Cover Painting

Not sure what this is from but I believe it was the cover for some sort of supernatural magazine of the late sixties.

Sherlock

Apparently another favorite of Gray's was Sherlock Holmes.

Zipatone Gags

Artist Ronn Sutton sends along this awesome and hilarious picture and great anecdote regarding Gray's work. Thank you, sir. Ronn says:

Morrow used a lot of zipatone on his work, and very cleverly (& amusingly) often incorporated the legal text, brand-name type, and sheet number into backgrounds as billboards, store names or signs in shop windows. But I often felt the funniest and cleverest bit appeared in the STAR TREK ANNUAL #1 in 1990 for DC. I kept looking at the backgrounds trying to figure out how he'd drawn the bits of hi-tech gadgetry that adorned the interior walls of the spaceship. And suddenly it hit me. He was using zipatone or Letratone architectural symbols, "birds-eye views" of cars and trucks, generally added to architect drawings to give some sense of scale. Here on this page you can find cars & trucks in the background of four of the six panels. Hilarious! And it works, too!

Zatanna

Zatanna the Magician was obviously a favorite of Gray's and he drew her for numerous sketches, commissions and even a few stories over the years. Here are a few.

UPDATE: Here's a link to an entire 7 page ZATANNA story by Morrow and writer Len Wein that you can read online from the original art:

http://www.comicretro.com/gallery/morrow.html

Daredevil

I don't think Gray ever actually drew DAREDEVIL but I found this montage of DD characters by him. Interesting but frankly, I'm nor thrilled with it.

Sheena, Queen of the Jungle

Will Eisner's SHEENA, QUEEN OF THE JUNGLE had been a popular TV series in the 1950's starring statuesque Irish McCalla. 1984's theatrical remake, however, starred Tanya Roberts, former TV "angel," (as in Charlie's) and was an immediate and somewhat legendary flop. In fact, the best thing about it could well be said to have been the Marvel licensed adaptation of it as drawn by Gray Morrow.

Although not the artist's best work, his sense of design and beautiful women shows through on every page, all of which can be found online here:

http://www.imagebam.com/gallery/93e502403ab8c53dbd50b65726c62d51/

Space Girls

Gray Covers # 2

Space 1999

Space 1999 was a dull mid-70's British sci-fi series starring Barbara Bain and her then real-life husband MARTIN LANDAU (both late of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE). Although it had been initially hailed as the second coming of STAR TREK, it proved to be a colorless mess and a retooling for its second and final season didn't help all that much.

SPACE: 1999, however, had a much better comic book adaptation than had STAR TREK. Charlton, although nearly on its last legs as a company, was experiencing a creative burst and put out both a color comic (written by Nick Cuti and Joe Gill with art by John Byrne, Joe Staton and Pat Boyette) and a black and white magazine with articles as well as comic stories. On the black and white mag, the Art Editor was Gray Morrow. Gray also did his usual splendid job of illustrating many of the stories that appeared. His crowning moments of awesome here, though, were his covers, of which we see two above, copied from the Net.

Gary Morrow's Superman

Here's the cover and one great page from one of Gray's relatively rare superhero outings, this one a team-up between the artist's unique version of SUPERMAN and DC's MADAME XANADU in a 1983 issue of DC COMICS PRESENTS.

Gray Covers # 1

Looking for all the world like a cover of one of the "Gothic novels" so prevalent in the early seventies, here's Gray doing a cover for DC's HOUSE OF SECRETS.

Gray Arrow

No idea why this sketch was done but isn't it a great shot of GREEN ARROW?

Brain of Blood

One of Gray's most recognizable movie posters is this painting for a 1972 grade Z Al Adamson schlockfest called BRAIN OF BLOOD. The picture reunited the stars of Adamson's better-known waste of celluloid, DRACULA VS FRANKENSTEIN--John Bloom, "Zandor Vorkov," and the director's wife, Regina Carroll. As usual with Adamson, a number of down on their luck bigger name actors were talked into appearing. In this case, they included Grant Williams, star of THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN and forty year veteran actor Kent Taylor, TV's BOSTON BLACKIE whose name reportedly inspired Jerry Siegel when he was naming Superman's alter ego. Also in the cast was former serial Zorro and and star of TV's hit RACKET SQUAD, Reed Hadley. None of this faded veteran star power helped the picture one bit and Morrow's memorable poster remains the best thing about BRAIN OF BLOOD!

Gray Morrow and Private Strong

The great Simon & Kirby website under the Kirby Museum umbrella had an interesting post a few years back about what may have been Gray Morrow's first effort at superheroes. It seems that when Joe and Jack were doing THE DOUBLE LIFE OF PRIVATE STRONG, their short-lived update of MLJ's SHIELD, Gray was contracted to do the art on a story for an upcoming issue. That issue never came out but one page of the art appears here and the full story behind the two times it was almost published can be seen at the site:

http://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/simonandkirby/archives/221

Bronze Age Gray

About a year ago, my UK pal Pete Doree did a nice tribute to Gray at his BRONZE AGE OF BLOGS. Some lovely art and even a complete story of Morrow's ORION character.

http://bronzeageofblogs.blogspot.com/2009/03/gray-morrow.html

Tiger Girl

From the late, lamented DIAL B FOR BLOG as written by "Robby Reed": Shown right is a montage by Gray Morrow which originally appeared on the cover of the 1970 book Days of Thrills and Adventureby Alan G. Barbour. The montage shows Linda Stirling as "Tiger Woman" (1944). It also depicts various scenes that take place during the course of this 12-chapter, Republic Pictures serial, as well as showing scenes from her many other serials.

Tarzan Meets John Carter of Mars

Original Morrow Art

NSFW-Vaginella

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT BOOKSTEVE'S LIBRARY IN AUGUST OF 2006
Here's a page ripped out of, I believe, PLAYBOY. If I'm remembering correctly, VAGINELLA appeared in the late seventies or early eighties (which would have been the years I bought PLAYBOY). Superb art as always by the late artist. The mildly amusing writing was by his sometime collaborater Jim Lawrence, with whom Gray did the BUCK ROGERS newspaper strip for awhile.

Gray Morrow's X-Men

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT BOOKSTEVE'S LIBRARY IN JANUARY OF 2006
Okay, so along with watching the 1966 BATMAN (with its decidedly PG-13 commentary) I spent part of the afternoon helping my son clean his somewhat hopeless room (AKA the Children's section here at the Library) and I came across an item I'd bet most X-MEN and comic art fans missed. In the early 1990's, in a tie-in with the original X-MEN animated TV series, Marvel and Random House issued a series of picture books for kids.
Most were simplified and badly drawn but amazingly, this one, in spite of Francis Mao's less than promising cover, is drawn and painted by the late, great science-fiction and comics illustrator, Gray Morrow!


Gray rarely did super-hero stories but when he did, he made an obvious effort to make them look realistic. Thus, his Batman had visible eyes instead of blank slits and a cape that didn't stretch for miles. This gave the whole piece an off-model look that carries over here, also. Check out Wolverine walking away from Cyke, looking for all the world like a guy in a costume contest at a con. Still, there are some great images here, such as Jean mind-attacking Juggernaut.
His women, as always, are gorgeous but again in a much more realistic fashion than their mega-breasted comic counterparts of the era. You can also tell who's who just by facial expressions as Morrow does an excellent job of individualizing his faces. Seeing this again just makes me wish Gray had tackled a regular series for a nice long run. Sigh.

Blazing Stooges

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT BOOKSTEVE'S LIBRARY IN AUGUST OF 2005
Now this is one of those movies where the poster, by legendary comics and sci-fi artist Gray Morrow, was the best part of the movie. This nifty color reproduction is from an eighties video release. The film itself was made in 1975 by Al Adamson, the man who brought you DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN (with the unforgettable Zandor Vorkov!) and various other no budget home movies starring his top-heavy wife Regina Carrol. What passes for a plot features sexy stewardesses getting caught up in a cowboy story leftover from B Western days. Speaking of leftovers, Adamson always found roles for wonderful old stars who, for whatever reason (health, alcohol, age...) just couldn't seem to find a paying gig. In this outing, we have Yvonne (THE MUNSTERS) De Carlo, and real B cowboys Bob Livingston and Don "Red" Barry. This was Livingston's final film but Barry would go on to work fairly regularly in television before shooting himself in 1980. The real treat here is the brief appearances of The Ritz Brothers (Well, two of them at any rate), the zany second tier comedy troupe from forties Fox musicals. They're silly and...well, stupid actually but they make you laugh. Originally, this film would have had even more of a place in cult movie history if Adamson had had his way. Instead of the Ritz Brothers, the Three Stooges were meant to appear! Well, the "New" Three Stooges anyway. It seems that after Larry's debilitating stroke, Moe decided to re-form the act as he had done so many times before, this time teaming he and Curly Joe De Rita with Emil Sitka who had played the hapless straight man in much of their work since the fifties. Press releases were sent out when the team formed that included pictures like this one. An initial venture reportedly fell through leaving Moe anxious to get the new group exposure so Adamson's offer to appear in BLAZING STEWARDESSES must have looked pretty good. Emil, according to his account, was literally packed to head to the set when Moe fell ill and eventually died. The Stooges could trade Curly for Shemp, Shemp for Joe, Joe for Curly Joe and even Larry for Emil but everyone knew it just wouldn't work without Moe. Thus, the Stooges moved into legend, the Ritz Boys had their last minor big screen hurrah and none of it really mattered because probably only a few thousand people ever saw this picture...and even THEY were probably disappointed because it doesn't have nearly the T&A content that the title, and Gray's detailed poster, promised. As for Adamson, he was later murdered in bizarre circumstances that would probably make a much better movie than any he ever made.

The Importance of Being Gray

Gray Morrow was an illustrator and cartoonist who toiled virtually unheralded in the industry for more than fifty years. I noticed recently that he had no major presence on the Web and, in spite of already having five other blogs to deal with, I felt obliged to fix that. The intent right now is not so much to write volumes on the man but to showcase his art. Gray's work is notable for its realistic style, even in colorful sci-fi settings. His men were macho, his women buxom. His version of Batman actually had eyes that you could see through those little slits! He did comic book westerns in the fifties, war stories and TV cartoons in the sixties, superheroes and horror in the seventies, newspaper strips including TARZAN and BUCK ROGERS in the eighties and nineties, children's books, paperback covers and movie posters. He did all of these as well or better than anyone before or since.