We’ve been pretty lucky to both know and regularly cross paths with some great artists who have worked on the many years of Green Arrow stories in the DC Comics monthly series, and others who haven’t worked on the character but created original sketches for us at conventions.  From time to time we have posted original artwork of Oliver Queen and his partner Dinah Lance aka Black Canary here at borg.com.  These include works by Freddie Williams II, Mike Grell, Neal Adams, Phil Hester and Ande Parks, Howard Chaykin, Michael Golden, Mike Norton, Cliff Chiang, J.K. Woodward, Jock, and Phil Noto, among others.

We don’t know Ryan Sook personally, but he is one of our favorite cover artists.  He created our favorite cover of 2012, the cover to Mystery in Space #1, shown here.  The awesome sci-fi steampunk girl on the cover just demands her own comic book series.  We ran down some of his best cover work here last summer.

When we had the chance to commission a pencil and ink piece from him for our Green Arrow and Black Canary gallery, we couldn’t pass it up.  The result is simply awesome.

So what do you think?  We love that stare and that long beard.  He’s got a bit of the flavor of Jock’s Green Arrow, and that power and age from Mike Grell’s longbow hunter.  The background arrowhead made from the repeating lines and shadowing is very cool.

Maybe it’s time Ryan Sook got his own Green Arrow series.  DC Comics, are you listening?

Thanks to Ryan Sook for this great artwork!

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com