+-+2012.jpg)
No need for introduction for this one. His life, name and exploits were used and referenced in countless movies, comic books, books, etc...
I will eventually write something about the so called "Lawmen" of the Wild west era, probably when I have a bunch more of them drawn.
But Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp had to be the first one.
Tall (6'3''), dark dressed (mid-1860s puritan rage in fashion probably), he started as a pimp and a hustler (even made fake money), then Shotgun on a stage coach for the Wells Fargo, which really took guts at that time (since you made the only obviously worthy target of each robbery attempt), then ganged up with the fastest, sometimes meanest draws in the west, into various outfits employed for security, extortion (one of the key concept for understanding 19th century american economics), etc...
Even a stint in Deadwood that did not last and THEN, Wichita, and THEN Tombstone and the O.K. Corral gunfight that made him famous.
He is always represented as the untouchable "straight-as-an-arrow"grim cop with the unbelievable luck in one hand and the strength of righteousness in the other.
Truth is he was lucky to always be on the good side of the law when guns were drawn to be remembered.
He tried to downgrade the good image people built upon his and his fellow lawful vigilantes and felt quite remorseful of not being able to help portray a more nuanced wild west (he was more than a consultant on the first "western" ever made, "the great train Robbery" in 1903).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyatt_Earp
