WHEN MARV WOFLMAN AND GEORGE PÉREZ LAUNCHED THE NEW TEEN TITANS IN 1980, few expected the book to make waves or even last, for that matter.
After all, it was a comic centered on the sidekicks, and came after two previous Teen Titans comic series were cancelled for being unhip.
To the surprise of its creators, the comic became a massive hit and the top-selling title at DC for years, making superstars out of both its writer and artist. It spoke to teens and young readers in a way that few books had at that point. And its impact remains tangible today, as seen in the long-running animated series Teen Titans Go! and the continued prominence of characters such as Cyborg, Nightwing and Starfire.
But the true star of the series was the art by Pérez, who came to DC from Marvel and stayed at the publisher for the next decade or so.
Now, the illustrator and his Teen Titans work get the ultimate showcase in George Pérez’s The New Teen Titans Artist’s Edition from Act 4/Skybound/Image Comics.
Over the course of 192 splendid and dazzling pages, Pérez’s art is seen the exact way an editor would have seen it straight from the artist himself, before being reduced in size to the standard comic format. Scanned from the original pages, it’s filled with ink gradients, blue pencil lines, side notes to colorists, smudges, and above all, a grasp of the medium that is hard to describe.
The Titans Artist’s Edition is a curated selection of pages from issues No. 1-43, annuals, covers, and more from the classic comic, and like the best of the Artist’s Editions, is both an art book and comic.
The Artist’s Editions are the brainchild of Scott Dunbier, an art dealer turned editor who came up with the idea of showing “original comic art in its natural state” while at IDW in 2010. The format and idea caught on so much so that other publishers now imitate it. Still, no one does it as well as Dunbier, who launched Act 4 in 2024.
He's been itching to show off Perez art for a while, but finding the art is almost never easy. Dunbier is the comic art world’s Indiana Jones, always on the quest for artistic holy grails.
He says putting a book like this can take years, even if you find a collector who has a large amount of select pages.
“I did a scanning trip to L.A., and this one guy brought three suitcases filled with portfolios,” Dunbier tells Heat Vision. “I spent the days scanning all of his art. It’s people like that that make these books possible.”
Regarding the Perez, who died in 2022, Dunbier notes, “he had such a love for these characters. I wanted to find what I thought best showcased that love.”
The George Pérez’s The New Teen Titans Artist’s Edition, with an introduction by Wolfman, is out now and retails for $150.00. The limited edition version with a different cover and slipcase that is signed by Wolfman and numbered is already sold out.
