RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books George Perez, dead at 67

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_P%C3%A9rez

George 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.

When did you meet him, Dave?

I think 1992. George Perez was at a booksigning in Fort Lauderdale, at what was then my favorite comic shop, Tropicomics. It was a Friday. He then appeared at MiamiCon on Saturday and Sunday.
He was there at Tropicomics for several hours, joking around with the owner (John) and some of the other guys who worked there, very casual, as if he was there every weekend. And was very easy to talk to, even for me who came in after they'd been in the shop together a long time before I came in. He was very fun and enthusiastic, more so than other artists I'd met there, and things were quite festive for all of us, the whole time I was there, and my impression, the fun went on long after I left.
Before I left the store, I was taken a bit back when Perez and the other guys started singing together! That's about as friendly as it gets.

Amid the conversation, he signed several comics for me, the CRISIS first issue, and the death of Supergirl issue (I think issue 7). And a few others. I bought extra copies of these issues while I was in the store, that I already had at home.

It was a long time ago, I think in Perez's case I knew in advance he was coming, and came in especially to see Perez and meet him. But on a number of occasions, I didn't know in advance many artists would be there for a signing, and got a nice surprise when I came in. This shop more than any other had a ton of artist booksigning appearances in the late 1980's and 1990's. The shop closed in 1998. Some others I met there were Joe Jusko, John Muth, Kevin Maguire. Adam West!
And a highlight for me, Berni Wrightson in 1995. The owner told me he stopped inviting artists, because they suddenly started demanding a lot more money to make a store booksigning appearance, whereas before they just ast for like $200 or 300, and expenses paid for their travel and hotel room.

I had a very good rapport with the owner and the other guys who worked there, and was in a lot. I was often mistaken by customers for an employee, customers would see me and ask me where they could find issues they were looking for. I guess I looked like I knew what I was doing. In the first year or so, I would tell them I didn't work there but I knew the store well, and then showed them where they could find what they were looking for. After the first few times, I no longer felt a need to tell them this, helped them find what they were looking for, and just let them think I worked there.

On the day he was there, I chatted with George Perez off and on over a few hours, occasionally stepping away to let others talk to him. I can't remember exactly what we talked about, both his comics work and other topics. At one point I asked him what his favorite book of his own work was, and he said WONDER WOMAN ANNUAL 1, where he got to both write and draw a number of stories with many other artists, and in particular he enjoyed scripting a story pencilled by Curt Swan, one of the big influences on his work before he got into comics. I pulled a copy from the bins to purchase and asked if he could sign it, which he seemed very pleased to do. I was a regular reader of his WONDER WOMAN run, but somehow I'd missed this ANNUAL issue before he mentioned it.

In retrospect, I wish I'd asked him about a Black Widow series he did, published in MARVEL FANFARE 10-13, in 1982-1983. He was drawing TEEN TITANS at the time, and these stories in MARVEL FANFARE were earlier work, I'd guess pencilled in 1975 or 1976, and like much of what ran in the early issues of MARVEL FANFARE, clearly was inventory material, that was not drawn in his then-current (1982) style. And the stories were about 18 pages each, a different page count than the 1977-1980 period before he left Marvel, or the early 1980's where the page count had returned to 22 pages per issue. So I'm still curious where they were initially created to appear, and why four complete issues were shelved and filed away for so many years before editor Al Milgrom rescued them and let them see print.
There are several others Perez drew that were never published, and probably more that I'm still unaware of.

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I meant to come back and link some of Perez's work here for easy reading, and forgot. I guess now's as good a time as any to do so:

Marvel, 1974-1980 :
ASTONISHING TALES (starring Deathlok ) 25 (Aug 1974) , 2p humor backup story, Perez’s first pro work published
MONSTERS UNLEASHED 8 (Oct 1974) 14p "Gullivar Jones, Warrior of Mars"
UNKNOWN WORLDS OF SCIENCE FICTION #2 (“War Toy” 12p) Mar 1975 , and 3 (“Occupation Force” 5p) May 1975
DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU ("Sons of the Tiger" series) #6–14, 16–17, 19–21, 24, 30 (Nov 1974– Nov 1976) --Perez's first series (in black and white magazine)
CREATURES ON THE LOOSE (Man-Wolf) #33–37 (1975) concluded in MARVEL PREMIERE 45-46 --Perez's first color comics series
LUKE CAGE, POWER MAN 27 (Oct 1975)
INHUMANS 1–4, 8 (Oct 1975 – Dec 1976)
AVENGERS 141–144, 147–151, 154, 155, 160–162, 167, 168, 170, 171, 194–196, 198–202; + Annual 6, and 8 (1975–1980)
FANTASTIC FOUR 164–167, 170–172, 176–178, 184–188, 191–192, +Annual #14, and 15 (1975–1980)
LOGAN'S RUN 1–5 (Jan-May 1977)
MARVEL COMICS SUPER SPECIAL 4 (the Beatles) Aug 1978, and 7 (Sgt Pepper) Jan 1979
MARVEL PREMIERE (Man-Wolf) #45–46 Dec 1978, Feb 1979
WHAT IF (Nova) 15 (July 1979) 8p (of 34p story)
X-MEN ANNUAL 3 (Sept 1979)
MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE 56–58, 60, 64–65 (Oct 1979– July 1980)
MARVEL PREVIEW 12 (2p double page illustration, pages 6-7, Jan 1978) , and 20 (r of “War Toy” 12p) Mar 1980
BIZARRE ADVENTURES 27 (July 1981) 17p X-men, Iceman story
MARVEL FANFARE 10–13 (Black Widow, 1982–1983)

Later Marvel Work :
INFINITY GAUNTLET, six-issue miniseries, #1–3 (full pencils); #4 (p with Ron Lim) (1991)
HULK: FUTURE IMPERFECT, miniseries, #1–2 (1992–1993)
SACHS AND VIOLENS, miniseries, #1–4 (1994)
THE INCREDIBLE HULK 435 (with Bruce Jensen) (1995) illustrations, backup text story
ULTRAFORCE/AVENGERS 1 (1995)
SILVER SURFER vol. 3 #111–123 (1995–1996) (writer)
THUNDERBOLTS ANNUAL 1997 (three pages, among other artists, pages 24-26) (1997)
THE AVENGERS vol. 3, issues 1–15, 18–25, 27–34 (1998–2000)

That's very, very cool. Wrightson! That's amazing.

I had the Marvel Fanfare black Widow books for a few years. Sold them ages ago along with my run of NTT. Regret that now.

I've never sold any comics or art that I didn't regret selling later.
But (God bless the internet!) at least now you can read the same comics online in a number of online comics libraries.

Here's the NEW TEEN TITANS run for you :
https://viewcomiconline.com/001-new-teen-titans-v1-001/ (volume 1, issues 1-50, and volume 2, issues 1-5 )

And while linked above here's the MARVEL FANFARE 10-13 issues on another site :
https://viewcomiconline.com/marvel-fanfare-1982-issue-10/

I updated all the links in the post showing all Perez's Marvel work.

Previously ReadComicOnline links (formerly a great website, but it has devolved to have a shit-ton of pop-up ads and malware, and virtually unusable).
Links all now updated to View ComicOnline, a far better and more navigable site.




I'm hard pressed to say what was the zenith of George Perez's popularity.
The first work I bought of his off the stands was INHUMANS 1, in 1975. But while I liked the art, I barely knew who he was.

For me, Perez seemed to hit his peak with NEW TEEN TITANS in 1980-1985. And then reached equal if not even greater popularity with CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS 1-12. While I liked his work beyond that for a long time, I often didn't like the writers he worked with after that.
The last series I regularly bought of his was Perez's last run on AVENGERS (vol 3, 1998) with Kurt Busiek. And while I still liked his art, I became bored with the storyline, and eventually stopped buying. My impression was, that new AVENGERS run was popular, but not as big as his earlier runs.
I honestly didn't like any of the creator-owned stuff Perez did in the 1990s and forward. Nice art, but disappointing writing.

But man... I'm still awed by Perez's 70's and 80's work, and only slightly less his work into the 90's. Beautiful stuff that takes my breath away, and very fun reading.
Take a look at the FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL issues Perez did. That was where he first paired up with writer Marv Wolfman.
https://viewcomiconline.com/fantastic-four-1961-annual-14/
And then less than a year later they both moved to DC, and were doing NEW TEEN TITANS, and both reached their absolute peak in popularity.
https://viewcomiconline.com/dc-comics-presents-issue-26/
https://viewcomiconline.com/the-new-teen-titans-1980-issue-1/

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(larger image: )
http://firestormfan.com/images/coie_poster1d.jpg

One of the reasons I bought the CRISIS slipcased hardcover was just for this painted new Perez wraparound cover.
The painted cover was also released as a poster about the same time. Much as I loved it at the time, I opted not to buy the poster because it was too big to matte, frame and put on the wall. Even at that time, the W B home art gallery was already too big to allow for that possibility.