Number 958


Gray Morrow back-to-back


Gray Morrow was a terrific illustrator. I noticed his fine black line work in Creepy and Eerie in the '60s. Morrow was the artist who did the first non-Frazetta cover on Creepy, issue #8. I look at his moody painting and think how tough it must have been to follow Frazetta.

For Creepy #3, from 1965, Morrow did these two 6-page strips, which ran together in the issue. What fascinates me today is the same thing that fascinated me when I first saw them: he drew them with totally different techniques, both of which work exceptionally well with the material he's illustrating. These two stories are good examples of how versatile he was.

Sadly, because of illness Morrow took his own life in November 2001, reminding me of the tragedy two decades earlier of Wallace Wood, another artist whose physical disabilities kept him from earning a living at what he did best.

Steve Thompson has a fine blog, Shades of Gray, devoted to Morrow.