illustrator
An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicate ...
, screenwriter, and designer focusing on the comics, gaming and entertainment industries.
Education
Monte Moore was born in
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona. With over 1.6 million residents at the 2020 census, it is the ...
in 1971, and grew up playing fantasy role-playing games like ''
Dungeons & Dragons
''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) originally created and designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical ...
''. He graduated from
Colorado State University
Colorado State University (Colorado State or CSU) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Fort Collins, Colorado, United States. It is the flagship university of the Colorado State University Syst ...
in 1993 with a BFA in Graphic Design/Illustration and was awarded outstanding Senior Portfolio in the State of Colorado from the Art Director's Club of Denver.
During this time, Moore considered artists
Hajime Sorayama
is a Japanese illustrator known, along for his design work on the original Sony AIBO, for his precisely detailed, erotic portrayals of feminine robots. He describes his highly detailed style as "superrealism", which he says "deals with the t ...
and
Luis Royo
Luis Royo (born 1954) is a Spanish artist. He is best known for his fantasy illustrations published in numerous art books, magazines such as '' Heavy Metal'' and various other media including book and music CD covers, video games and Tarot cards ...
to be his inspirations.
Career
Following graduation, Moore created a self-published book, ''Lords'', and printed 3000 copies to sell at the 1993 San Diego Comic Con. He only sold 1000 of them, and later admitted "It gave me a good first hand look into the industry and helped me identify areas that I needed to focus on to increase my chances of success."
He then took on several freelance assignments, including the first cover of ''Hellina'' for Lightning Comics, some ''
Vampirella
Vampirella () is a vampire superheroine created by Forrest J Ackerman and comic book artist Trina Robbins in Warren Publishing's black-and-white horror comics magazine ''Vampirella'' #1 (Sept. 1969), a sister publication of '' Creepy'' and ''E ...
'' covers for
Harris Publications
Harris Publications Inc. was an American special interest media company, operating over 75 brands with print, digital, mobile and live-event platforms prior to its sale to Athlon Media in 2016. It produced magazines that educate, entertain and ...
, and worked on both ''
Purgatori
Purgatori is a fictional comic book character, created by writer Brian Pulido and artist Steven Hughes. A crimson-skinned, winged vampire goddess, she first appeared in ''Evil Ernie: Revenge'' #1 (October 1994), published by Chaos! Comics. She ...
'' and ''
Chastity
Chastity, also known as purity, is a virtue related to temperance. Someone who is ''chaste'' refrains from sexual activity that is considered immoral or from any sexual activity, according to their state of life. In some contexts, for exampl ...
'' comics for
Chaos! Comics
Chaos! Comics was a comic book publisher that operated from 1993 until 2002, mostly focusing on horror comics. Their titles included ''Lady Death'', ''Purgatori'', '' Evil Ernie'', ''Chastity'', ''Jade'', '' Bad Kitty'', and ''Lady Demon''. Chaos! ...
.
In 1998, Moore published a book of his
pinup
A pin-up model is a model (person), model whose mass-produced pictures and photographs have wide appeal within the popular culture of a society. Pin-up models are usually glamour photography, glamour, actresses, or fashion models whose pictures ...
artwork titled ''Maidens''. He moved into the fantasy genre, creating art for the
collectible card games
A collectible card game (CCG), also called a trading card game (TCG) among other names, is a type of card game that mixes strategic deck building elements with features of trading cards. The genre was introduced with '' Magic: The Gathering'' in ...
'' Magic the Gathering'' and '' Vs. System'', and providing illustrations for the third edition of ''Dungeons & Dragons''. He did the artwork for the 2005 card game ''Wench!''.
Moore also started to write screen plays, and one, ''End of the Road'' (also known as ''1,2,3 Scream'') was produced in 2012 starring Doug Jones,
Michael Dorn
Michael Dorn (born December 9, 1952) is an American actor best known for his role as the Klingon character Worf in the ''Star Trek'' franchise, appearing in all seven seasons of the television series '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' (1987–1 ...
,
Robert Picardo
Robert Alphonse Picardo (born October 27, 1953) is an American actor. He is best known for playing the Doctor on '' Star Trek: Voyager''. He also appeared as Richard Woolsey in the ''Stargate'' franchise, the Cowboy in '' Innerspace'', Coach ...
, and
Zack Ward
Zacharias Ward is a Canadian actor. He is known for his role as Scut Farkus in the 1983 film '' A Christmas Story'' and its 2022 sequel '' A Christmas Story Christmas''.
Early life
Ward was born on August 31 in either 1970 or 1973 in Toronto, Ont ...
.
Reception
Reviewing Moore's artbook ''Majestika'' for ''
Science Fiction Chronicle
''Science Fiction Chronicle'' (later, just ''Chronicle'') was an American science fiction magazine (also called semiprozine) published from 1979 to 2006. It was named ''Science Fiction Chronicle'' until 2002 and from then until 2006, just ''Chro ...
'',
Don D'Ammassa
Donald Eugene D'Ammassa (born April 24, 1946) is an American fantasy, science fiction and horror critic and author.
In the April 2000 issue of ''Femmes Fatales'', Dan Scapperotti reviewed Moore's artbook ''Maidens'' and called Moore's pencil pinups "more whimsical in nature" than many of the more gothic fantasy art being produced".