THIS is the NEW Q & A column. It's still the section where any of you cyber-cruisers can have your voice heard in cyber-space. I keep hearing that question on the Internet: Are you ready? For the Web? Damned, if I know. But I'm trying. What I do know is, it has allowed me to come into contact with a lot of wonderful people I would not have had a chance to get their input into what I do, telling stories. I would not have had the opportunity to work with Kevin Hall, who is making this website, and the visions I had for it, a workable reality.

I've had some folks tell me that it's the interaction with the readers that keep them coming back to the site (that and the Updates), and with Kevin's help I'm going to try to keep that flowing more frequently.

I hope it also means we'll be making it easier for you to learn that the books exist, and how to get them, but also what other folks feel about them.

We'll cover whatever areas you want to cover. Upon occasion, we may even put up some photos covering sequences that you raise in your letters. Oh, and any ideas of what you'd like to see on the site, let us know that, too.

I don't have all the answers to the "Q" part of this, but I'll give it my best shot.

Hang in there!

YOU DID IT ON PURPOSE, YOU DIRTY RAT
DATE: 11/11/99
FROM: don@donmcgregor.com (Don McGregor)

Jon,

So, I get this phone call from my daughter, Lauren, the other night, and she says she has to give me "grief." And why? Why? Because of you, you dirty, no-good, Rhode Island red rooster! And you did it on purpose, I know you did, I also know what else you did, but that's another story! Now, see, I know why every issue of Comic Book Artist some pro or other is pissed off at you! Sheesh! See if I let you come prowling around my place again after hernia surgery.

Ah! So you want to know what the beef is, huh? Making believe you don't know.

You know you printed that photo of me smoking a cigarette just so Lauren could see it. You knew the score. You knew she'd call. Don't try to deny it, Mr. Cooke.

My story is, the photo was doctored. By you! To incriminate me.

I'm standing by it.

I should also say she brought me to tears, Jon, because after joking around, she was telling me that she'd showed the magazine to some of the women she works with, and none of them have relationships with their dads like we do, and that she cherishes it. I use words to tell stories, but there really aren't any words to tell her how much it means to me that she feels that way.

Oh, and by the way, have someone proofread your captions. Sabre was created by me for a weekly newspaper that Jim Salicrup was going to do when Mad Genius Associates existed. He was called Dagger, at first, but I liked Sabre better. And part of the original concept came from watching Captain Blood with Errol Flynn, thinking there had never been a black swashbuckler battling slavery, and from that came flintlock lasers, swords, and bandoleers. And his history and personality. I'm not sure how I planned to fit everything into a weekly (I believe Jim was going to do it as a weekly) strip, but I was nothing if not nuts and ambitious.

Oh, and get it right will you, Amazing Adventures ended with #39, not #29. You killed Craig and I off before our best issues.

Other than that, Jon...How's your day.

Re: YOU DID IT ON PURPOSE, YOU DIRTY RAT
DATE: 11/12/99
FROM: Jon Cooke

Mr. McGregor:

I take great umbrage to your unwarranted and vicious attack on my motives behind publishing the photograph of yourself and Mr. Russell. As a matter of fact, yes, the picture was altered--I photomanipulated the marijuana joint out of your hand and put in a Lucky Strike.

Oddly enuff, the actual photographer just got in touch with me, a Mr. Sam Maronie--he's at smaronie@ccm.stlcc.cc.mo.us. Take it up with him, you miserable, ancient reactionary old right-winger!

Hope your kids liked the coverage in CBA. Your siblings and Mom should receive their copies anytime now.

And, as a matter of fact, I have it on good authority that Amazing Adventures was, in fact, cancelled with issue #18--the subsequent "run" is just a drug-induced illusion foisted upon a young, impressional readership. It's all a SHAM, Donald Francis McGregor! And you also know damn well that, in point of truth, that I, Jon B. Cooke (James Warren incarnate) created Sabre, intending to first call him Needledick, but thought better after I discussed the matter with my close personal associate, James Shooter. And you, I also have on good authority, are merely a nightmare I am forced to experience....

Oh my god, I think I'm having a breakdown... and it's all your fault, McGregor! And stay away from my close personal friend Tom Ziuko!

And, so, how's your day?

Say howdy to the Clan for me!

yer pal,
Jawnnie Bee Kook

YOU DID IT ON PURPOSE, YOU DIRTY RAT
DATE: 11/12/99
FROM: don@donmcgregor.com (Don McGregor)

Jon,

I dare you to print these letters and response. It was great after a long day at the con.

Don

Re: YOU DID IT ON PURPOSE, YOU DIRTY RAT
DATE: 11/13/99
FROM: Jon Cooke

Mr. Donald Francis McGregor:

On the advice of my attorney, I request that you no longer contact me personally, electronically or by any other means lest you goad the wraith of my shylock!

Seriously, me wuv you long time, Joe.

Jon

Re: ZORRO NEWSPAPER STRIP ATTACHMENTS & LAUREN
DATE: 11/23/99
FROM: Jon Cooke

Meester McG:

Yes! I did save the Sutton letter by yerself and intend to use it as a LOC for next ish. Good luck with the Zorro gig--I hope they renew. Let's hook up when Lauren comes around--I have to go to NYC to interview Carmine Infantino(!) so maybe we can coordinate. Sure, use the letters on the website, what the hell do I care? See the new Bond? I haven't but have been seeing the old ones these past few nights. You Only Live Twice really sucks, in my humble opinion, but I'm loving the quirky, bizarre Casino Royale--very weird pacing, that moving, but David Niven, Sellers and Woody Allen are great...

See ya!

Jon

SABRE SLANDER
DATE: 11/23/99
FROM: don@donmcgregor.com (Don McGregor)

Jon,

You gotta watch Widescreen uncut prints of Bond. And Casino Royale. A good Bond movie? Now I know you're nuts.

Oh, and just cause in Rhode Island high school the girls used to call you, "Needledick" is no reason to take it out on Sabre.

You can now do your Rhode Island Red Rooster impression, which has stayed in Lauren's mind since San Diego. I believe it has given her nightmares. Rob didn't care, as long as you smuggled him into whatever party you were going to go to.

That's all I know.

Well, that and you didn't have the balls to print those letters, but then again, with a name like "Needledick" what can you expect.

Ya gotta admit, Jon. That woulda been some letter column.

Carmine Infantino.

It never ends!

I guess you do got balls, despite the nickname you came up with.

Don

Re: SABRE SLANDER
DATE: 11/24/99
FROM: Jon Cooke

C'mon! Casino Royale is technically a Bond movie, right? Some hilarious lines in there but they were smoking way too much weed when they were doing it. Did it bomb upon release? I have mixed feelings about the Bond movies overall--they don't hold up well as an adult but, taken for what they are, they are a lot of fun (and 40 years worth, yet!).

Me don't understand Rhode Island Rooster reference. Me smoke too much weed?

I'll have you know I'm extremely well endowed and served as Bob Larkin's model for his mock-Bond movie poster in National Lampoon, "The Spy with the Biggest Penis You Ever Saw In Your Life."

Tying it all up quite nicely, I remain,

Sincerely yours,
Cooke... Jon Cooke.

(And I DO have cajones! Did I not publish a circulation-killing, rambling, pointless, endless, nonsensical 14-page interview with one past-his-prime, washed up, passe old windbag named Donald Francis McGregor? Talk about courage! Plus I corrupted the magazine with not one, not two, but THREE photographs of his horrible, repulsive visage!)

Happy Thanksgiving. And I love you, Donnie.

Re: Add as post-post script to last letter
DATE: 11/24/99
FROM: Jon Cooke

Thank god we printed pictures of your lovely daughter, Lauren Christine, which doubtless saved the magazine from extinction due to your sales-plummeting appearance. Pray tell, she is, of course, adopted--and, of course, having met your wonderful mother and siblings, you, too, were left on the McGregor doorstep as a tot, I assume?

Peace & Love,
Jonnykins

RESPONSE TO POSTSCRIPT
DATE: 11/24/99
FROM: don@donmcgregor.com (Don McGregor)

Jon,

Whatta ya, nuts? You think you're going to get the last word in in my little corner of cyberspace?

I have no idea what you were doing before you did your infamous Rhode Island Red Rooster dance, but I read your response to Lauren and she said it is vividly etched in her mind as one of the most repulsive mating dances of all time, and that ultimately such a display caused an extinction of that species. Rob said, if he could get into the party for free, he didn't care what kind of dance you did; he's oblivious to it.

And maybe you are smoking something weird, cause your attention span is appalling, since I did admit, at the end you must have some cajones. I have learned, though, from the above statement by Lauren, that that did not save Rhode Island. Only Super Chicken can do that. He once saved the entire state from kidnapping, and thus gave it a claim to fame.

If the interview was rambling, pointless, endless and nonsensical, not to mention circulation killing, don't they blame the person man or woman (Your gender bender proclivities are beside the point) who conducted the interview?

I remain, your most ardent fan, but will NEVER, EVER watch you do that dance again, with your hands tucked into your armpits, and crowing as you prance around outside the Marriott Hotel.

San Diego almost had an seizure at such a spectacle.

Don

I really hate you
DATE: 12/07/99
FROM: Jon Cooke

Rhode Island Red Chicken dance, my ass, Donald! I NEVER affected such a riotous display in a prestigious hotel in all of my life! Lies, I tell you, lies! I believe it took place OUTSIDE the said establishment. And wasn't I sexy? (Yes, Rob was oblivious to it, you're right on that--but I think Lauren thought I was cute.)

I've yet to check out what slander you're spreading about me on your web page but plan a mode of attack soon. Give my dearest sympathies to your engaging wife--living with you must be utter terror ("Where's my 'Nathaniel Dusk'??? Where's my Zorro Sundays??? Call Jon; get him on the line, pronto!!! Chop-chop!!!") What we suffer to live in your presence. Job, move over.

Your most ardent fan and admirer,
Jon "Uber Chicken" Cooke

GET A GRIP, JON
DATE: 12/08/99
FROM: don@donmcgregor.com (Don McGregor)

Jon,

It is disturbing to see your spiralling descent into comics madness. No one ever said you did your "riotous display" in a "prestigious hotel." You just fluttered all around the outside of it.

Now, since being on the Internet, I've learned "sexy" is a most subjective word, but given the trauma it caused to Lauren (including temporary and merciful blindness) she decided she needed therapy just to recover from the inititial sight. I'm forwarding all the bills to you.

Please,do not make me have to refer to this matter again, as it will cause me to have to go into therapy, as well, and I'd hate to have to send you the bills for that.

I'll be with Rob and Lauren on New Year's Eve, and hopefully we will never recall that moment in the past year, and never see anything like it in the next Millennium.

With all that, you know you have all our love and trust, and embrace you and your family warmly.

Tell the truth, Jon. Your wife did not know exactly who she was getting involved with when she first met you, and now her life is a nightmare of comic book bumper stickers and stacks of comics growing up the walls. Right?

If you must hang in there, could you do with something knotted around your neck. Something festive for the holidays.

Don

Signed & Numbered Limited Editions

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DETECTIVES INC.: A TRUE INSPIRATION!!
DATE: 3/18/99
FROM: Tgglider (Ken Garing)

Dear Mr. McGregor,
My name is Ken Garing, and I live in Modesto, CA (about an hour an' a half from San Francisco). Today (March 17) I bought a comic that I have been waiting for, for about 2+ months, DETECTIVES INC. I love this book! Allow me to explain.

When I was very small, my mom was kind enough to buy me a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles trade-paperback. It was published by First comics, and it collected the first 3 Eastman and Laird TMNT issues. I still have it and it is one of my favorite comics. I liked it because of the grittiness of the art and stories. It was dark. The city was littered with garbage. The grimy alleys were highly detailed and created a gloomy atmosphere. The story was the same way. It had a lot of character. I had yet to find a book with such well-crafted urban decay. I have since bought hundreds of comics, and consider myself very eccentric in my tastes. I like anything from Erik Larsen to Moebius to Will Eisner to R. Crumb to John Romita Jr. I try to give everything a chance, but I don't have that much money, so if I go out on a limb and buy something without much or no prior knowledge I can only hope it will deliver.

Your book did that!

I don't like reading a comic or watching a movie if I don't get something out of it. Nowaday's you gotta fight for quality entertainment! You can't just be satisfied with whatever is handed to you on a golden platter, you gotta do some diggin' to find true quality. I'd rather rent MEAN STREETS or SHAFT for a buck then pay $7 to see some bullshit special effect WING COMMANDER movie. I want to be inspired, or intrigued when I'm done reading a comic. Again, your book DID that!

It reminded me of the joy I had gotten and still do from those old TMNT books. DETECTIVES INC. has immediately become a new favorite for me. I place it above my SIN CITY collection. I like Frank Miller but SIN CITY isn't gritty. It's violent and dark, and Miller has that whole crime noir thing down, but it doesn't look dirty. The writing is too poetic. His dialogue sounds well-written, yours sounds REAL!

I also like the fact that it takes place in the 80s. Back when bad guys were punks, not gangsta's. It adds even more gritty atmosphere.

I myself have been writing and drawing comics since I was 7 or 8, and it's all I really ever wanted to do. I have recently started showing some of my pages at conventions and have been getting some helpful and encouraging advice. I was working on a big graphic novel called FEUDAL NEW YORK, but I got tired of it after page 60 or so. I've set my sites lower and am doing a book called CITY WALLS about a bounty hunter in Manhattan, named Paul. Reading DETECTIVES INC sent me straight to my desk to finish writing the plot!

I know I wasted a lot of space trying to explain what this book truly meant to me, and I hope you realize that this is a comic I will always remember and love. I have already started saving up for SABRE and the second DETECTIVES INC collection in May.

That you very much Mr. McGregor for your time and work!

KEN GARING

Please, Ken, Don will do just fine. When I first started writing stories in Warren Magazines, I signed them Donald F. McGregor. I have no memory of why. Maybe I thought it sounded more authorial or something. But to be honest, I don't actually recall thinking of it in any terms. I do know that as I tell more stories over the years, I am more aware of the symbiosis between writer and reader, of that special connection when a story communicates, creates a bond between them. So, whenever anyone asks me what I do, these days, I either say I'm a writer or a story-teller. I've always loved to have a story TOLD to me, or loved to TELL a story. And though sometimes there has become an anxiety factor in trying to tell these stories, combined with trying to survive economically, over the years, when it works for a reader, when I feel I captured some essence, some possibility in a scene or character, I know there is nothing I'd rather do. Tell a story and get out clean. I'll even face trying to put your letter up on this Q & A internet and write an answer to it on this cockamamie computer pointedit screen, which is apparently what you have to do to get it so people can read your ideas and mine. I keep trying to ignore the codes and concentrate on what is being said, and what I should address in the answers.

I was communicating with John Warner (who used to write SON OF SATAN, among other comics) and in the line of work he does now with the science of psychology he has found that "stories are an incredibly important human activity."

I've had that essential belief since I can remember, and it grows stronger in me all the time. When DETECTIVES INC.: A Terror of Dying Dreams first appeared, a lesbian wrote to the book, stating that after reading it, she decided not to commit suicide. A man who worked with terminally ill patients wrote that reading SABRE gave him the strength to go back and stay with the job, helping these people, knowing how it was going to end. I told him he had the guts to do what I couldn't, but if what I did, telling stories, gave him strength, then it was worth all the moments when I thought I'd never find a way to finish some page, find the right approach to some moment that I thought was key to that story.

And by the way, Ken, just out of curiosity, I'd love to have you tell me why you were so looking forward to DETECTIVES, INC. for 2+ months. From what you say, you hadn't experienced them before. Lemme know.

Signed & Numbered Limited Editions
Sabre	Detectives Inc.: A Remembrance of Threatening Green

Dear Don,
Hope this reaches you. Just wanted to say thanks again for a great fan experience at MegaCon last weekend. You and your lovely daughter, Lauren, made it impossible to forget.

The trouble with this medium I have noticed that it rewards shiny, flashy crap and punishes real talent like you & the real storytellers. Well, I guess I will order a signed copy of DETECTIVES, INC. & anything you have there, once I recover from the con.

Anyway, you need any kind of help or get back in this area you give me a holler & I'll take you to lunch or supper.

Take care & my love to your family...

Carl

That's terrific of you, Carl.

Wonder if those folks running MegaCon feel Lauren and I helped make the con a "great fan experience?" Hmmm.

Anyhow, Carl, both Lauren and I enjoyed talking with you. Love from me and her, to you and your family, too.

And I'll definitely know who that signed and numbered DETECTIVES, INC. is going to!

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GREAT INTRO FOR MURDER BY CROWQUILL
DATE: 3/8/99
FROM: indypreviews@yahoo.com (Joe Zabel)

Don,
I'm sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. I just received the copy for the intro from Steve, and it is GREAT! Lots of fascinating details about the comics business back then (I especially like the comment about how too many typewritten fan letters was considered a kiss of death!) and a clear picture of what kind of struggle it was, and continues to be, to publish comics that break out of the tired, safe superhero genre.

I'd like to write a little introduction to your introduction, if you don't mind. Just to tell readers that I'd invited you to write about DETECTIVES, INC., and talk up your pioneering efforts in the mystery comics field, including the great DAVID TURNER/RYS O'BRIEN series for CREEPY. Considering how impressed I was with A TANGIBLE HATRED as a youth, I'd really get a kick out of tipping my hat to its author!

Thanks for making this anthology a very special event.

Best,
Joe Zabel

Thank you, Joe,
Here we can do a book that helps the Comic Book Legal Defense fund and promote mysteries in comics. It's a win-win situation from my point of view.

One of Jim Salicrup's favorite stories was the second in the Turner series, THE NIGHT THE SNOW SPILLED BLOOD. It's probably my favorite, too. Wonderful Tom Sutton artwork. I still like the scene where the cops talk about the Charlie Brown Christmas special. The third story had some editor screwing around with the copy. They didn't butcher the story as I recall, just cleaved some of heart and soul from it.

And you folks should check out indypreviews and MURDER BY CROWQUILL, while we're on the subject.

Tell ­'em Don sent you.

Or, if you prefer, Groucho!

Signed & Numbered Limited Editions
Detectives Inc.: A Remembrance of Threatening Green	Detectives Inc.: A Terror of Dying Dreams

THANKS FOR BEING AT THE MEGA CON
DATE: 3/8/99
FROM: cslepage@mediaone.net (Charles LePage)

Don,

I discovered today that you have your own web site, which is a wonderful thing! You and your family have done an excellent job with it.

I thanked you in Orlando for having the gumption to put so many multifaceted black characters in the comics you write. Let me thank you now for something else: I have a friend who I am introducing to comics, who happens to be a lesbian. She does enjoy fiction that features lesbians, so one of the comics I loaned her was STRANGERS IN PARADISE, which she loved. (I also loaned her SUPERMAN: PEACE ON EARTH. No lesbians that I know of, but a book an adult could appreciate.) But, what next? She wanted to know if there were any other comics out there with lesbians...duh! How could I forget DETECTIVES, INC.? And the first collection comes out next week, if Image actually gets it out on time...PERFECT!

You have written so many comics for ADULTS, comics I can present to friends who say, "You still read comics?" Yes, I do, and this is why!

Please come back to Orlando soon...maybe I can get some "newbies" to come with me and introduce them to someone who writes comic books for readers who AREN'T 13 years old.

Charles S. LePage
http://www.jacksonville.net/~ncrl

Charles,
Well, I don't believe I'll be back to a MegaCon anytime soon, but you can always get the books through here. And you can be sure that the signed and numbered editions will be recorded and a file kept on them.

You know, there's an online comic paper that you have download. Well, I don't know too much about downloading, so I've only managed to look at one section that had a history of gays in comics. And I didn't see any mention of Ruth Hamilton and Linda Clarke from DETECTIVES, INC. or Deuces Wild and Summer Ice from the Billy Graham drawn Sabres. If all goes well, and we get to reprint those books, I've got a funny story with Billy about the days when he handed in various pages from what was SABRE #7, which featured the birth of the twins, and Deuces and Summer kissing. Anyhow, as I was looking at your name, it seems to me I saw your name as one of the contributors. If I'm right, maybe you can let them know about this oversight.

And look up Beau Yarbrough's Comic Wire column of March 4, 1999 at www.comicbookresources.com for an article on DETECTIVES, INC. There is some misinformation in the article, about what characters appeared where first, but the quotes are all accurate. It also talks about Taku and Venomm from PANTHER'S RAGE.

I'm glad you still read comics. I hope I'll be able to keep writing comics that make you say this is some of the reasons you do!

Thanks,

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MY LIFE READING COMICS
DATE: 3/5/99
FROM: Lostnbronx (David Collins-Rivera)

Don,
I don't know...call it monomania, call it circular fate, call it a demonstration of fractals in nature; comics have been something I've either pursued insanely, taken for granted, or actively avoided ­ sometimes all at once!

DETECTIVES, INC. virtually taught me what human storytelling could be. I kid you not: when I first read your tale back in the eighties, I thought that no comic could ever top it. I've compared most I've read since that time, not directly to it, but rather, to the impact it had on me. There aren't many that stand out; and those that do, do so for varied reasons ­ not the least of which (now, anyway) is nostalgia.

Yeah, yeah...I'm a frustrated comic book writer. Does it show that blatantly? Sorry, but I have you, among just a handful of others, to blame. If your work hadn't been so damned honest and flat-out inspiring, I doubt I'd have kept this personal dream alive (not that it's taken me all that far, but you get the idea.)

Please forgive my fawning; it's late, and I'm tired. I guess this e-mail is only to let you know, in case you have moments of doubt, that your body of work, thus far, has been tremendously influential ­ in aspects far beyond comics, or publishing in general. It's been at least fifteen years since I first read DETECTIVES, INC., but I don't think a month has gone by in all that time when I haven't thought of it. There isn't an attempt at a comic script that I've ever made, where it hasn't risen before my eyes as either a cheerleader or specter of doom.

Thank you for caring so deeply about your work in a field that is rife with hacks and (strangely enough) prima donnas. I'm happy to hear about the reissue of DETECTIVES, INC., and I wish you the very best in life.

David Collins-Rivera

David,
And the same wishes for you.

It means a lot to me what you've written, and what so many fans of DETECTIVES, INC. have written or told me over the years, about their love for these characters. If these books are to find new readers, certainly letters like yours should give them real incentive. And if they've been reluctant to order off the Web, well such a heart-felt tribute should make them say, this time I'm going to do it. I believe in working with the comic stores, supporting the comic conventions, but in some areas, people will have no access to a book like DETECTIVES, INC. or SABRE, and the Internet might be another way to help keep different types of comics alive. I don't have any real proof of that yet, but I believe it's there. The jury's still out to how all this will do.

However, you should know, I was coming off a bad con experience, and certainly I had some doubt about whether or not I was right to overprint DETECTIVES, INC. and your words came at a time that affected me.

Signed & Numbered Limited Editions
Detectives Inc.: A Terror of Dying Dreams	Sabre

HI
DATE: 3/1/99
STORYTELLER@inc.-net.com (Scott Davis)

Hi Don,
Just wanted to drop you a quick email to let you know how much I've enjoyed your writing over the years! I'm one of those guys who followed you wherever you went, after reading your BLACK PANTHER stories in JUNGLE ACTION. SABRE was mind-blowing back when it came out, as I was a fan of both you and Paul Gulacy...Great stuff!

Now I own and run a comic shop up here in New Hampshire and recommend your writing with the "I've enjoyed everything he's ever written, so yes you should give X a try (usually back issues of JUNGLE ACTION or ZORRO or SABRE.)

It's great to see new stuff from you too.

Anyways, here's hoping that you have a great 1999.

Thanks for the great stories...
Scott
Storyteller's Comics

Scott,
Okay, Scott, I can't ask for more than that. New Hampshire doesn't sound all that far away. Maybe we should talk about doing a book store signing. Or books can be ordered straight from M & R PRODUCTIONS. I haven't done the RETAILERS SEGMENT yet, but it's one of the things I intend to do.

Oh, and hey, if you want to check out Mike Mayhew's evocative rendition of ALEXANDER and PENELOPE RISK, none of that's up on our web-page but you can go to the best PRIVATE EYE SITE on the web that I know of, and which, when I get to doing the LINKS SECTION, you can believe THRILLING DETECTIVE WEB SITE will be on there, by clicking onto http://www.colba.net/~kvnsmith/thrillingdetective/. You'll find Rainier and Denning listed there right alongside Philip Marwlowe and Sam Spade. Kevin Smith includes comics, not omits them. And the Western equivalent, the biggest cowboy net on the web, and the neatest is >http://www.cowboypal.com/, overseen by Joe Konnyu. The Q & A section alone is staggeringly informative, and Joe, like Kevin, doesn't ignore comics. You can see covers of old Western Comics covers,including a number of early HOPALONG CASSIDY covers that my son, Rob, scanned, and even coverage of the ZORRO NEWSPAPER STRIP Tom Yeates and I are doing. I will wax more eloquently about both these places and more great links I've run across on the Web.

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WELCOME TO COMICON!
DATE: 2/16/99
FROM: tfield@cio.com (Tom Field)

Don,
As a longtime fan of your work (THE BLACK PANTHER, SABRE, ZORRO ­ I've been there for the lo-ong haul), I'm delighted to see you setting up shop at the Comicon.Com.

And I'm glad to see that you're still so active in comics. Of all the "name" comics writers of your generation ......you're the one who seems to have stayed truest to his original vision. You're the only writer among your peers whose work seems not to have hit the creative plateau or, worse, the slippery slope of decline.

Does Marvel ever talk about reprinting any of your classic BLACK PANTHER or KILLRAVEN stories? You'd think there'd be a decent market out there among the 30-something readers of my generation.

Whatever became of Billy Graham? I always loved his comics work, but I haven't seen book from him since your SABRE series in the early 80s. I never see any of his original art for sale, either, and I'd buy some in a heartbeat. Did he just take all his originals and disappear?

Lots of luck with your ongoing projects, Don, and mucho thanks for all the years of entertainment. My childhood (thus, my life) was immeasurably richer for having read your stories.

Best,
Tom Field

Tom,
The storyteller couldn't ask for more gratifying words than that. It makes all the anxiety I have when I sit down to face that blank sheet of paper worthwhile. That anxiety stays to this day. Somehow I thought it would lessen with time. I recall years ago talking about this very concept with Archie Goodwin. Archie was working on a prose piece, and I was going to glance at it, and he asked me not to because even if I liked it, it might make it harder for him to go back to writing it. And I innocently asked Archie, "Doesn't it ever get easier?"

I have an answer now. As far as I'm concerned. Nope.

I hope you don't mind that I edited writer's names out of your letter, but it seems unfair to attack writers who can't defend themselves, Tom, and so I made a judgment call on it. But I'm glad you feel my work still speaks on a personal level. Maybe part of that anxiety comes from a fear of that "slippery slope of decline" or that people will think, "Well, he hit his creative plateau back in..." and you name the year or the series.

But really, it isn't that that causes that intensity of nerves, if I really think about it. It is a little bit knowing that those stories, and those words you put down there, will be around for a long time, and people will be affected by those books and be bringing them up to you to sign. But what really causes it, I think, is because facing the blank sheet of paper must remain important, what you put down and what you give to the audience. That this is the best damn page of comics I can do on this day and this time, and I have to rejoin the battle tomorrow. I don't want to betray myself, the readers, or this medium we all love, comics. I might fail, but it won't be because I stopped caring, or giving the newest story everything I had.

Billy Graham died. The comics industry seems to have scarcely made note of his passing, and here's a black artist who went all the way back to working at E.C. If all goes well, and we get to reprint the Billy Graham drawn SABREs, I'm going to write an extensive tribute piece to all the times we had together, from when I first was travelling into New York City, trying to sell my stories, and staying with Billy and Alex Simmons, who is the creator of Blackjack. I'll be calling people then, to make sure I have all the facts straight. I'd love to have this project ready for summer, but there's a lot of complicated factors inherent in doing this. All the color has to be shot out of the books, and three different processes were used doing to course of those seven books. There are at least 2 issues that have atrocious color, so even if I could afford to print the books with color, I would never go with those. People often don't realize how much color can affect a book. It is really the first thing a reader sees when casually browsing through a copy of the title on the stands. Gary and Dawn Guzzo feel that this can be done, and with Dawn's expertise in computer technology, that the integrity of Billy's art can be retained, but it's been some time since I've had an update from them on how we are really coming along to making this a reality.

Once I know more, however, this will be the place where I'll update you.

Promise.

And if the first SABRE, and the two DETECTIVES, INC. series do well enough, it should help us make that a reality, sooner than later. Beyond that, the plan is to then reprint the Jose Ortiz SABRE: "THE DECADENCE INDOCTRINATION" which in my mind was the first true Sabre graphic novel, in that it was scheduled to be the longest heroic epic I'd ever written, 600 to 700 pages in planned length. 125 of it has seen print.

Now, talk about scary, coming back to such an ambitious project all these years later, and keeping in mind the parameters I'd had for the series, the major and minor themes, the texture of those characters and what happens in their lives.

But I'd love for the people who love SABRE, and the new readers yet to discover him, to have the chance to do so.

Yes, some folks at Marvel, have upon occasion, over the years, mentioned doing a collection, normally of PANTHER'S RAGE. Once, it was actually discussed about my being able to add pages and clean up some areas, but that never happened. Oddly enough, of all the Panther stories I did, the one I'd most like to see reprint in PANTHER'S QUEST, which I did with Gene Colan for MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS. It was segmented into 25 Chapters and fairly buried. At the time I wrote the series set in South Africa and dealing with Apartheid, it was a subject that the media hardly covered. And there are moments of story-telling in there that I still truly feel work. In COMIC BOOK PROFILES you can read some behind-the-scenes tales of working with Gene on that book, including the impassioned sequence concerning little Theodore Olebogeng. Check it out.

People like you, Tom, help me make it through on the really difficult days.

Thanks, and as someone once said, Hang in there.