An Interview with Don McGregor by 'The Professor' Bud Young Pt. 1

I recently had the pleasure of spending the day with one of the influential ’70s and ’80s Marvel Comics writers, Don McGregor.Â Don is known as a trailblazer in modern comics, having written what is widely recognized as the first graphic novel (Sabre: Slow Fade of an Endangered Species, published by Eclipse).Â Don is also the writer of the first comic to depict a gay character in the supporting cast in comics in Sabre: An Exploitation of Everything Dear, which will be collected this year in a DELUXE ART RESTORED COLLECTION, the first lesbian characters in the pages of Detectives Incorporated, and the first inter-racial kiss at Marvel Comics in Killraven.Â He has also been titled the premiere Zorro writer in the 100th Anniversary Coffee Table book released recently. The series he created RAGAMUFFINS will have an Ultimate Edition due by the end of the year that will include every story drawn by Gene Colan, as well as 20 pages of UNPUBLISHED Colan art on the story: THE PACK RAT INSTINCT. But Don is most well-known as the writer for Black Panther , having written Panther’s Rage in the pages of Jungle Action in 1972-74 and Panther’s Quest in the pages of Marvel Comics Presents in the ’80s and Panther’s Prey in the 90s.

Don, Do you remember your first comic book?

I was very young.Â In kindergarten. The only kindergarten where I grew up in Rhode Island that existed was the Catholic kindergarten. The public school didn’t have a kindergarten at that time, although it was located on the same hill street, but they were much lower down the slope, the Catholic church was atop the crest of the hill and overlooked the whole valley. It kinda told you who really ruled this valley. I’m hiking up Main Street, but instead of staying on the straight and narrow I veer onto a side street and went to a small store called Charlie Murray“s there, which was kind of a local, small…I want to call it a deli but they’re not delis in Rhode Island, just a small store where you could get…it was a candy store AND it was a comic book store.Â I can remember going into that doorway, and seeing all the comics. They used to hang them from the ceiling on wires and there would be a banner of comics that came all the way down the rooftop and then looped and went back up toward the back of the store. The store owner had some kind of a baton looking thing with a hook on the end of it and he could grab and spin the racks around and the comics would whirl above your head. He could pull the comic down that you wanted and, for me, seeing that air-borne parade of comics was love at first sight. I mean I walked in there and there was all this color, what is all this? I was already aware of comics, I think, from the newspapers, I really have a love for newspaper comic strips, I got my first weekly allowance in that time-frame, a whole thin dime, back when you could get stuff for a dime, and I took my usual detour to the store, andÂ there was Hopalong Cassidy #65, on sale. Oh, I gotta have that! I bought it and my Dad came home that night and asked what did you do with your allowance? and I said look what I got Dad! I got a comic book! And my Dad says You wasted all your money on a comic book?! So the next week I get my dime again and I’m walking up and I guess it must have been the next months Hoppy, and obviously I’m well-aware enough at 5 years old, that’s not the same cover that a different comic. Gotta have that! And my Dad comes home that night, what did you do with your allowance this week? I got a comic Dad! I think he suspended my allowance for awhile after that. I used to tease Dad alot, like (pounds the table) hey Dad you said no son of yours is going to read comic books, now I’m writing them, what are you going to do now Dad? (pounds the table). What’s your game plan? (Laughter)

Did your Dad ever come around?

Oh yeah, Honestly I was around comic books all my life so he obviously gave up that fight, so yeah, that was my first comic book. And, I never had anybody read the comic books to me, so I don’t know…

Was it just the colors that attracted you?

No I could…I don’t remember a time I couldn’t read.Â I’m sure…I have no recollection of it. I know my mother used to tell me when I went up to my Grandmother’s place that I could go through the record albums and know exactly what records I wanted to play and put them on and I could pick them out, whetherÂ I was reading the labels or knew them somehow, I have no memory of that, I remember being 7 or 8 and my Mom having to read Dick Tracy to me, when I came down with either the measles or Mumps. One of those diseases where at the time it was thought it would damage your eyesight if you read while you were sick..

In the newspapers?

No those were probably Harvey comics at that time and it just wasn’t the same thing having Dick Tracy read to me. This is back when you had Chester Gould in his prime.Â I actually recall though, it’s the one with Spinner Record, so it would be somewhere in the early 1950’s and spinner Record had recorded a record, he’s a DJ of some sort, I don’t remember exactly how it comes about but he murders somebody and it’s on the record.Â I don’t know if he’s aware of it at the time and then finds out that the murder’s on the record and the record somehow gets out of his possession and he comes to this teenage girl, has the record, and the sequence they would never let him get away in the newspapers today. Spinner Record has this teenager tied up to a chair to question her about this record and he starts breaking records across her face, gashing her face up. Oh it was a totally different thing having Mom read Dick TracyÂ to me. It didn’t have the same impact as if you were really reading it by yourself. I suspect I could make out enough words and as time went by I learned the other words I didn’t know. I never wanted to have other people reading to me, it was just something I immediately loved. I was also by this time getting the Harvey Dick Tracy comics in the mail, which means obviously there was no comics ban in effect at all.

That was before the comics code, and censorship or was that around the same time?

Well I’m a kid so I don’t know how much I would know about that, but yes this was before the comics code comes in and limits what…don’t forget Harvey’s just reprinting the newspaper strips. But that Spinner Record story Harvey reprints at least twice, and the first time that they printed it, the one I’m talking about, is uncensored.Â Later on they would censor the Dick Tracy comics. Dean Mullaney had gotten in touch with me, we’re big pals, I’m the one that badgered Dean into doing Dick Tracy for his beautiful line of American Library of Comics label, because it’s one of my favorite strips and I said Dean you’re doing all of these great reprint books and YOU’RE not doing Dick Tracy? You’re going to let somebody else do Dick Tracy? Seriously? And we’re both big fans of the form, so you’ll see I have a credit line in every book of Dick Tracy and that’s basically because I’m the one that kept bugging him into doing it.

So it seems to me like you’re a big fan of all the pulps, the detectives, the noir.Â Is thatÂ your favorite genre in comics?

No. It’s probably in the core of Pop Culture I love, but I“m like jack of all trades, master of none, so when you ask me is that my favorite? I love just about all of it. I really love Westerns, too.Â I really love Private Eyes, yes. I love to write Private Eye figure because that genre seems to me you can…it’s very easy to make the story work on more than one level, and to me, a private eye whether it’s male or female, the private eye wants one thing: the truth. Who did what to whom and when, and they can go from the one percenters at the top of society to the people that have nothing. They go into every strata of society and they are the observers and what they see and what they witness, that makes it really easy to make those stories work on more than one level.

Is that important to you?Â That a story works on many different levels?

Oh yeah. I’m never satisfied with any project if I don“t know what that story is about and what has compelled me to put myself through the long hours and days and weeks and months of making it real.Â if I’m doing a private eye story, I’m trying to tell you the best private eye story I can. If I’m telling you a superhero story, I’m out to tell you the best superhero story I can. But then there has to be a reason, why am I writing this story? What is this about? So if I was doing Panther’s Rage, on one level it was doing a black hero in Africa and to go after all of those iconic situations that Pop Culture normally have white characters doing, and finally respecting the uniqueness of having the challenge and honor of writing such a series, this hero germaine to Africa. I“m trying to figure everything out before writing any finished pages for the Black Panther.Â If you look at Panther’s Rage, that’s why there’s dinosaurs and maps to give myself a landscape to do all those kind of locations and put him into those locations. Visually these places now existed and if you like that genre, you’re gonna get and see that genre really treated with respect and care and I don’t think you’re going to feel cheated. On the other hand, what is the story about? It really comes down to characters. Who is this person? You know, most people try to get the voices out of their heads and you’re trying to hear the voices in your head.

Did you come in to Black Panther looking at the character as a blank slate, someone that you could come in and put your mark on or were you looking at what Lee and Kirby had done?

I don’t know, Bud, that I think about any of it before I’m actually doing a project because I was probably involved in my own projects, but because I was proofreading it at Marvel in those early ’70’s and I was proofreading the reprint books that Marvel was putting out and one of them was Jungle Action and some of the stories were so racist and I know at some point I would say to them I can’t believe you’re putting this stuff out, this kind of racist shit, in this day and age are you guys crazy? Couldn’t you at least have a black jungle character? And I wasn’t thinking about the Black Panther and I wasn’t thinking about writing it, it was an emotional reaction thatÂ was just can you do something about this? At this time I had no power, I couldn’t make any decisions, I’m just there as a gopher and proof reading these books before they were sent off to the printers..

Who was in charge there at the time?

I don’t want to get into that. The reason for that, Bud, is if you start bringing personalities into it, you start leading into he said, she said kind of thing into the history and what was taking place there. And over the years maybe some of those people change where they were at. Some people have died, have families. That doesn’t mean that, if I’m talking about these books, I had to deal with what I had to deal with to get the books done, and I’m sure you know this about pop culture:Â If you don’t see it in pop culture, there’s a reason you don’t see it in pop culture. And there’s unwritten rules that would limit those things from being there. And I would discover those over the next two years.

Don,Â What I’ve seen in your career, I don’t know if what I want to call you is a trailblazer? Or a pioneer? Or maybe a wallbreaker, knocking down barriers or pushing the envelope of what was accepted in comics back then and for you to come in and be that first guy that did alot of things that had never been done.Â I can only imagine the challenges you faced back then.

It cost me alot.Â It cost me alot.

Do you look back on it now and see the impact that it might have had back then?

I was aware of the impact it had back then, because I did comic conventions then. Comic conventions back then were a lot different than they are now. They were about comics. So if people were coming to a comic convention, you were the celebrities. People wanted to see the writers and artists and the people that actually made the comics. How’s your sandwich, Bud?

It’s excellent.Â I love steak and cheese but I’m not supposed to eat it anymore but I figured I would spoil myself today.

You don’t think I’m supposed to eat this do you?

No I don’t.Â I had a heart attack about 7 months ago.Â

7 months ago?Â I had a heart attack when I was 40

I was 47

And I’m lucky to be talking here to you right now.

Big one?

At the time I had it I was 40 years old and I was working on the second Nathaniel Dusk: APPLE PEDDLERS DIE AT NOON with Gene Colan and as a writer and a creator it was actually a good time-frame for me.Â I was editing my own book. I don’t know how that came about. Everything I wanted to do with that storyI was able to do. I was working on the series, it was going to be a 4-issue miniseries and I realized it was going to take me longer to get to the killing of the Apple Peddler… and the actual death of that apple peddler was not going to happen where I was going to be able to fit it in the first book.Â I went into Bruce Bristow and I wanted to see if I could get a double-sized first issue, which wasn“t an completely unusual request since it had been done at the company with other series. A number of series had double-sized first issues so it wasn’t like I was asking for something that had never been done because then you’d have a much more difficult time getting that request approved. And Bruce said how about we make all four issues of the mini-series double-sized? Suddenly I had all the room that I needed and because I was editing it I was getting that editorial fee which allowed me weeks to do research on the book.So I was going to libraries and looking through microfiche files, the story had strong roots in daily life from the ’30s, everything in that book, down to the weather, that’s what the weather was like on that day in New York. If they went to see The Thin Man at the movie and you read thatÂ JellyRoll Morton was playing live on stage, that’s really what was happening there. If they were listening to Amos and Andy on the radio, that’s the episode of Amos and Andy that was playing that day. There’s a sequence when the apple peddler finally gets shot and I had it in the middle of Manhattan over in Hell’s Kitchen, I don’t think it was called Hell’s Kitchen at the time and he’s selling apples on the street; the original thought for it I just had this idea looking at a photography book, Berenice Abbott, she’s done some great photo books of New York City in the 1930’s and I used those for a lot of visual reference for Gene Colan to draw those scenes and I remember looking her book and seeing these people selling apples that used to be wealthy and I supposed it would really be interesting if someone had been a CEO and they had been rich and they had all this money and then the1929 stock market crash happened and they ended up on the streets and they’re selling apples in 1934.Â Nobody wanted to kill them when they were a CEO and now they’re selling apples on the street and somebody murders them. Why? There’s a story there. And that will intrigue me enough to say that’s a portion of the reason I can write this story.

So that opened up a question for me.Â How much research do you do when you’re preparing to write a story?

A lot.Â Black Panther there was two or three months before I even wrote a page.Â Trying to figure out what the clothing would be, coming up with the maps for Wakanda. What was the best way to approach it as a series. There was just so many questions.Â And because I worry about everything. I already had the second storyline…I had decided that the Panther series should be novels. Because other than that you were going to have TChalla go back to Africa, and we hadÂ a bi-monthly book and I think we only had 13 pages of story. I had to satisfy a reader for 2 months and what would drive them to come back so I was always aware of that. If you wrote a character out of one book that’s 4 months between when a reader has seen a character. If you left them out for 2 issues that’s half a year.Â It was a long time to ask the audience to care about what happens to these characters. So you’re thinking about all these things. Even Zorro, you’re researching the 1820’s, and Zorro Productions had lots of books and they sent them all when I requested them to send whatever they had. Literally, I would stay after hours at Topp’s and go through the books because a lot of times they were like huge historic tomes and sometimes it wasn’t covering just the early 1800’s but a vast amount of time, then you had to find the sections that were pertaining to the things you needed to know, but also then you have the differing Indian cultures In California,Â and in early…there were many different Indian cultures. The Indian tribes that were on the ocean would live in an entirely different way from the Indians that lived inland. But then you also had the Mission system. And then you had the military presence. And then you had the people, how did they end up in Los Angeles in the middle of everything. So all that research has to be done as a continual thing of trying, and a lot of time it changes the story you have been developing radically, accommodating what you have learned along the way.. Like going back to the Nathaniel Dusk series,I came across something when I was researching about a horse dyingÂ in the middle of Times Square of heat exhaustion, the heat was so bad and the horse collapsed right in the middle of Times Square and I thought nobodys ever seen this before that’s gotta be in the story, so that dictated when that the Apple Peddler would get killed, that horse is going to die at that time so that“s when Dusk is chasing after the bad guys and they’re coming up 42nd street they run into that dead horse, the car crashes into the body and the assassins come leaping over the dead horse and the pursuit evolves. Did that horse really die there? Yes he did.

*Edited by Don McGregor