Don McGregor's writing was always special. His work at Marvel during the Bronze Age was some of the smartest, most passionate and articulate of any writer from his era. Don wrote some of the most realistic action heroes ever. Don's characters have real emotions, not comic book emotions. They feel physical pain and emotional pain and speak profoundly about all of those pains.
We're delighted to present a massive four-part interview with the great Don McGregor that will run all week, similar to our multi-part interview with Don about his work on the classic Black Panther series. Enjoy part one of the reminiscence and be sure to come back tomorrow for the next part of our conversation.
Jason and Daniel for Comics Bulletin: How did you get involved with "Killraven" and what were you told about the book when you took over?
McGregor: I can answer that; I just have to try to organize the sequence of events and recall how the decisions were made. I wasn't aware of all the factors that influenced the decision editorially to give me "War of the Worlds' and Jungle Action to write.
Essentially, I was told I would be writing both series at the same time.
If you were working on staff at Marvel, the editor-in-chief would have staff meetings. I don't recall these happening on any schedule, just when new procedures were going to be discussed, or if the company were expanding the number of books done, topics along those lines. During those meetings, for those present, if talent were going to change on titles, or if someone at the meeting was going to be given a series to write, that's when you would find out about it.
I hadn't been at Marvel long in editorial (basically proof-reading reprint titles) to realize that there was a mostly unspoken rule, but there nonetheless, that if you were a writer and you worked on staff at $125 a week, you would eventually be able to supplement your income with writing assignments.
I later learned long after, when I was no longer writing either the Panther or Killraven or Morbius or Luke Cage that there wasn't much belief in my abilities as a writer and that I would be given titles that were marginal sellers at best and in genres that weren't known to sell well in the comics medium.
Jungle genre titles weren't doing big business in the 70s. The head people were trying to track everything. It had certainly been noted that Joe Kubert's Tarzan had died. If you had the King of the Jungle character fail with talent like Joe, it was apparent to some that jungle titles were going to die.
Thus, Jungle Action, which had essentially been a reprint book, but would now have new material with the Black Panther, was one of the titles given to me during that particular meeting. I had no idea that was going to happen before the meeting.
Now, there was the same general thought about science fiction comics; that they weren't giant sellers in the comic book marketplace.
In the case of "War of the Worlds," it I my impression that they did have high hopes for this series, but when it changed creative talents for its first three issues, it didn't take a prophet to see the writing on the wall, to paraphrase Paul Simon in his song "The Sounds of Silence."
