Old School Titans, Expanded

You may or may not recall the drawing of the early '70s Teen Titans from earlier posts. Along the way, I did commissions of Lilith & Gnaark, Mal & Bumblee, and Tula. With some fun time in Photoshop, they are all layered together for a full-team shot. Honestly, I know Tula guest-appeared, but I don’t know when she was waived in as a member.

FYI, I've made custom Mego action figures of the Titans, and in the recent past, remade their packaging. Let's see if I expand this image to include the Joker's Daughter, Bumblebee, Golden Eagle, or Flamebird—or Bat-Girl (I made them both). 

Titans time—

But, not really.

I get lots of sketch requests, and I turn down many because I am too distracted with the day job and keeping on top of stuff. But I still mindlessly churn out Titans circa 1973 sketches!

My work on the Cavalcade re-print is just about ready to send to the printer, and after that, I really need to start my Bonnie N. Collide guesties for Monica Gallagher. I promised they would be ready to run in September. That's but 2 weeks away!

Fortunately, my loft space is now in great shape for me to start creative work again. It was a long 4-month haul (still far from "done" but in a very live-able state), but it'll feel good to get to some comics again.

Draw, monkey, draw!

Lilith & Gnaark

Here's another commission I did a little while ago for a fellow early '70s Teen Titans fan. After I finished the line art, the commissioner added some nice colors, appropriate from the series. I was then inspired to play with Painter and add chalk-y colors. I try to purist but I still prefer these alternate colors for Lilith and Gnaark. The original Titans' jumpsuits were grey for the boys and Lilith sometimes wore green or pink. I think not until the series was revived in 1977 did Mal wear an orange jumpsuit. Anyway, Lilith and Gnaark are among my favorites, and I liked my brushwork on the figures.

I've sketched Mal with his girlfriend, Bumblebee, but nothing I am yet happy with. Maybe someday I will capture their relationship as well as I have captured Lilith and Gnaark's here. Time will tell.

Lilith

Sure, I like to draw the Titan boys (see prior posts) but since I really do love the original run of Teen Titans, I am no stranger to drawing the girls. While Wonder Woman and Wondergirl appear every so often in my sketchbook, Lilith—to to character—has been a bit more elusive. But the other day, there she was. I really Fd up her right hand, so there are a lot of hands on the page as well (not inked). In the background are Gnaark and Mal. I've actually been drawing the Titans a lot lately due to my Mego action figure collection. I had customized the original Titans... and lately have been reworking the mistakes. I thought while I was at it, I'd draw some art for the boxes. Maybe I'll share all that bizarre Mego stuff with you some day.

Teen Titans '73

I've been doing a lot of super-hero sketching lately. A number have been Teen Titans. There was a publication gap from 1973-1976, and these sketches are meant to be from that era.

On this page you get Wondergirl, sexy cave-boy Gnaark, Lilith, the original Bat-Girl, Kid Flash, and some zombies for them to fight. Many fans hate this era, but I actually like it. There weren't super-villains, but they were always getting mixed up in strange goings-on. They were a bit more age-appropriate as well... not the 19 year olds going on 45 a la the 1980s incarnation. That was way too serious for my taste.

Plus, there was no hot cave-boy. I just loved it when Gnaark became super-smart in a short-lived attempt to make him a viable character. I've added to the post a drawing I did of Gnaark in 2002, in color. At the time, I was creating a lot of custom action figures, with packaging. This was the art for the packing... I never did make a Gnaark action figure though! He's wearing the standard-issue jumpsuits worn by some of the Titans of this era, except he's so buff, he can barely fit into it.