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Sketchbook - Matt Haley

Matt Haley responded to my request within minutes of me sending it out, which I found very impressive. Matt is the victim of my naughty sense of humor. When I first asked him for a sketch, at that same Seattle convention where I was getting the first pages of my sketchbook filled out, he was pretty busy so he drew a "convention sketch" of Batman. It was on the sixth page of my sketchbook, right after Karl Kesel's Aquaman, and I held onto it as a reminder to myself that I wasn't always going to get an Aquaman drawing (I still have it, in fact). At San Diego 2000, I ran into Matt again. This time, there were 39 Aquaman drawings in the book, plus one Akiko, one Groo, one Hulk... and one Batman. I told him that there was something he just had to see, and then I made sure he flipped through the book from the back, so he saw mostly Aquaman until he got to his own Batman sketch. To his credit, he quickly made up for his swirly-eyed Batman with a fantastic Aquaman sketch, which you can see below:

AQUAMAN
by Matt Haley
22 Jul 2000
(permission to post given 13 July 2003 via e-mail)
www.matthaley.com

This sketch was drawn at the San Diego Comicon on July 22nd, 2000. It is on page 45 of my first Aquaman sketchbook, and is the 42nd Aquaman sketch I got, the 40th of the sketchbook. One thing I still find amazing about my sketchbook is how distinct all the interpretations of Aquaman are. I have 71 Aquaman sketches from different artists as of this writing, and every one of them is remarkable in its own way. I cannot describe to you the simple and profound joy I get when I flip through my sketchbooks. It's like each artist has given me a piece of gold. I am deeply grateful to the artists. First for coming out to a convention, then for being willing to ply their craft in such an individual manner for such an obvious fangirl as me.

To see all the sketches I have permission to post so far, check out my Sketchbook Page. If you have any contact information for any of the other artists I'm trying to contact, please e-mail me.