Don McGregor
Encyclopedia
Donald Francis McGregor (born June 15, 1945) is an American
People of the United States
The people of the United States, also known as simply Americans or American people, are the inhabitants or citizens of the United States. The United States is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds...

 comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...

 writer best known for his work for Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...

, and the author of one of the first graphic novels.

Early life and career

Don McGregor was born Providence
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...

, Rhode Island
Rhode Island
The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...

, where as a young adult he worked a myriad of jobs including as a security guard, at a bank, at a movie theater, and "for my grandfather's company, [which] printed, among other things, the patches the astronauts wore on their flights to the moon." He additionally served as military police
Military police
Military police are police organisations connected with, or part of, the military of a state. The word can have different meanings in different countries, and may refer to:...

 with the National Guard
National Guard
The term National Guard originally referred to a French citizen militia . The term is now used in many countries. Depending on the country in question, "national guard" may refer to an organized militia, a military force, a paramilitary force, a gendarmerie, or a police force:- Americas :* National...

. His first appearances in print were in the letters-to-the-editor columns of various Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...

 titles, including The Amazing Spider-Man
The Amazing Spider-Man
The Amazing Spider-Man is an American comic book series published by Marvel Comics, featuring the adventures of the fictional superhero Spider-Man. Being the mainstream continuity of the franchise, it began publication in 1963 as a monthly periodical and was published continuously until it was...

#77 (cover-dated Oct. 1969), and for The Providence Journal
The Providence Journal
The Providence Journal, nicknamed the ProJo, is a daily newspaper serving the metropolitan area of Providence, Rhode Island and is the largest newspaper in Rhode Island. The newspaper, first published in 1829 and the oldest continuously-published daily newspaper in the United States, was purchased...

, where his work included reviews of books by authors including Evan Hunter
Evan Hunter
Evan Hunter was an American author and screenwriter. Born Salvatore Albert Lombino, he legally adopted the name Evan Hunter in 1952...

, "who influenced me greatly as a writer."

McGregor broke into comics with stories in Warren Publishing
Warren Publishing
Warren Publishing was an American magazine company founded by James Warren, who published his first magazines in 1957 and continued in the business for decades...

's black-and-white horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...

-comics anthology magazines, beginning with the 10-page "A Tangible Hatred", illustrated by Richard Corben
Richard Corben
Richard Corben is an American illustrator and comic book artist best known for his comics featured in Heavy Metal magazine...

, in Creepy
Creepy
Creepy was an American horror-comics magazine launched by Warren Publishing in 1964. Like Mad, it was a black-and-white newsstand publication in a magazine format and thus did not require the approval or seal of the Comics Code Authority. The anthology magazine was initially published quarterly but...

#41 (Sept. 1971). Over the next two years, he would write a dozen more stories for that magazine and its sister titles Eerie
Eerie
Eerie was an American magazine of horror comics introduced in 1966 by Warren Publishing. Like Mad, it was a black-and-white newsstand publication in a magazine format and thus did not require the approval or seal of the Comics Code Authority. Each issue's stories were introduced by the host...

and Vampirella
Vampirella
Vampirella is a fictional character, a comic book vampire heroine created by Forrest J Ackerman and costume designer Trina Robbins in Warren Publishing's black-and-white horror comics magazine Vampirella #1 . Writer-editor Archie Goodwin later developed the character from horror-story hostess, in...

.

Marvel Comics

McGregor became a proofreader for Marvel Comics in late 1972, earning $125 a week, before establishing himself as a Marvel editor and writer. His first stories for the company were co-writing, with Gardner Fox
Gardner Fox
Gardner Francis Cooper Fox was an American writer best known for creating numerous comic book characters for DC Comics. Comic-book historians estimate that he wrote over 4,000 comics stories....

, the six-page supernatural story "The Man with Two Faces" in Journey into Mystery
Journey into Mystery
Journey into Mystery was an American comic book series published by Atlas Comics, and later its successor Marvel Comics. It featured horror, monster, and science fiction stories...

vol. 2, #4 (April 1973; credited as "Donald F. McGregor"); and, solo, the six-page "A Tomb By Any Other Name" in Chamber of Chills #5 (July 1973).

He recalled in 2010,
With those two features, which became among comics' most acclaimed, McGregor soon established himself as one of a 1970s wave of Marvel writers, including Steve Englehart
Steve Englehart
Steve Englehart is an American novelist. In his earlier career he was a comic book writer best known for his work at Marvel Comics and DC Comics, particularly in the 1970s...

, Steve Gerber
Steve Gerber
Stephen Ross "Steve" Gerber was an American comic book writer best known as co-creator of the satiric Marvel Comics character Howard the Duck....

 and Doug Moench
Doug Moench
Douglas Moench , better known as Doug Moench, is an American comic book writer notable for his Batman work and as the creator of Black Mask, Moon Knight and Deathlok.-Biography:...

, who took often minor characters and helped create a writerly Renaissance. Former Marvel editor-in-chief Roy Thomas
Roy Thomas
Roy William Thomas, Jr. is an American comic book writer and editor, and Stan Lee's first successor as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. He is possibly best known for introducing the pulp magazine hero Conan the Barbarian to American comics, with a series that added to the storyline of Robert E...

 said in 2007,
McGregor wrote "Killraven, Warrior of the Worlds" in Amazing Adventures vol. 2, #21-39 (Nov. 1973 - Nov. 1976, except for fill-in issues #33 and 38); and "Black Panther" in Jungle Action
Jungle Action
Jungle Action is the name of two comic book series published by Marvel Comics and its 1950s precursor, Atlas Comics. The latter-day version is the first series starring the Black Panther, the first Black superhero in mainstream comics, created by the writer/artist team of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in...

#6-24 (Sept. 1973 - Nov. 1976, except for #23, a reprint). Unusually for mainstream comics, the Panther stories were set mostly in Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

, in the Panther's fictional homeland Wakanda
Wakanda (comics)
Wakanda is a fictional nation in the Marvel Universe. It is the most prominent of several fictional African nations in the Marvel Universe. Wakanda is located in Northeastern Africa, although its exact location has varied throughout the nation's publication history: some sources place Wakanda in...

 rather than in Marvel's usual American settings. As with the futuristic stories of Killraven, McGregor's settings were enough outside the Marvel mainstream that he was able to explore mature themes and adult relationships in a way rare for comics at the time.

Artist Rich Buckler
Rich Buckler
Rich Buckler is an American comic book artist and penciller, best known for his work on Marvel Comics' The Fantastic Four in the mid-1970s and, with writer Doug Moench, co-creating the character Deathlok in Astonishing Tales #25...

, his first "Black Panther" collaborator, called McGregor and fellow Marvel writer Doug Moench
Doug Moench
Douglas Moench , better known as Doug Moench, is an American comic book writer notable for his Batman work and as the creator of Black Mask, Moon Knight and Deathlok.-Biography:...

 "two of my absolutely favorite writers. They had the same drive and enthusiasm, and just huge amounts of talent and energy." African-American writer-editor Dwayne McDuffie
Dwayne McDuffie
Dwayne Glenn McDuffie was an American writer of comic books and television, known for creating the animated television series Static Shock, writing and producing the animated series Justice League Unlimited, and co-founding the pioneering minority-owned-and-operated comic-book company Milestone...

 said of the 1970s "Black Panther" series:
Like Jim Steranko
Jim Steranko
James F. Steranko is an American graphic artist, comic book writer-artist-historian, magician, publisher and film production illustrator....

, a direct influence who had pushed similar boundaries in the late 1960s, McGregor often found himself at the limits of acceptability with both Marvel and the Comics Code Authority
Comics Code Authority
The Comics Code Authority was a body created as part of the Comics Magazine Association of America, as a tool for the comics-publishing industry to self-regulate the content of comic books in the United States. Member publishers submitted comic books to the CCA, which screened them for adherence to...

. He and artist P. Craig Russell
P. Craig Russell
Philip Craig Russell , also known as P. Craig Russell, is an American comic book writer, artist, and illustrator. His work has won multiple Harvey and Eisner Awards...

 engineered color comic books' first known interracial kiss, between the "Killraven" characters M'Shulla and Carmilla Frost, in Amazing Adventures #31 (July 1975). Three years earlier, McGregor and artist Luis Garcia
Luis García
Luis García or Luis Garcia or may refer to:*Luis Armand Garcia, American actor*Luis García Anchundia, Ecuadorian footballer*Luis García Berlanga, Spanish film director and screenwriter*Luis García Conde, Spanish football goalkeeper...

 had already presented the first known interracial kiss in mainstream comics (as opposed to underground comix
Underground comix
Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books which are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, including explicit drug use, sexuality and violence...

) in Warren Publishing
Warren Publishing
Warren Publishing was an American magazine company founded by James Warren, who published his first magazines in 1957 and continued in the business for decades...

's black-and-white horror-comics magazine, Creepy
Creepy
Creepy was an American horror-comics magazine launched by Warren Publishing in 1964. Like Mad, it was a black-and-white newsstand publication in a magazine format and thus did not require the approval or seal of the Comics Code Authority. The anthology magazine was initially published quarterly but...

#43 (Jan. 1972), in the story "The Men Who Called Him Monster".

More than two decades after the "Killraven" feature ended, comics historian Peter Sanderson wrote that,
McGregor also wrote stories for the Marvel characters Luke Cage
Luke Cage
Luke Cage is a fictional character, a superhero appearing in comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Archie Goodwin and artist John Romita, Sr., he first appeared in Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #1...

, Morbius the Living Vampire, and Spider-Man
Spider-Man
Spider-Man is a fictional Marvel Comics superhero. The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko. He first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15...

, and created the detective
Detective fiction
Detective fiction is a sub-genre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator , either professional or amateur, investigates a crime, often murder.-In ancient literature:...

 feature "Hodiah Twist", seen in the black-and-white magazines Marvel Preview #16: Masters of Terror (1973) and Vampire Tales #2 (1975). A Marvel "Bullpen Bulletins
Bullpen Bulletins
"Bullpen Bulletins" was the news and information page that appeared in most regular monthly comic books from Marvel Comics...

" page in 1975 announced his planned radio drama
Radio drama
Radio drama is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance, broadcast on radio or published on audio media, such as tape or CD. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the characters and story...

 series, Night Figure, that was to have run on WHBI-FM.

Graphic novel pioneer

With artist Paul Gulacy
Paul Gulacy
Paul Gulacy is an American comic book illustrator best known for his work for DC Comics and Marvel Comics, and for drawing one of the first graphic novels, Eclipse Enterprises' 1978 Sabre: Slow Fade of an Endangered Species, with writer Don McGregor.-Early life and career:Paul Gulacy began...

, McGregor created one the first modern graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...

s, Eclipse Enterprises
Eclipse Comics
Eclipse Comics was an American comic book publisher, one of several independent publishers during the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1978, it published the first graphic novel intended for the newly created comic book specialty store market...

' Sabre: Slow Fade of an Endangered Species
Sabre (graphic novel)
Sabre , published in August 1978, is one of the first modern graphic novels and the first to be distributed in comic book shops...

, a near-future, dystopia
Dystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...

n science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 swashbuckler
Swashbuckler
Swashbuckler or swasher is a term that emerged in the 16th century and has been used for rough, noisy and boastful swordsmen ever since. A possible explanation for this term is that it derives from a fighting style using a side-sword with a buckler in the off-hand, which was applied with much...

 that introduced the title character. McGregor's work premiered in August 1978, two months before Will Eisner
Will Eisner
William Erwin "Will" Eisner was an American comics writer, artist and entrepreneur. He is considered one of the most important contributors to the development of the medium and is known for the cartooning studio he founded; for his highly influential series The Spirit; for his use of comics as an...

's better-known graphic novel A Contract with God
A Contract with God
A Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories is a graphic novel by Will Eisner that takes the form of several stories on a theme. Published by Baronet Books in October 1978 in simultaneous hardcover and trade paperback editions — the former limited to a signed-and-numbered print-run of 1,500 —...

. Sabre was additionally the first graphic novel sold through the new "direct market
Direct market
The direct market is the dominant distribution and retail network for North American comic books. It consists of one dominant distributor and the majority of comics specialty stores, as well as other retailers of comic books and related merchandise...

" of comic-book stores. It later spun off a 14-issue Eclipse comic-book series.

Also for Eclipse, McGregor authored Detectives Inc.
Detectives Inc.
Detectives Inc. is a series of two original graphic novels written by Don McGregor and published by Eclipse Enterprises in 1980 and 1985.The first, Detectives Inc.: A Remembrance of Threatening Green, featured black-and-white art by penciler-inker Marshall Rogers...

, a pair of graphic novels set in contemporary New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 and starring the interracial private eye team Ted Denning and Bob Rainier. Detectives Inc.: A Remembrance of Threatening Green (1979), with DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...

 artist Marshall Rogers
Marshall Rogers
Marshall Rogers was an American comic-book artist best known for his work at Marvel and DC Comics in the 1970s, particularly as one of the illustrators of Batman and Silver Surfer...

, and Detectives, Inc.: A Terror Of Dying Dreams, with veteran Marvel artist Gene Colan
Gene Colan
Eugene Jules "Gene" Colan was an American comic book artist best known for his work for Marvel Comics, where his signature titles include the superhero series, Daredevil, the cult-hit satiric series Howard the Duck, and The Tomb of Dracula, considered one of comics' classic horror series...

, who would become a frequent collaborator, comprised the series.

During this period, McGregor also wrote the two prose works Dragonflame and Other Bedtime Nightmares (Fictioneer Books, 1978) and The Variable Syndrome (Fictioneer, 1981).

Later comics

Other work includes the DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...

' miniseries
Miniseries
A miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term...

 Nathaniel Dusk (1984) and Nathaniel Dusk II (1985–1986), both with Colan; and, for New Media Publishing's Fantasy Illustrated (1982), "The Hounds of Hell Theory", starring the husband-and-wife detective team Alexander and Penelope Risk, with artist Tom Sutton
Tom Sutton
Tom Sutton was an American comic book artist who sometimes used the pseudonyms Sean Todd and Dementia...

.

McGregor revisited the Black Panther with Colan in "Panther's Quest", published as 25 eight-page installments within the biweekly omnibus series Marvel Comics Presents
Marvel Comics Presents
Marvel Comics Presents was an American comic book anthology series published by Marvel Comics originally from 1988 to 1995; it returned for a second volume in 2007-2008.-Volume 1:The first volume was released on a biweekly basis and lasted for 175 issues...

(issues #13-37, Feb.-Dec. 1989); and, later, with artist Dwayne Turner
Dwayne Turner
Dwayne Turner was born in Brooklyn, New York and began his career as a comic book artist during the end of high school.Turner got his start at Marvel Comics on various titles such as Transformers, Wolverine and Avengers Spotlight. In 1995, he co-created the title Sovereign Seven for DC Comics with...

 in the squarebound miniseries Panther's Prey (Sept. 1990 - March 1991). Later in the decade, McGregor became one of the primary writers of the Zorro
Zorro
Zorro is a fictional character created in 1919 by New York-based pulp writer Johnston McCulley. The character has been featured in numerous books, films, television series, and other media....

 canon, with Topps Comics
Topps
The Topps Company, Inc., manufactures chewing gum, candy and collectibles. Based in New York, New York, Topps is best known as a leading producer of baseball cards, football cards, basketball cards, hockey cards and other sports and non-sports themed trading cards.-Company history:Topps itself was...

' Zorro and Lady Rawhide comic books; Image Comics
Image Comics
Image Comics is a United States comic book publisher. It was founded in 1992 by high-profile illustrators as a venue where creators could publish their material without giving up the copyrights to the characters they created, as creator-owned properties. It was immediately successful, and remains...

' adaptation of the movie The Mask of Zorro
The Mask of Zorro
The Mask of Zorro is a 1998 American swashbuckler film based on the Zorro character created by Johnston McCulley. It was directed by Martin Campbell and stars Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Stuart Wilson...

; two years of the Zorro newspaper comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

 (with artists Tod Smith and Thomas Yeates, premiering April 12, 1999); and Papercutz's 2005 "American manga"-style Zorro series, which was collected in a book release the same year.

External links

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