Sabre (comics)
one of the first graphic novels
Sabre is the title of a creator-owned American graphic novel, first published in August 1978. Created by writer Don McGregor and artist Paul Gulacy, it was published by Eclipse Enterprises, later known as Eclipse Comics. It was one of the first American graphic novels, and the first to be distributed solely in comic book shops via the direct market. The story is a science fiction swashbuckler in which the self-consciously romantic rebel Sabre and his companion Melissa Siren fight the mercenary Blackstar Blood and others to achieve freedom and strike a blow for individuality.
Following the success of the graphic novel, an ongoing series continuing the story was published by Eclipse between 1982 and 1985.
Creation
Writer Don McGregor had received considerable acclaim with two Marvel Comics strips in the 1970s, "Killraven, Warrior of the Worlds" (in Amazing Adventures) and "The Black Panther" in Jungle Action. However, neither book was a strong seller and both would end up cancelled, leaving McGregor both without work and - due to the series both being work-for-hire - no means of completing his planned stories. He was also frustrated by Marvel's uneasiness with long plot arcs, and that he was only paid page rate for his work for the company, with no royalties. Thus McGregor began exploring work he would retain the rights to, and pitched a story called Dagger to Mad Genius, a small studio ran by Marvel alumni Jim Salicrup, Steve Gerber and Dave Kraft, as part of a planned anthology of creator-owned stories. The basic concept of the character came to McGregor when watching Errol Flynn movie Captain Blood on television.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sabre (comics)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.