Don McGregor Website: Sabre

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SABRE (30th Anniversary Edition)
Created & Written by Don McGregor
Illustrated by Paul Gulacy

If the 30th Anniversary Edition of Sabre is not at your store, amid all those colorful books, go up and ask "Where in the Hell is Sabre, and why are you hiding him?"

Okay, ask nice, then.

But ask.

It's from Desperado Publishing. It's the first-ever hardcover edition. And it has a blistering, never-before-revealed Behind the Scenes Rant.

I promise you this: If I end up going under the knife, I'm not letting people rewrite history to conveniently lay a misty fog over what happened.

The following is the opening for the new Intro. The rest of it you can find in the book. Following this is a response from Dean Mullaney. Dean started Eclipse Publishing with Sabre. It was written in 1976. It almost didn't see print then. And for the first time, the reader learns some

of the reasons why.

SABRE: THE 30th ANNIVERSARY INTRO

30 YEARS LATER ON COMICS, WRITING, RACE AND SEX

by Don McGregor

Copyright 2008 by Don McGregor

Some people should just leave you the fuck alone when you're due to write an introductory piece that is about your personal history.

Some people seem to feel they can write about your life, without your having a say in defending yourself.

Some folks will twist what happened, and they will forget what they did, and how underhanded they went about it. Some will want to take credit for what you achieved on your own terms, and at a cost of your own life, and to those close about you.

And think maybe you'll die before ever telling what really happened.

I'm writing this a month after Steve Gerber died.

I'm writing this after being told I "ruined" Sabre by making Melissa Siren a white woman, and having her pregnant, and "Don't I know this is a racist country?"

No, I don't know that America is a racist country!

I do know there are racists in this country. I do know they are as virulent a force today as they were thirty years ago.

I do know race was a factor in this book almost not ever becoming a reality.

I know somewhere, some time, I have written these words before, but they need repeating here: It is not enough for a writer to an idea as to what a book can be. It is not enough to figure out how to keep the vision alive and true until it becomes a printed reality the reader can hold in their hands. It is not enough to desire to do something in the entertainment industry if it hasn't been done a hundred Goddamn times before! You don't only have to fight to create it, you often have to fight to get it even close to what you dreamed it could be.

_________________________

As for the Intro, it's the first time any of this background has ever been gone into any detail. Dean had to deal with the possibility of the book not seeing light of day because of Melissa being pregnant.

Some day maybe I will write that book on comics I've been asked about over the years, who knows.

Here is Dean Mullaney's response to the Intro:

Finally got a chance to read the intro. What happened was that one of the guys who works for me has a mild interest in comics and asked if he could borrow the book so he could devour the beautiful artwork. Well, he returned the book today with the comment: "There's so much STORY in there. He's got more story in 38 pages than most writers put in 300!" In other words, he brought the book home
for the art, and ended up raving about the story.

It still has impact, Don. We tend to forget that, having lived with the book for (gasp) thirty-plus years.

At any rate, the intro. You are one angry mutherfucker! Jesus Christ, if words could be guns, that intro was the equivalent of the Gattling gun in "The Wild Bunch." Whoo-boy. They talk about "Panther's Rage?" How about Don on a rampage. Yowza!

And I loved it.

You may be an old fart, but the passion never dies. And we'd have it no other way.

Your brother always and forever,
Dean

Dean-o!

Thanks so much. It means a lot to me that you feel the writing still has passion. That's really what the storyteller wants to know. What the storyteller will always fear can be lost. And I loved the "if words could be guns."

I actually never forget about SABRE, or the challenge of 38 pages having to create those characters. Despite the flaws I know the book has, I know many people DID get involved with those characters, and have continually let me know over the years.

One guy comes immediately to mind.

I was at a Con, sitting at a table, with stacks of SABRE and DETECTIVES INC. in front of me.

He just extended his index finger. And tapped several times on the stack of Sabres. And said, quietly, "Thank you for this, Don."

And walked away.

I've never forgotten it.
Don

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