Back in the day, I missed out on the first graphic novel from Eclipse Comics, a gem by Don McGregor and Paul Gulacy titled Sabre and subititled "Slow Fade of an Endangered Species". I jumped on the show with the first issue of the ongoing series which reprinted the debut in color for the first time.
Many years later I got hold of the tenth anniversary reprint from Eclipse of the story in its entirety.
Yesterday I found the original six dollar Eclipse publication from 1978, and I picked it up for less than the cover price. Six bucks in 1978 for a comic was astronomical, today sadly that price for this package seems quaint.
It's a beautiful package and I have not yet read it again, but I'm eager to begin. the artwork by Gulacy looks especially crisp.
Update: I just finished reading this elegant and elaborate tale. Typical for a McGregor effort there is a torrent of description and analysis, but it blends exceedingly well with Gulacy's slick renderings. Sabre is not a perfect story, the storytelling falling short in some places in the face of the density it tries to deliver, but it's a compelling story of a man and woman trying to keep together and keep clear in a muddling and maddening world. There's a cool and a coolness to Gulacy's artwork. But I do think that Gulacy is better than his inspiration Steranko at offering up a three-dimensional world. Steranko's design is more dazzling, but Gulacy takes those same stylings and converts them to a more deliberate story mode.
Sabre is a story worth reading and reading again, and it's fantastic to have this first Eclipse product in its earliest and historically significant format.
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sound like your in for a treat, matey. I loved Slow Fade when it came out, I was a big Don McGregor fan.
ReplyDeleteI just updated after reading it. So see my comments there. I realized after getting into it again, that it's been many many years since I've read it. There was an echo, but a lot of it was new. I'm very different from the youth that might've read it the first time. The story delivers on a different resonance for me at this time.
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Fantastic series. I think Don has such talent for helping readers get i9nto the relationship between characters. He create some weird characters too, but oh so memorable.
ReplyDeleteCheck out Cliff Meth's Gene Colan blog entry to help Don out