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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_P%C3%A9rezGeorge Perez was not only a very talented artist, but one of the nicest and most approachable comics creators I've had the pleasure to meet. And 67 is way too young to die. I know for the better part of a decade, Perez has suffered from vision problems, diabetes, a heart attack and other ailments. In late 2021 he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and forewent chemotherapy treatment, knowing low probability of it being successful in curing his illness. But even knowing this in advance, I was surprised and saddened to see he had died.
In the last few weeks, I'd been re-reading much of Perez's work, on AVENGERS, INHUMANS, FF, CREATURES ON THE LOOSE and MARVEL PREMIERE (Man-Wolf series), MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE, JLA and others. So reading of his death after re-reading so much of his work increases the sense of loss. Perez was a prolific work horse of an artist, and unlike others like Wrightson or Adams or Steranko or Kaluta or Windsor-Smith or Miller who did many kinds of other work outside of comics, George Perez was completely immersed in comics, and was completely and exceptionally a comics artist.
I see Perez, Byrne, Giffen, Buckler, Miller, and Simonson as some of the best who captured the dynamic quality of Kirby's work in their own in the 1970's and 1980's era. And on series like AVENGERS, NEW TEEN TITANS, and CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, Perez demonstrated a power in his work completely his own that no one else could imitate or equal.
He will be missed, but lives on in his work.
