2022 needs to seriously eff-off. Just DAYS after the passing of one of the greatest comic book artists of all time, Neal Adams, another TITAN in the field, is also gone. It was announced via George Pérez’s Facebook page that he had succumbed to his brief battle with pancreatic cancer. Citing health issues, Pérez announced his retirement from comics in 2019.
Pérez was 67. He is survived by his wife Carol.
As a teen, George Pérez was hired as a studio assistant at Marvel before his first artwork was published in 1974’s Astonishing Tales #25, featuring Deathlok. He went on to his first regular assignment, the “Sons of the Tiger” strip, in the black and white magazine Deadly Hands of Kung Fu.
But his detailed, realistic style quickly moved him up to the big leagues. He began penciling Avengers in 1975 before moving on to The Fantastic Four. In the late 1970s, he moved over to DC to pencil Justice League of America.
In 1979, he was tapped to draw a crossover between the Avengers and the Justice League. Conflicts between Marvel and DC resulted in this project being scrapped before it was published. However, Pérez did manage to pencil many pages which have survived to this day.
But one of his greatest achievements was co-creating The New Teen Titans for DC with writer Marv Wolfman. Pulling in existing sidekicks, Robin, Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, plus a former member of the Doom Patrol, Beast Boy, the duo created three new characters Cyborg, Raven, and Starfire. With dark dramatic themes, this served as a major part of the transition from comics being for kids to comics appealing to an older audience. The New Teen Titans became DC’s top-selling book for years and was the foundation for the 2000s cartoon series Teen Titans and the current Teen Titans GO!, as well as HBO Max’s live-action Titans.
Under Wolfman and Pérez, Dick Grayson graduated from Robin to Nightwing. They also crafted “The Judas Contract” the most famous Titans story of all time. This story was adapted in the Teen Titans comic and into a direct-to-video movie.
In 1985, Pérez and Wolfman delivered one of the most seminal comic book events of all time, Crisis on Infinite Earths. This event was a miniseries that killed off major characters and entire worlds to streamline and redefine the DC Universe for a new generation. The effects of this series were felt for years… maybe decades after.
This maxi-series allowed George Pérez to draw nearly every character ever published by DC in its 50-year-history. Pérez also drew most of the covers to the companion reference series Who’s Who that gave readers illustrated biographies of nearly every DC character. He also drew History of the DC Universe, which attempted to clarify DC’s new continuity.
Post-Crisis, Perez was entrusted with reinventing one of DC’s biggest characters — Wonder Woman. He leaned into the character’s Greek mythology origins. He also boosted her powers, giving her the ability to fly and making her stronger than before.
Pérez wrote and penciled this book and for the first time in decades, Wonder Woman was one of DC’s top sellers.
In 1991, George Pérez returned to Marvel and gigantic mega crossovers as he penciled portions of Infinity Gauntlet, which was the basis for many of the events of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including Infinity War and Endgame. Pérez penciled the first three issues but split the art chores with Ron Lim in the last issue as Pérez, whose style is incredibly intricate, was unable to deliver the final issue on time.
In 1998, Pérez began penciling a relaunched version of Avengers, which was written by Kurt Busiek. It was a big hit!
In 2003, Pérez finally got to fulfill a lifelong wish. Marvel and DC played nice and delivered a JLA/Avengers crossover miniseries, which Pérez drew and Busiek wrote.
The series sold well, but relations between the two publishers eventually soured. Even so, DC reprinted the series as a hardcover two-volume edition and as a trade paperback. It was recently reprinted again, with proceeds going to help pay for Pérez’s medical bills.
His last regular illustrating work was the BOOM! Studios series Sirens. In 2017, Pérez was inducted into The Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame.
Pérez was one of the most detail-oriented artists to ever work in comics. He drew thousands of characters, and none of them looked the same. They each had their own unique facial structures, physiques, and even body language. In fact, the New Teen Titans character Jericho, who is mute, was created just so Pérez could challenge himself to draw a character and make him emote without dialogue, conveying everything through body language. (Sadly, after Pérez left the book, other artists weren’t able to replicate his skill, and the character was eventually killed off.)
Another amazing anecdote I recall reading was Pérez’s depictions of the female characters in The New Teen Titans. In the middle, you had Wonder Girl, your average female superhero/warrior, trained as an Amazon but with an upbeat demeanor. Physically, she had a fit body, as did your average female superhero. Then on one side, you had Raven, a gaunt, flat-chested figure who had to suppress her emotions to prevent her demon father, Trigon, from gaining entry to our world and destroying it. Raven wore a long gown and flowing cloak that concealed almost her whole body and face. On the other side was Starfire, a voluptuous, fiery alien warrior whose emotions burst out of her, whether it was joy or pain. Fittingly, her costume was a skimpy armored bathing suit, that barely concealed her assets.
You would be hard-pressed to find another artist that puts that much thought into their creations.
R.I.P. to one of the greatest… if not THE greatest of all time.
George Pérez
1954-2022
