Chris and Steven explore the first few issues of Don McGregor and Paul Gulacy's groundbreaking series, SABRE — a surreal, post-apocalyptic spectacle.
COMICS ROT YOUR BRAIN! is a deep dive into ‘80s comics (plus a few notable exceptions). In this weekly podcast, screenwriters Steven Bagatourian (AMERICAN GUN) and Chris Derrick (STAR TREK: PICARD) discuss their favorite books, runs, and creators from the Bronze Age.
SHOW NOTES:
00:52 - Some background info on the storyline for SABRE — the first “graphic album” for the direct market — a sci-fi story set in the “distant future of 2,018” LOL
4:40 - Don McGregor’s delightfully ornery introductory essay to the Image reprint of SABRE.
14:55 - The “throw you in the deep end”-style storytelling of SABRE — in media res, wildly expository and dense dialogue, the art of melodrama — all of it in service of casting a rather immersive spell.
18:33 - Soliloquies in Shakespeare and SABRE — “thought balloons” spoken aloud, and the eternal battle to believe in a smart audience that wants to be challenged.
23:14 - “Pure comics!” A post-apocalyptic ghost of an amusement park and the bizarre evildoer known as Grouse — a rapscallion refugee from an animated film/Nazi cat-rat… The high weirdness of stories built specifically for comics.
25:34 - The gloriously purple prose of Don McGregor and how Paul Gulacy’s stunning artwork is at risk of being drowned under a roaring river of words.
41:35 - Paul Gulacy in 1978 was merely 25 years old, and yet creating impressively lovely, Steranko-influenced art with a bizarre plasticine rigidity all its own.
43:14 - Paul Gulacy never read “How To Draw Comics the Marvel Way” …and that’s absolutely not a problem!
47:13 - Don McGregor making life Hell for Paul Gulacy — “Draw me a giant train crash and a massive gun battle with dozens of characters... on horseback!”
57:56 - Lord help us, we attempt to describe the psychedelic visual world of SABRE and its wild cast of characters.
1:06:14 - The inconcievable notion of releasing a comic book as narratively dense as SABRE in the ADD world of today.
1:12:53 - SABRE: THE EARLY FUTURE YEARS - a SABRE relaunch from Don McGregor …and Trevor Von Eeden?!! The Kickstarter that almost was.…
01:19:26 - SABRE is a story about battling conformity and this also appeared to be one of Don McGregor’s chief battles in life.
1:23:52 - The British Invasion in comics — and their florid, evocative prose stylings — owe a debt to Don McGregor’s poetic voice in his vast ouevre (BLACK PANTHER, KILLRAVEN, NATHANIEL DUSK, DETECTIVES INC, and, of course, SABRE), with a detour into how impossible it was to ink the amazing Gene Colan.
1:26:45 - McGregor’s impassioned, provocative text piece in SABRE #2, pushing back on the regressive culture of the comics
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