Morrow, Gray - Madame Xanadu & The Spectre

One of the more memorable issues of Gray Morrow's run on THE SPECTRE was a story-line in THE SPECTRE Vol. 2 #9 (Dec. 1987) in which he was asked by the writer, Doug Moench, to draw a nude Madame Xanadu having a mystical encounter with The Spectre. Editor, Robert Greenberger at the time mentioned on the Letter's page (in #13), "No other issue of SPECTRE has received as much mail as #9. ..,most everyone said something about the nudity. Doug, Gray and I felt it was necessary for the story but a variety of factors led to Madame Xanadu being a lot more unclothed than anticipated. For those we offended, we apologize. Stricter procedures have been instituted to make sure something like this will not happen again." This pencil commission captures some of that experience. Purchased from Len Fausto in May 2013. See the additional images for an uncropped photo and one of the published Spectre pages. Gray drew this on Bainbridge illustration Board at an over-sized 15" x 20". It is signed by Gray and dated 1992.