Shawn Martinbrough

Biography Growing up in the Bronx, He then attended the School of Visual Arts. Martinbrough got his first professional work — a painted illustration for Marvel Comics — while still a student at SVA. During their run, they created the Sasha Bordeaux character in issue #751 (Dec. 2000), as well as the villains Kyle Abbot and Able Crown. Rucka and Martinbrough's run was collected in Batman: New Gotham, Volumes 1 and 2.

Following his stint on Detective Comics, in 2002 Martinbrough signed on with Marvel Comics to illustrate writer Geoff Johns' four-issues limited series Morlocks.

In 2005, Martinbrough and writer Gary Phillips produced Angeltown, a five-issue limited series published by Vertigo Comics. The story is told in the blaxploitation idiom, with nods to the detective stories of Chester Himes and Walter Mosley. In 2011, the series was reprinted by Moonstone Books as Angeltown: The Nate Hollis Investigations.

In 2007, Watson-Guptill Publications and The Nielsen Company published Martinbrough's How to Draw Noir Comics: The Art and Technique of Visual Storytelling.

In 2009, Martinbrough teamed with writers Mike Benson and Adam Glass on the four-issue limited series Luke Cage Noir.

Since 2012, Martinbrough has been the artist of the monthly series Thief of Thieves, co-written by Robert Kirkman and published by Image Comics/Skybound Entertainment. Kirkman chose Martinbrough because of his "cinematic flair" and ability to "portray characters realistically."

In 2018, New York's Society of Illustrators held the exhibition "Shawn Martinbrough: Storyteller".

In 2024, Martinbrough provided the art for Neil Gaiman and Marc Bernardin's multi-volume comic adaptation of Gaiman's novel, Anansi Boys. Published by Dark Horse Comics, the first volume of Anansi Boys will run for eight issues.

Personal life Martinbrough and his wife Ayanna Ross were married in April 2017. They live in Alexandria, Virginia.