Gratuitous Ricky Whittle

Casting has finally begun being announced on the forthcoming adaptation of American Gods, and Neil Gaiman and Bryan Fuller have found their Shadow Moon -- his name is Ricky Whittle, and he is a British actor who can currently be seen on The CW's show The 100 and has previously graced the small screen with his gorgeousness on Hollyoaks and Single Ladies. And you guys?

He is astonishing to look at. Just a vision, from that beautiful bald head on down down down, deep down, very very far down. I'm shocked he'd never been on my radar before now. And I was even more shocked about that when I first googled his name a couple of hours ago and literally hundreds of pictures of him in various states of undress revealed themselves to me. Literally hundreds.

Okay let's set aside the gratuitousness just for the eensiest of split-seconds though - besides being drop dead perfect looking as a visual object, he is also drop dead perfect for Shadow Moon, right? Gaiman thinks so too, saying in this announcement that his auditions were "remarkable," while Fuller had this to say:

Hooray! I'm sure now that the big dog's been cast we'll be hearing lots more names dropped now - they start shooting this thing in April and if it's true to the source material this thing will probably have a very large cast. I suppose it depends on how much book they cover over the first run of episodes, but still, there are lots of Gods up in there! Speaking of gods...

... enough talking! Time to get on our knees and... pray? Say thanks, more like it. You know how I mentioned "literally hundreds" of pictures a few sentences ago? Well I gathered up over one hundred of said pictures and I'm posting them here after the jump...