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An original unused Azrael design by George Pérez. |
George Pérez Azrael
George Pérez did some preliminary designs for the Azrael character. But Jose Garcia Lopez did his own designs when he took over art chores from George on the NEW TEEN TITANS. Jose's Azarel design was the one that was eventually used for the character.
Pérez on Azrael: " I actually designed it entirely differently. There is a drawing I did of Azrael that doesn't look anything like Jose Luis Garcia Lopez's version of Azrael. Originally, Marv came up with the idea of an angel at the time I was still on the book. Then, when I left the book, I thought it would be unfair for Jose, with his design sense, that every character he does is based on a George Perez design, since Azrael was never printed. So I let him design Azrael, and while he was on the book, he was also entitled to design Kole. Even though Kole was printed in CRISIS before she appeared in TITANS, that was because of the timing - I had gotten the xerox of Jose's pencils. Jose designed both of them. Azrael was originally designed looking totally different, and Jose came up with his own version; he never saw mine - No one has seen mine except for Marv.
Marv wanted a very, very emotional face. Again, it wasn't all that different from the way I designed Jericho. Jericho was also made for expression. The operatic thing, that got a little carried overboard. I am not as much a lover of deep purple prose, where people are acting like raving idiots over a lover. I mean, to me, love is always as much of the head as of the heart, if you do it right. And that bugged me. But again, that's the character. The character was supposed to be a flying wimp. (Laughter.)"
