Walter Flanagan
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Walter Flanagan is an American actor, comic book artist, podcaster, and reality television personality born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, who grew up in nearby Highlands. A childhood friend of filmmaker Kevin Smith, he attended Henry Hudson Regional High School alongside Smith, who credits Flanagan with introducing him to comic books -- an influence that shaped Smith's entire creative career. Flanagan later managed Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash, the comic book shop in Red Bank, New Jersey, that Smith co-owns, and became a cast member on AMC's reality series Comic Book Men, which premiered in 2012 and ran through 2018.
As a comic book artist, Flanagan provided the artwork for several titles written by Bryan Johnson, including Karney, Metro, Cryptozoic Man, and War of the Undead (published by IDW Publishing), as well as DC Comics' Kevin Smith Batman trilogy comprising Batman: Cacophony, Batman: The Widening Gyre, and the announced Batman: Bellicosity. He co-hosts the long-running podcast Tell 'Em Steve-Dave! with Johnson and Brian Quinn. Smith's debut film Clerks (1994) cast Flanagan in four separate roles, prompting Smith to call him "the Lon Chaney Sr. of the 1990s" on the film's commentary track.
In Ghostbusters II (1989), Flanagan appeared as Rudy, the Museum Guard at the Manhattan Museum of Art, one of the film's key recurring location characters.
A dedicated piece of Ghostbusters fan history connects Flanagan to the GBFans.com community. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Spook Central contributor Paul Rudoff sent physical letters to Ghostbusters cast and crew members. Flanagan responded with a personalized autographed photo inscribed "Thanks for your loyalty," a hand-written and signed note (dated February 15, 2001) granting permission for three short stories Flanagan had written to be shared, and a cassette tape on which Flanagan dramatically read all three stories aloud. The note stated Flanagan retained copyright on the stories but gave permission for their use. The tape remained unshared for roughly 25 years before Rudoff was able to make its contents available to Ghostbusters fans through Spook Central in April 2026.