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland in 2007. He helped establish the university's MA Creative Writing programme in 2009, which he headed from 2017 to 2022. He remains a creative writing lecturer for the programme. In 2017, he began a PhD in Creative Writing at England's Lancaster University, for which he wrote the historical thriller City of Vengeance. His coming thesis examines the scarcity of LGBTQ+ sleuths in historical mystery fiction.
In 2017, he was awarded a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship by Creative Scotland and the Scottish Book Trust.
In 2008, he appeared on 23 May edition of the BBC One quiz show The Weakest Link, beating eight other contestants to win more than £1500 in prize money.
In September 2025, Bishop was a guest on the Off the Shelf podcast as part of a feature on the McIlvanney Prize.

Comics

Bishop was sub-editor of the Judge Dredd Megazine and of Crisis, before becoming the editor of the Megazine from 1991 to 2002. He became the editor of 2000 AD just before Christmas 1995, staying four and a half years before resigning to become a freelance writer in the summer of 2000.
Bishop was responsible for discovering many new British talents, including:
He also edited Judge Dredd – Lawman of the Future and, with collaborator Roger Langridge, contributed the insane asylum-set strip The Straitjacket Fits in the Megazine.
Since leaving 2000 AD in the year 2000, Bishop has enjoyed a successful career as a freelance writer, working on novels of Doctor Who , Judge Dredd, Heroes and Nikolai Dante, as well as comic strip adventures of The Phantom.
The Spacegirls, a parody of the Spice Girls, is on the list of 2000 AD's 20 Worst Strips as chosen by fan rating on the official website.
Away from British comics, his work on The Phantom has won awards for the "Best Phantom story of the year" for European comic publisher Egmont several times. Bishop introduced new characters to the Phantom mythos, such as the pirate queen Kate Sommerset, who grew so popular with readers that Bishop made her the main character of five stories.
In 2006, Bishop also signed on to participate in the writing of stories for American publisher Moonstone Books' two collections of Phantom short stories, called Phantom Prose Anthologies.
Bishop's history of 2000 AD, in a series of articles under the name Thrill Power Overload, was revised, expanded and updated in a book version published in 2007 to coincide with the 30th anniversary of 2000 AD. After that sold out, a paperback edition was issued in February 2009. An expanded edition with new material by Karl Stock was released in 2017.

Scriptwriting

Bishop received his first drama scriptwriting credit when BBC Radio 4 broadcast his radio play Island Blue: Ronald in June 2006. In 2007, he won the PAGE International Screenwriting Award in the short film category for his script Danny's Toys, and was a finalist in the 2009 PAGE Awards with his script The Woman Who Screamed Butterflies.
In 2010, Bishop received his first TV drama credit on the BBC medical drama series Doctors, writing an episode called A Pill For Every Ill, broadcast on 10 February.
In 2020 he won the Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Dramatic Presentation for his audiobook, The Elysian Blade.

Historical fiction

Moving away from science fiction, in 2021 he released his first historical fiction novel under the name D. V. Bishop. City of Vengeance, the first book in the Cesare Aldo mystery series, is set in Florence in the 1530s. He wrote the book as part of a PhD in Creative Writing at Lancaster University in England; his thesis examines the scarcity of LGBTQ+ sleuths in historical mystery fiction. The novel won the 2022 New Zealand Booklovers Award for Best Adult Novel. It was described by the judges as: "A stunning debut novel seamlessly blends historical fiction with crime thriller... Storytelling centred on intrigue and betrayal doesn't come more polished and captivating than this."
The second novel, The Darkest Sin, won the 2023 Crime Writers' Association Historical Dagger.
The third novel, Ritual of Fire, won the 2024 Ngaio Marsh Award for best New Zealand crime novel.
The fourth novel, A Divine Fury was a finalist for the 2024 McIlvanney Prize in Scotland.
The fifth Aldo novel, Carnival of Lies, was published in 2025.
The sixth novel in the series, Shadow of Madness, will be published in 2026.

Comics

Novels

As David Bishop

As D. V. Bishop

The Cesare Aldo mysteries:City of Vengeance The Darkest Sin Ritual of Fire
  • ''A Divine Fury''

Audio dramas

Non-fiction

  • Bright Lights, Baked Ziti: The Sopranos Programme Guide
  • Starring Michael Caine
  • Thrill Power Overload
  • ''Endeavour: The Complete Inspector Morse''