I was recently made aware of the
Buck Rogers revival strip drawn by
Gray Morrow. Though i'd long been aware of the comic he did with
Jim Lawrence for
Heavy Metal back in '79, i missed the ensuing comic strip completely.But there is another spaceman with whom Gray is deeply intertwined in my mind - and, no, i'm not talking about his work with
Flash Gordon. Rather, a hero who never really caught on big in the United States the way he did elsewhere.
Perry Rhodan originated in Germany over 55 years ago when
K.H. Scheer and
Clark Darlton, two of the most popular German SciFi authors of the time, teamed up to create the new epic. And Epic it was, with nearly 3000 weekly short novels published over almost 4 decades.From 1969 to 1978 it was translated into English and published by
Ace, and most of the books sported cover paintings by Gray Morrow. Although i didn't know who he was at the time, these covers were probably some of my earliest exposures to his artwork.
Here's a dozen of Morrow's cover paintings for the books without all them words in the way -
I am uncertain exactly how many books were translated and published in English, but the above cover is from #93 and there were another couple dozen or more after that.
(And then another couple dozen more from Master, but i don't think Gray Morrow did paintings for them) So there's a whole bunch of them out there for those seeking new Morrow paintings or something different to read.
Here is one more piece that wasn't a cover painting, to my knowledge. It was a crew portrait painted at some point in the 1970s, but for what, i don't know -
paintings by Gray Morrow for Perry Rhodan #s 2, 20, 30, 32, 39, 42, 58, 59, 80, 81, 89, & 93
