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Teen Titans Spotlight #19 – 1985

Early in her career, Colleen Doran did some fill-in work on the legendary Wolfman/Perez run of Titans. And while it’s just the one issue, it’s hard to imagine that the work didn’t either inform something in the young artist or else reinforce it.

Even in the 80s, Perez was famous for his layouts and his expressive faces. And to be sure, the artist does a fine job of replicating both of those things here, but what I find most fascinating is in the way she departs from Perez’s established formula.

Note how in Perez’s illustrations, the face is made “soft” by giving half circles to describe Starfire’s apple cheeks. See also how her eyes are enormous and high up, showing that she’s innocent, intelligent, and curious.

Now, look at Doran’s. She gives the subtlest hint of the cheeks through her use of laugh lines around the mouth and distorting the lay of the top lip. Then she makes your eye focus on those tiny details by downplaying the nose until it’s just nostrils. See how she keeps the eyes higher, but she puts them further back in the head by using that little divot shape. This not only ads realism, but it scales back the innocence rather than remove it entirely. Even at rest, Colleen’s face feels capable of closing up just like that.

It’s that balance between Perez’s masterful cartooning and a classic illustration/printmaking that we’ll see again and again.

[Read more…] about Set Boundaries, Keep Them: Colleen Doran’s Comics Profile & Chronology