- Steve Moore at the Comic Book DB (archived from the original)
- Steve Moore at Barney
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
| Steve Moore | |
|---|---|
| Born | 11 June 1949 Shooter's Hill, London, England, United Kingdom |
| Died | 16 March 2014 (aged 64) Shooter's Hill, London, England, United Kingdom |
| Nationality | British |
| Area(s) | Writer |
| Pseudonym(s) | Pedro Henry |
Notable works | Axel Pressbutton Future Shocks Tom Strong's Terrific Tales |
Steve Moore (11 June 1949 – 16 March 2014) was a British comics writer.[1]
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.
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".[2] The two have so often been linked together that Alan joked that Steve would have 'no relation' engraved on his tombstone.[3]
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".[4]
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).
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.[5]
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.[6]
Moore was also a dedicated student and practitioner of the I Ching and consulted it every morning, without fail, from 1969 onwards, recording the results in his 'I Ching diary'.[6] In 1988, he published "The Trigrams of Han: Inner Structures of the I Ching". This scholarly work led Moore to be inducted into the Royal Asiatic Society as a Fellow.
From 1995 until its final issue in 2002, Moore edited The Oracle, The Journal of Yijing Studies.[7]
He was a co-author of I Ching: An Annotated Bibliography, published in 2002.
He scripted Marvel Comics' adaptation of the James Bond film Octopussy, published in Marvel Comics Super Special #26 (1983).
His work has also been published by Eclipse Comics in the US, much of it reprinted from Warrior. He wrote most of the stories for John Bolton's Halls of Horror, as well as Axel Pressbutton and Laser Eraser and Pressbutton.
Alan Moore wrote a long biographical essay about Steve Moore, entitled "Unearthing" and included in the Iain Sinclair-edited anthology London: City of Disappearances.[8] In early 2008, it was reported that this essay was being adapted into a "photo-illustrated hardcover novel, with some fumetti elements and visuals by Mitch Jenkins," to be published by Top Shelf Comics.[9]
Later work includes Hercules: The Thracian Wars at Radical Comics which was adapted for cinema by Brett Ratner in 2014.[10] He followed that with Hercules: The Knives of Kush, a 5-issue limited series set in Egypt.[11] At the time, Moore said this was his final comics work for now, although he was still writing in other areas:
for the last couple of years I had to care for a disabled relative [his older brother, Chris, who suffered from ALS], which meant that I had little time for any other work than Hercules. As he’s recently passed away, I now find myself in a position where I can retire from writing mainstream comics, so once I’ve seen Knives of Kush through the press, I’ll be gone. [...] As far as comics are concerned, I’m hanging up my hat and turning to non-fiction. A couple of short pieces for Fortean Times, hopefully dusting off my research for a book on Selene, maybe some more stuff on the Yijing.[12]
In October 2011, Moore released a novel, Somnium: A Fantastic Romance, published by nthposition press. The story follows a young man who is trying to write a book based on the legendary romance of Endymion and the moon goddess Selene. It is thus, in part, self-referential as Steve was writer who worshiped Selene and who saw himself in the role of Endymion, her mortal lover. The parallels are limited though, as he did not, for instance, have a sister.[6] The book is set in a real inn, called The Bull, at the summit of Shooters Hill. It was Steve's "local", being within five-minute's walk of his home. The story is remarkably static as it happens entirely within the confines of this inn but includes excursions into the 16th, 18th, and 19th century episodes (also occurring in The Bull) which reflect the obsessions of the central character.
Moore was portrayed, as himself, in Albion #1 (WildStorm, Aug. 2005); the six-issue limited series aimed to revive classic IPC-owned British comics characters, all of whom appeared in comics published by Odhams Press and later IPC Media during the 1960s and early 1970s, such as Smash!, Valiant, and Lion.[13] In the comic, the fictional Moore admits to having signed the so-called "Official Secrets Act," which ensured that the fact that IPC characters were actually real would be kept secret from the public. Albion was plotted by Alan Moore, written by his daughter Leah Moore and her husband John Reppion, with art by Shane Oakley and George Freeman.
