Steve Moore (11 June 1949 – 16 March 2014) was a British comics writer.
Moore was credited with showing writer Alan Moore (no relation), then a struggling cartoonist, how to write comic scripts. His career has subsequently been quite closely linked with the more famous Moore – the pair collaborated under pseudonyms (Steve's pseudonym was "Pedro Henry", Alan's was "Curt Vile") on strips for Sounds, including one which introduced the character Axel Pressbutton, who was later to feature in the Warrior anthology comic, as well as a standalone series published by Eclipse Comics.
Biography
Moore has long been linked to Alan Moore, who has known him "since he [Alan] was fourteen" referring to him as "a friend... fellow comic writer [and] a fellow occultist". The two have so often been linked together that Alan joked that Steve would have 'no relation' engraved on his tombstone.
Moore was an editor of Bob Rickard's long-running UK-based "Journal of the Unexplained" Fortean Times. In later years, he also edited that publication's more academic sister-publication Fortean Studies. He is listed as a 'specialist contributor' to the Chambers Dictionary of the Unexplained, which also notes that he compiled the Fortean Times''' General Index, and several derivative books. He was a freelance writer on diverse topics, and said he "lives in London [where he] interests himself mainly in ancient and oriental subjects".
UK comics work
Steve Moore began working for Odhams Press' comics division while still in his teens, and in 1971 he created the UK's first comics fanzine, Orpheus. Moore's comics work has featured in most of the major British comics, particularly in anthologies. He was involved with 2000 AD from its earliest days, writing the second story-arc of their Dan Dare-revival "Hollow World" (Progs 12–23), and devising the Future Shocks format for Prog #25 with his "King of the World".
Later work for 2000 AD includes "Red Fang" (with artist Steve Yeowell), "Valkyries" (with American artist John Lucas) and a series of one-off short fantasy stories collected under the name Tales of Telguuth (with multiple artists).
He wrote the earliest back-up stories, focusing on supporting characters or aliens, for Doctor Who Weekly (later Doctor Who Magazine), before also taking over the main strip featuring the Doctor from issue #35, co-creating the character Abslom Daak (with artist Steve Dillon) for the publication. Many stories were reprinted by Marvel and Marvel UK, including as back-up features to Jamie Delano's Captain Britain in The Daredevils. Also for Marvel UK he wrote Hulk and Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. stories in Hulk Comic.
He also wrote several stories in Warrior, including, as Pedro Henry, a revival of his Axel Pressbutton character from Sounds.
He was featured in the anthology A1 (including a strip with fellow-Fortean Hunt Emerson on Fortean Times in #2).
Alan Moore-related work
He wrote "Young Tom Strong" and created the character Jonni Future for Tom Strong's Terrific Tales, a 12 issue anthology series from Alan Moore's America's Best Comics line.
He wrote the novelisation of the film V for Vendetta, based on the comics of the same name, by Alan Moore and David Lloyd.
In 2006 Alan Moore released a biographical essay on Moore called Unearthing, which in 2010 became an audiobook.
At the time of his death, he was co-writing The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic with Alan Moore, planned to be published by Top Shelf.
Asian themes
Steve Moore had an abiding, and scholarly, interest in the history and mythology of China. Somehow, in the early 1980s this came to the attention of Bob Guccione who commissioned a three-part series on Brothels of the Orient for his soft-porn magazine Penthouse. Steve objected that he had never even been to the Far East, let alone resorted to its brothels. Guccione's advice was to 'just make it up.' While Moore found the subject matter distasteful, he was promised a very substantial fee. Consequently, Moore accepted the commission on condition that it be published under the pseudonym "Pedro Henry". This name was an amalgam of Pedro McGregor (author of Brazilian Magic, a book which he was reading at the time) and O. Henry, the short-story writer. The articles appeared under Moore's own name, causing him no little embarrassment. He claimed that his subsequent use of the 'Pedro Henry' pseudonym was an attempt to distance himself from Steve Moore the lascivious denizen of oriental houses of ill-repute.