GREEN ARROW #15

Welcome back to Shemp's Gallery. It's Birthday month here at the Gallery. Not my birthday, but artists birthdays. I will try to celebrate a new artist every week whose birthday is in October.

Happy Birthday Matt Wagner! Born October 9, 1961. Love Matt Wagner's art. He's one of those artist whose style fits any subject. He can draw anything or anyone and make it look right. I have a whole gallery of Matt Wagner pieces that you should look at. It's a bunch of obscure DC characters that I've asked Matt to draw over the years. He's killed every one of them!

Matt Wagner was the artists/writer of the 1987 Demon mini series and 1991's Legends of the Dark Knight: Faces. He was the writer for 1993's Sandman Mystery Theatre and 1999's Doctor Midnight mini series. In 2001 he became the cover artist for Kevin Smith's Green Arrow series. He wrote and drew Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman: Trinity a limited series featuring DC's three major heroes in 2003. He followed it with Batman and the Monster Men and Batman and the Mad Monk in 2006. he wrote Madame Xanadu for Vertigo, with artist Amy Reeder Hadley in 2008. He's also worked on such characters as Zorro, the Shadow, the Green Hornet and the Spirit(All he needs is the Lone Ranger, Tarzan and Flash Gordon to round out the classics).

For me, Matt will always be known for doing 1) Legends of the Dark Knight: Faces, one of the best stories. His Batman was awe inspiring. 2) Writer of Sandman Mystery Theatre, that was just a great series. 3) Creator and writer of Grendel. The character, the storytelling it was all perfect. One of the best characters ever created.

I've wanted a Green Arrow cover by Matt Wagner for such a long time, my favorite character by one of my favorite artist, but the right one never showed up. This one is the right one! Classic Green Arrow shooting right at you. As an added bonus not only was this the cover to #15 but the image was also used as a stamp by the USPS in 2006.

Happy Birthday Matt! Thanks for all the great art and stories through the years and looking forward to more.

From 2002 Green Arrow #15 by artist Matt Wagner.

*Special shout out to Jason Hussa for scans of the DC Stamps.