Following the examples of independent comic creators such as Dave Sim and Jeff Smith, he decided to publish Strangers in Paradise himself through his own Houston-based "Abstract Studios" imprint, and has frequently mentioned a desire to do a syndicated cartoon strip in the authors notes at the back of the Strangers in Paradise collection books. He has also mentioned his greatest career influence is Peanuts' Charles Schulz. IGN: Dirty Dozen Starring Terry Moore Some of Moore's strip work can additionally be found in his Paradise, Too! publications.

His work has won him recognition in the comics industry, including receiving the Eisner Award for Best Serialized Story in 1996 for Strangers in Paradise #1-8, which was collected in the trade paperback "I Dream of You".

It was announced on June 15, 2007 that Moore would be taking over for Sean McKeever as writer of Marvel Comics's Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane series starting with a new issue #1. On July 27, Marvel announced that Moore would also take over for Joss Whedon as writer of Marvel's Runaways.

On November 19, 2007 Terry Moore announced in his blog that his new self-published series would be named Echo and its first issue would appear on March 5, 2008. Terry Moore » Blog Archive » First look at new series!

In 2009, Moore was featured in The Cartoonist, a documentary film on the life and work of Jeff Smith, creator of Bone.

Moore's work is known for its sensitive and realistic portrayals of women in particular. At a time when the comics industry was portraying women in highly exaggerated and sexualized images, Moore created female (and male) characters with natural body fat and who had body image problems. Moore continually emphasized in his editorial pages how he wanted to portray real women in real relationships, rather than the busty, unrealistic images that were common in most comic books in the early 1990s.

Moore also took on the subject of sexuality in his work. His female protagonists, while never explicitly adopting a sexual identity, struggle throughout the stories with their relationships with one another, with their male counterpart, and whether friendship can be or should be discrete from romantic love.