On this date June 9, 1954 George Pérez was born in South Bronx, New York City, NY. In 1980 he began working for DC Comics. Offered the art chores for the launch of The New Teen Titans, written by Wolfman, Pérez real incentive was the opportunity to draw Justice League of America. Long-time Justice League artist Dick Dillin died right around that time, providing an opportunity for Pérez to step in as regular artist. While Pérezs stint on the JLA was popular with fans, his career took off with the New Teen Titans. The New Teen Titans was launched in a special preview in DC Comics Presents #26 (October 1980). This incarnation of the Titans was intended to be DCs answer to Marvels increasingly popular X-Men comic, and Wolfman and Pérez indeed struck gold. In August 1984, a second series of The New Teen Titans was launched by Wolfman and Pérez. Moreover, Pérezs facility with layouts, details, and faces improved enormously during his four years on the book, making him one of the most popular artists in comics as evidenced by the numerous industry awards he would receive during this time. Pérez took a leave of absence from The New Teen Titans in 1984 to focus on his next project with Marv Wolfman, DCs 1985 50th-anniversary event, Crisis on Infinite Earths. Crisis purportedly featured every single character DC owned, in a story which radically restructured the DC universes continuity. Pérez was inked on the series by Dick Giordano, Mike DeCarlo, and Jerry Ordway. After Crisis, Pérez inked the final issue of Superman (issue #423) in September 1986, over Curt Swans pencils for Part 1 of the 2-part story Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? by writer Alan Moore. The following month, Pérez was one of the artists on Batman #400 (October 1986) Wolfman and Pérez teamed again to produce the History of the DC Universe limited series to summarize the companys new history. Pérez drew the cover for the DC Heroes roleplaying game (1985) from Mayfair Games. Pérez also illustrated the cover for the fourth edition of the Champions roleplaying game (1989) from Hero Games. Wonder Woman was rebooted in 1987. Writer Greg Potter spent several months working with editor Janice Race on new concepts for the character, before being joined by Pérez. Inspired by John Byrne and Frank Millers work on refashioning Superman and Batman, Pérez came in as the plotter and penciler of Wonder Woman. The relaunch tied the character more closely to the Greek gods and jettisoned many of the extraneous elements of her history. In addition to possessing the power of flight and no longer having either an invisible plane or high-heel boots, this interpretation of Wonder Woman had wavy hair. Pérez at first worked with Potter and Len Wein on the stories, but eventually took over the full scripting chores. Later, Mindy Newell joined Pérez as co-writer for nearly a year. While not as popular as either Titans or Crisis, the book was a very successful relaunch of one of DCs flagship characters. Pérez returned as co-plotter/penciller with the New Teen Titans with issue #50 (Dec. 1988), the series again being renamed, this time to The New Titans. Issue #50 tells a new origin story for Wonder Girl, her link to Wonder Woman having been severed due to retcons in Crisis on Infinite Earths. Pérez remained as penciller with the book through to issue #55, 57 and 60, while only providing layouts for issues 58–59, and 61, with artist Tom Grummett finishing pencils and Bob McLeod as inker. The A Lonely Place of Dying storyline crossed over with the Batman title and introduced Tim Drake as the new Robin. Pérez remained as inker for the cover art to issues 62–67 (co-plotting the stories for 66–67) before departing from the Titans book once again. Pérez would be involved with Superman in various times over his career. In Action Comics #544 (June 1983), he designed Lex Luthors trademark battlesuit. These new designs for the villain were featured as part of the licensed action figure toyline the Super Powers Collection and remain in use in todays DC Comics continuity. Pérez pencilled DC Comics Presents #61 (Sept. 1983) which featured a Superman/OMAC team-up. A few years later, Pérez inked John Byrnes pencils for the Superman/Wonder Woman story in Action Comics #600 (March 1988). He drew portions of Action Comics Annual #2 (1989) before taking over the title with issue #643 (July 1989). His work duties on Action Comics would change from writer/penciller, to co-writer/breakdowns, to providing breakdowns, with writer Roger Stern scripting stories and artists Brett Breeding and Kerry Gammill provided finishing art, while Pérez drew all covers during his run on the title. Pérez briefly wrote Adventures of Superman, providing plots for issues #457–59 (Aug. 1989 – Oct. 1989), and inks for issue #461 (Dec. 1989). Due to an already heavy workload while doing both Wonder Woman and Superman at the same time, he left Action Comics with issue #652 (April 1990). It was during this run in 1991 that Pérez encountered problems working with DC. Pérez has stated that since the storylines inception, which ran through the Wonder Woman comic and crossed over into others, he had trouble writing the War of the Gods storyline, mostly due to editorial problems. Pérez felt that DC wasnt doing enough to celebrate Wonder Womans 50-year anniversary. To make matters worse in his eyes, DC didnt place War of the Gods in newsstand distribution, which meant that the comic book could only be found in comics specialty shops. Pérez had built up a plot to marry the characters Steve Trevor and Etta Candy in his final issue. When he discovered that DC editors had decided to not only pass the Wonder Woman titles writing to William Messner-Loebs and have Messner-Loebs write the final wedding scene, Pérez quit the title and separated himself from DC for several years. Pérez first returned to DC Comics in October 1996, returning to another incarnation of the Teen Titans. Teen Titans (vol. 2) was written and penciled by Dan Jurgens, with Pérez as inker for the first 15 issues (of its twenty four-issue run). The series ended in September 1998. Pérez had a stint as writer of Silver Surfer (vol. 2) from issues #111 - 123 (December 1995 - December 1996). He would also write the crossover special Silver Surfer/Superman in 1996. Pérez finally returned to a major ongoing title for the third series of The Avengers, written by Kurt Busiek, where he remained for nearly three years, again receiving critical and fan acclaim for his polished and dynamic art. After leaving the book, he and Busiek worked to produce the long-awaited JLA/Avengers inter-company crossover, which saw print in late 2003. A JLA/Avengers crossover was to have been published in the 1980s, but differences between DC and Marvel forced the comic to be canceled. As the artist on the story, Pérez had drawn approximately 21 pages of the original crossover, which were not published until the 2004 hardcover edition of JLA/Avengers: The Collectors Edition. In May 2006, Pérez illustrated the cover art to one of the alternative covers to the direct market release of the annual Official Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide (36th edition) featuring Wonder Woman. He drew the first ten issues of DCs The Brave and the Bold (vol. 2, 2007–2010) with writer Mark Waid. Pérez worked on Infinite Crisis, the follow-up to Crisis on Infinite Earths, as a fill in artist. He worked on Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds in 2008-2009, thus contributing to every chapter of DCs Crisis trilogy. He is also working with Marv Wolfman on a direct-to-DVD movie adaptation of the Judas Contract story arc from Teen Titans. However work on this project has stalled. He is a co-chairman of the board of the comic industry charity The Hero Initiative and serves on its Disbursement Committee. In 2005, an animated version of Pérez made a cameo appearance in the Teen Titans animated series episode titled Go, which was an adaptation of The New Teen Titans #1. In the episode For Real André LeBlanc attacks a bank called Bank of Pérez. In City of Heroes, a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG about superheroes, an entire zone within the game (Pérez Park) is named after him. In September 2011, DC launched a new Superman series written by Pérez, who also provided breakdowns and cover art, with interior art by Jesús Merino and Nicola Scott. Perez remained until issue #6. The New Teen Titans: Games hardcover graphic novel was published the same month reuniting the creative team of Wolfman and Pérez. He was the inker of the new Green Arrow series, also launched in the same timeframe, over artist Dan Jurgens pencils, reuniting the mid-1990s Teen Titans art team. Pérez and Kevin Maguire are alternating artists on a Worlds Finest revival written by Paul Levitz. In July 2012, Pérez explained his departure from Superman as a reaction to the level of editorial oversight he experienced. This included inconsistent reasons given for rewrites of his material, the inability of editors to explain to him basic aspects of the New 52 Supermans status quo (such as whether his adoptive parents were still alive), and restrictions imposed by having to be consistent with Action Comics, which is set five years earlier than Superman, a situation complicated by the fact that Action writer Grant Morrison was not forthcoming about his plans. Awards: Pérez won a 1979 Eagle Award (with Jim Shooter, Sal Buscema, and David Wenzel) for Best Continued Story for his work on The Avengers #167, 168, 170-177. In 1980 he won the Eagle Award for Best Comicbook Cover for Avengers #185. He won the Eagle Award for Favourite Artist (penciller) in 1986. Pérez received an Inkpot Award in 1983. In 1985, DC Comics named Pérez as one of the honorees in the companys 50th anniversary publication Fifty Who Made DC Great. His work (with that of Marv Wolfman and Romeo Tanghal), earned The New Teen Titans #50 a nomination for the 1985 Jack Kirby Award for Best Single Issue. His work (with that of Marv Wolfman) earned Crisis on Infinite Earths the 1985 and 1986 Jack Kirby Awards for Best Finite Series. Pérez has won several Comics Buyers Guide Fan Awards. He won the Favorite Artist award in 1983 and 1985 and Favorite Penciler in 1987. In addition, he won the Favorite Cover Artist award three consecutive years 1985-1987. Pérez worked on several stories which won the CBG award for Favorite Comic-Book Story: ⦁ 1984 The Judas Contract in Tales of the Teen Titans #42-44 and Annual #3 ⦁ 1985 Beyond the Silent Night in Crisis on Infinite Earths #7 ⦁ 1989 A Lonely Place of Dying in Batman #440-442 and The New Titans #60-61 Crisis on Infinite Earths won the award for Favorite Limited Series in 1985. He is 60 years old today. Happy Birthday George !
Posted on: Mon, 09 Jun 2014 05:31:36 +0000
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