MORRISON MONDAYS!
By BILL MORRISON
Last week I returned to my studio from an 18-day absence that included two conventions (StocktonCon and Comic-Con International San Diego) with a vacation in Hawaii sandwiched in-between. Though I had missed participating in the weeklong MANY LOVES OF PETER PARKER event by a couple days, our benevolent editor, Dan “Don’t call me chief!” Greenfield greenlit my idea to put a button on the celebration with my Our Love Story Special #1 faux cover.
I was exhausted from my trip, but determined to give my piece the attention it deserved, and I worked diligently on it through the week while juggling other freelance jobs that had been waiting for my return. I worked so hard, I ended up making myself sick (or was it the dreaded Con-Crud?) but finally completed the cover in time for publication.
And then, right on cue for my comedy of a life, I remembered a painting I did a few years back that would have fit right into the Spidey romance theme and saved me a lot of late nights at the drawing board. The image was one of five ideas I pitched to a gallery that held a license for limited edition Marvel prints. Four of the five concepts were approved by Marvel, and I decided to start with this image, a poster for a fantasy film that would adapt the death of Gwen Stacy storyline from 1973’s The Amazing Spider-Man #121-122.
Unfortunately, between the time the sketch was approved and when I finished the art, the job of doing approvals for Marvel’s gallery art program had changed hands. So, upon turning in my illustration for “The Night Gwen Stacy Died,” I was told by the gallery owner that the new person doing approvals for Marvel had deemed the idea “too dark for merchandise” and the final art was rejected. And in case anyone is wondering if I got paid for all that work, the answer is no. In the gallery art business, there’s no money until the prints are made and sold.
It’s sort of ironic, because in retrospect I feel like my treatment of the subject matter wasn’t dark enough. The brightly-colored airbrushed image looks more like 1990s toy packaging than a serious movie poster. Oh, well.
Because of this experience, I sort of lost my steam on the other three ideas and they remain in a flat file drawer. But since the whole world seems to be in a Spider-Man mood due to the success of the latest film, I thought now would be a great time to finally share the artwork.
—
Want more MORRISON MONDAYS? Come back next week! Want a commission? See below!
—
MORE
— THE END OF THE DEBATE: Whom PETER PARKER Loves the Most — REVEALED AT LAST! Click here.
— Even BILL MORRISON Gets to Have a Vacation. Click here.
—
Eisner winner BILL MORRISON has been working in comics and publishing since 1993 when he co-founded Bongo Entertainment with Matt Groening, Cindy Vance and Steve Vance. At Bongo, and later as Executive Editor of Mad Magazine, he parodied the comics images he loved as a kid every chance he got. Not much has changed.
Bill is on Instagram (@atomicbattery) and Facebook (Bill Morrison/Atomic Battery Studios), and regularly takes commissions and sells published art through 4C Comics.
August 10, 2026
Thanks for sharing this. I love it because it evokes so many emotions and it is visually quite stunning. My first encounter with the death of Gwen Stacy was in the Marvel Tales reprint when I was pretty young so it had a pretty strong impact on me and this poster brings it all home. I particularly like the colour scheme for the spider-sense, the lettering and the credits. Brilliant.
August 10, 2026
The death of Gwen Stacy was probably the first tragic Spider-Man comic I was introduced to. Within every iteration, you can feel Peter Parker’s pain.