Even in a simple photo of him, it has thousands of characters crammed into a small space.
George Pérez (June 9, 1954 - May 6, 2022) was a legendary Puerto Rican comic book artist. He began his career as an assistant for Rich Buckler at Marvel in 1973, and went on to work on several high-profile projects over the next forty years. He is most well-known for his love of drawing crowd scenes - Crisis on Infinite Earths featuring practically everybody in the DC Universe, or the cover of JLA-Avengers #3 featuring every single hero who had been a member of either team up to then (he actually sprained his wrist doing that cover, which ended up delaying the resolution of the crossover), or the opening arc of The Avengers volume 3 (right after the Heroes Reborn arc) featuring every Avenger up to that point reuniting and then getting redesigned into medieval outfits. His collaborating writers, such as Kurt Busiek and Mark Waid, have noted that they can use ideas that would scare away any other artist so long as Perez does the artwork. Outside of comics, he is perhaps most famous for wearing garishly bright Hawaiian shirts when he attends conventions.He formally announced
his retirement in 2019, citing various health issues. In December 2021 he announced on Facebook that he had been diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer, with a terminal diagnosis of six to twelve months. He passed away peacefully in his sleep on May 6, 2022.
Selected Bibliography
DC Comics- Crisis on Infinite Earths: The famous DC Universe reboot.
- Teen Titans:
- The New Teen Titans, with Marv Wolfman; this became DC's most popular comic book of the period and introduced many characters and costumes that would become iconic in later years, such as Deathstroke, Raven, and Starfire.
- Teen Titans (1996)
- Superman:
- Superman Vol 3: Pérez wrote and drew covers for the first six issues of the book following the New 52 reboot, with Nicola Scott and Jesús Merino.
- Wonder Woman:
- Wonder Woman Vol 2: Perez was plotter, penciler, and co-writer on the 1987 reboot of the character, which introduced many of the powers and background elements that would be Wonder Woman staples until the 2011 line-wide reboot. Furthermore, Patty Jenkins considered Perez's work on the character a key influence for her hailed Wonder Woman film, equal to the character's original creator, William Moulton Marston, himself.
- War of the Gods: A Crisis Crossover in 1991 that had its essential parts written by Perez and served as a finale to his run on Wonder Woman.
- Wonder Woman 600: Perez returned for the celebratory 600th issue of Wonder Woman to give a conclusion to the tale of one of the characters he'd created for Volume 2, who'd been put through the wringer after his run ended on the book.
- Wonder Woman Vol 2: Perez was plotter, penciler, and co-writer on the 1987 reboot of the character, which introduced many of the powers and background elements that would be Wonder Woman staples until the 2011 line-wide reboot. Furthermore, Patty Jenkins considered Perez's work on the character a key influence for her hailed Wonder Woman film, equal to the character's original creator, William Moulton Marston, himself.
Marvel Comics
- The Avengers: Pérez first penciled it in the '70s starting with issue #141, then came back in the '90s to illustrate the book's relaunch with Kurt Busiek.
- The Incredible Hulk: With Peter David, Perez drew the The Incredible Hulk: Future Imperfect two-issue series, which introduced the Maestro.
- The Infinity Gauntlet: Pérez penciled the book for the first couple of issues, and drew the first issue's famous cover.
Other
- JLA/Avengers, with Kurt Busiek
- Crimson Plague
