Matthew Southworth

Matthew Southworth is an American artist with a rough, painterly noir sensibility: loose expressive linework, muted watercolor-washed color and a grounded, lived-in feel that suits crime and character drama. His pages prioritize mood, body language and place over slick polish, which is exactly why they work for street-level detective stories.

His defining work is Stumptown, the Portland-set private-eye series written by Greg Rucka, later adapted for television, and collected in oversized hardcover form. Southworth's art gives the series its rainy, melancholy texture, and the collected editions are the cleanest way to read Dex Parios' cases in order.