This character was created by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez in THE NEW TEEN TITANS and starred in his own series that ran 50 issues from 1983 to 1988. Gaspar Saladino lettered many of the covers and one inside story. I did the series logo, and on this cover Saladino’s top blurb includes a tiny version of the Cyborg logo I designed, so Gaspar’s lettering is pretty basic. He would do more interesting work on other covers.

The larger blurb on this cover adds interest with an unusual shape for the R, and extensions below the bottom line on the G and the exclamation mark.

Here’s a much more exciting and creative bottom blurb with Saladino’s take on lightning bolt letters.

The large dot gradient in the background of this cover meant the blurbs had to be large and use open lettering or be in shapes to be readable. Gaspar does a fine job with them.

I bet Saladino enjoyed working with his friend Gil Kane on this cover. The word MURDER gains interest from the heavy, rough outline and inner texture.

Here Gaspar adds interest by giving the block letters up and down variation, overlapping one and joining others, then adding a heavy outline all around.

The large burst balloon here adds to the drama.

On this theater marquee I think NOVA was done by the artists, while Gaspar did the story title and credits with open drop shadows to add depth and the feeling of marquee letters.

Gaspar’s final work on the book was this cover blurb which again uses several techniques to make basic block letters more interesting. Two of the words are lower case, some letters are joined, the A has an extra bit at the top, and it’s all on a notched caption.

This is the only story lettered by Gaspar. Notice the subtle join at the bottom of the U to add interest in the large title.

To sum up, these covers have Saladino lettering: 3-4, 7-10, 13-15, 17, 20-21, 39-40, 45. That’s 15 in all. The story above had 23 pages. More articles in this series and others you might like are on the COMICS CREATION page of my blog.