This Artist Is Good - Sean Murphy

Recently, I did a bit on Year One Batman Scarecrow.

Today, I feel as though I should further spotlight the impressive work of the young artist on the title, Sean Murphy.

Murphy first gained notice working on some Star Wars Tales short stories, and later did a book for Dark Horse called Crush.

He is working on a project for Oni titled Off Road, which he also wrote, which is about a group of friends in a jeep getting stuck, well, off-road.

But this Batman project is, by far, the most popular thing he has done so far, but I do not think it will be the last, as his stuff is good enough that he looks like he has a very promising artistic future.

Chris Arrant had a nice interview with him at Newsarama where Murphy told some interesting stories (such as just how a practical no-name was picked to draw a major Batman mini-series. Think about it, the other Batman Year One mini-series is drawn by Paul Gulacy! Pretty heady company), and showed his appreciation for the medium with his quite astute picks of artists who influenced his work, including the late, great Jorge Zaffino (who is well-respected by most artists, but his name rarely comes up...here is a great website devoted to Zaffino's work).

The following examples of Murphy's art (except for the cover art, which I just snagged from a solicitation) are taken from his nifty website, which you can find here.

First off, look at the very nice costume redesign he did for the Scarecrow.



I have to give DC credit for letting a new artist do a redesign like this. It doesn't hurt that it looks quite good, though.

Murphy has a real dynamic style, which is in full effect in this page...



He is also comfortable using shadow/silhouettes to good effect, which I am always impressed by (this piece uses shadow AND a flair for the dynamic)...



Murphy also does a good job with using body language to convey personality, like this page...



This is important for when he is working with new characters, like Off Road, as the reader must have the characters' personalities supplied solely by Murphy (unlike, say, Batman and Robin, where the reader already has a pretty good idea what they are like...hehe).


Finally, Murphy shows he is not above just wanting to draw really cool things...like a Bat-jet...



That's it for me.

What are all your thoughts about Murphy, who I think is destined for big things?

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