Gray Morrow – Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Gray Morrow — Watching The Detectives

April 15, 2025 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Swank Magazine, March 1975

Ah, irony.

All these great detectives in this outstanding Gray Morrow illustration, and what I needed the most was some actual detective work to figure out where the piece was published.

Despite the fact it looked like it could have appeared in any number of comic humor mags (Mad, Cracked, Sick, Crazy, et al) those pubs only featured black and white articles. And it didn’t fit with the vibe at National Lampoon. Also, the composition / design suggested a more conventional 2-page editorial spread, but it was too large and busy for TV Guide

After some relentless digging and some occasionally frustrating dead ends, I confirmed that the piece appeared in the March 1975 issue of Swank Magazine, an adult mag whose content often made Playboy seem like Reader’s Digest.

It’s a wonderful piece of nostalgia and a great DPS.

And, for better or worse, I’m old enough to have immediately recognized most of the cops here, without additional detective work.

Fun fact: I don’t own a physical copy of the mag yet, hence the lack of an image of the published piece to include with this post. It seems to be available for sale in a few places on-line, but they appear to be sketchy, and you can guess what might happen if give my credit card number and other personal info to an adult website.

***A year prior to the publication of this piece, Gray had illustrated a one-shot “Super Cops” story in his more traditional and realistic art style.***

John Buscema — Ka-Zar, Man-Thing, Oh My!

March 31, 2023 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Astonishing Tales #12, June 1972

Man-Thing (Seriously, what kind of drugs to you take to come up with a name like that?) makes his first color comic book appearance in this terrific Ka-Zar story illustrated primarily by John Buscema.

Part of the story was slated to appear in the B&W Savage Tales #2 which did not see the light of day, so it was cleverly re-worked here. Because of the re-mixing, credits on this issue read like an all-star line-up, and include Buscema, Neal Adams, John Romita and Dan Adkins.

Writer Roy Thomas somehow made sense of it all, creating the framing story around Len Wein’s original tale.

Bonus: Man -Thing’s first overall appearance in Savage Tales #1 includes this glorious splash (below) by Gray Morrow.

Gray Morrow — Modern West

November 13, 2021 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Adventure #422, August 1972

The Golden Age hero The Vigilante (Greg Sanders) returns to his own feature in The Bronze Age — albeit briefly — in a two back-up stories in Adventure Comics in 1972.

Like some other back-up features from that ran in the oversize 25-cent issues and the “supersize” 100 pagers, this material has never been reprinted. (This specific story ended up in a regular size issue after the larger format was eliminated) It’s too bad, because some of it, including this rare Gray Morrow Vigilante art is quality material.

I always thought the great Gray Morrow was stronger at illustration than storytelling but his two DC Vigilante stories showcase his talents across the board.