McGregor entered the comics industry with stories in
Warren Publishing's black-and-white
horror-comics anthology magazines. His first purchased script, "When Wakes The Dreamer", did not see print until
Eerie #45 (Feb. 1973), long after his first published script, the 12-page cover story "The Fade-Away Walk" in
Creepy #40 (July 1971), credited as Donald F. McGregor, with art by
Tom Sutton. Through 1975, he wrote more than a dozen stories for those magazines and its sister title
Vampirella, drawn by artists including
Richard Corben and
Reed Crandall. That story eventually appeared in
Vampirella #21 (Dec. 1972), with art by
Felix Mas. After a stint with Marvel, McGregor returned to write another 18 stories for those Warren titles as well as
The Rook between 1979 and 1983, with artists including
Paul Gulacy,
Alfredo Alcala, and
Val Mayerik. earning $125 a week, and "Black Panther" in
Jungle Action #6-24 (Sept. 1973 - Nov. 1976, except for #23, a reprint). Comics historian
Les Daniels noted that, "The scripts by Don McGregor emphasized the character's innate dignity." Unusually for mainstream comics, the Panther stories were set mostly in Africa, in the Panther's fictional homeland
Wakanda 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. In 2010,
Comics Bulletin ranked McGregor's run on
Jungle Action third on its list of the "Top 10 1970s Marvels". Artist
Rich Buckler, his first "Black Panther" collaborator, called McGregor and fellow Marvel writer
Doug Moench "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 said of the 1970s "Black Panther" series: He and artist
P. Craig Russell engineered color comic books' first known dramatic interracial kiss in mainstream comics (as opposed to
underground comix), between the "Killraven" characters
M'Shulla and
Carmilla Frost, in
Amazing Adventures #31 (July 1975). Three years earlier, McGregor and artist
Luis García Mozos had already presented the first known interracial kiss in any comics in
Warren Publishing's black-and-white
horror-comics magazine,
Creepy #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's run on
Jungle Action ended when the series was canceled due to low sales. He also wrote stories for the Marvel characters
Luke Cage and
Morbius the Living Vampire, and created the
detective feature "Hodiah Twist", seen in the black-and-white magazines
Vampire Tales #2 (Oct. 1973) and
Marvel Preview #16: "Masters of Terror" (Fall 1978). McGregor adaptation of
Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado" as a backup story in
Marvel Classics Comics #28 (1977) was artist
Michael Golden's first published comics work. A Marvel "
Bullpen Bulletins" page in 1975 announced McGregor's planned
radio drama series,
Night Figure, that was to have run on
WHBI-FM.
Grant Morrison argues that McGregor's style of poetic narration was a strong influence on
Alan Moore and
Neil Gaiman. They say that McGregor had a passionate fan base and that his writing style was "overwrought, stretched to the limits of conventional grammar, with a pained, self-analytical edge."
Graphic novel pioneer '' (1978). Cover art by
Paul Gulacy. One of the first modern
graphic novels, and the first sold through the then-emerging "
direct market" of comic-book stores. With artist
Paul Gulacy, McGregor created one of the first modern
graphic novels,
Eclipse Enterprises'
Sabre: Slow Fade of an Endangered Species, a near-future,
dystopian
science fiction swashbuckler that introduced the title character. McGregor's work premiered in August 1978, two months before
Will Eisner's better-known pioneering graphic novel
A Contract with God.
Sabre was additionally the first graphic novel sold through the new "
direct market" of comic-book stores. It later spun off a 14-issue Eclipse comic-book series. Also for Eclipse, McGregor wrote
Detectives Inc., a pair of graphic novels set in contemporary
New York City and starring the interracial private eye team Ted Denning and Bob Rainier.
Detectives Inc.: A Remembrance of Threatening Green (1980), with
DC Comics artist
Marshall Rogers, and
Detectives, Inc.: A Terror Of Dying Dreams, with veteran Marvel artist
Gene Colan, who would become a frequent collaborator, comprised the series. The first of these two books included the first
lesbian characters in mass-market comics. During this period, McGregor also wrote the two prose works
Dragonflame and Other Bedtime Nightmares and
The Variable Syndrome.
Later comics Other work includes the
DC Comics'
miniseries 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. 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 (issues #13–37, Feb.–Dec. 1989); and, later, with artist
Dwayne Turner in the squarebound miniseries ''Panther's Prey
(May–Oct. 1991). McGregor and Marshall Rogers crafted a two-part story in Spider-Man issues #27–28 dealing with bullying and gun violence. Other comic book work in the 1990s includes Blade #1–3 (Nov. 1998–Jan. 1999), starring the Marvel Comics vampire-slayer; the 14-page Morbius, the Living Vampire story "Desiring Martine", with artist Mike Dringenberg, in the Marvel one-shot Strange Tales: Dark Corners
#1 (May 1998); and various issues of such Topps Comics licensed properties as Mars Attacks!, James Bond, the Lone Ranger, and The X-Files''. As well, McGregor is one of the primary writers of the
Zorro canon, with a dozen issues of Topps'
Zorro (#0–11, Nov. 1993–Nov. 1994) and the spinoff
Lady Rawhide #1–5 (Oct. 1996–June 1997; reprinted by
Image Comics as ''Zorro's Lady Rawhide: Other People's Blood
#1–4, March–June 1999); two years of the Zorro
newspaper comic strip (with artists Tod Smith and Thomas Yeates, premiering April 12, 1999, with the first year collected in a 2001 Image Comics book); Zorro'' #1–6 (May-Oct. 2005), with artist Sidney Lima, from the
NBM Publishing imprint Papercutz; and 2010's
Zorro: Matanzas, a sequel to the Topps series, with penciler Mike Mayhew, for
Dynamite Entertainment. ==Bibliography==