Post by Laurence Aikens

William Henderson Graham (July 1, 1935 – April 4, 1997) was a comics artist known for his work on the Marvel Comics series Luke Cage, Hero for Hire, and the Jungle Action feature “Black Panther”. A graduate of New York City’s Music & Art High School, he was influenced artistically by the work of Al Williamson, Frank Frazetta, Burne Hogarth, and George Tuska. One of his earliest comics projects was illustrating “Death Boat!” in Vampirella #1, one of Warren Publishing’s influential Black-and-white horror-comics magazines. He would pencil and self-ink a story in nearly every one of the first dozen issues of Vampirella, and an additional tale in issue #32 of its brethren’s publication Creepy. He left Warren and joined the creative team that launched Marvel’s Luke Cage, Hero for Hire, inking the premiere issue (June 1972). He either inked or penciled every issue of the book’s 16–issue run under its original title, and the first as the retitled Luke Cage, Power Man (Feb. 1974). He is credited as a co-writer of issues #14- 15. He collaborated on the critically lauded “Black Panther” series that ran in Jungle Action numbers 6–24 (Sept. 1973–Nov. 1976), becoming the series’ regular penciler with issue number 11 (Sept. 1974) and leaving after penciling the first five pages of issue 22 (July 1976). In 2010, Comics Bulletin ranked McGregor and his run on Jungle Action third on its list of the “Top 10 1970s Marvels”. He illustrated issues 3–9 of the Eclipse Comics series Sabre, a spin-off of one of the first graphic novels. He illustrated a story each by McGregor in Marvel’s Black-and-white horror-comics magazine Monsters Unleashed 11, an issue of the 1980s anthology Eclipse Monthly; and two issues of the black-and-white Eclipse Magazine. He was both the writer and artist of the six-page story “The Hitchhiker” in Eclipse Magazine 5. He appeared as an extra in TV commercials for products including beer and chewing gum. He played the artist father of one of the lead characters in McGregor’s unreleased Detectives Inc. graphic novels. He wrote several plays and received awards for his set design work as well. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence