Born in June 1954, George Pérez would go on to become an incredible artist/penciller for a number of great titles – such as The Avengers in 1970, The New Teen Titans in 1980, and did the Crisis on Infinite Earths as well as Wonder Woman.
Some more details about the wonderful career of George Pérez from Wikipedia –
Pérez’s first involvement with the professional comics industry was as artist Rich Buckler’s assistant in 1973, and he made his professional debut in Marvel Comics’ Astonishing Tales #25 (Aug. 1974) as penciler of an untitled two-page satire of Buckler’s character Deathlok, star of that comic’s main feature.
Pérez became a Marvel regular, penciling a run of “Sons of the Tiger”, a serialized action-adventure strip published in Marvel’s long-running Deadly Hands of Kung Fu magazine and authored by Bill Mantlo. He and Mantlo co-created the White Tiger (comics’ first Puerto Rican superhero), a character that soon appeared in Marvel’s color comics, most notably the Spider-Man titles.
Pérez came to prominence with Marvel’s superhero-team comic The Avengers, starting with issue #141. In the 1970s, Pérez illustrated several other Marvel titles, including Creatures on the Loose, featuring the Man-Wolf; The Inhumans; and Fantastic Four.
Whilst most of Pérez’ Fantastic Four issues were written by Roy Thomas or Len Wein, it would be a Fantastic Four Annual where he would have his first major collaboration with writer Marv Wolfman. Pérez drew the first part of writer Jim Shooter’s “The Korvac Saga”, which featured nearly every Avenger who joined the team up to that point.Writer David Michelinie and Pérez created the Taskmaster in The Avengers #195 (May 1980).
The New Teen Titans #1 (Nov. 1980, inked by Dick Giordano) and Crisis on Infinite Earths #1 (April 1985), two of the essential Pérez works for DC Comics in the 1980s
In 1980, while still drawing The Avengers for Marvel, Pérez began working for their rival 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 (an ambition of Pérez’s which “seemed like a natural progress from the Avengers”).
The New Teen Titans, which was launched in a special preview in DC Comics Presents #26 (October 1980). This incarnation of the Titans was intended to be DC’s answer to Marvel’s increasingly popular X-Men comic, and it became highly successful.
Pérez took a leave of absence from The New Teen Titans in 1984 to focus on his next project with Marv Wolfman, DC’s 1985 50th-anniversary event, Crisis on Infinite Earths. Crisis purportedly featured every single character DC owned, in a story which radically restructured the DC universe’s continuity. Pérez was inked on the series by Dick Giordano, Mike DeCarlo, and Jerry Ordway.
Pérez drew the cover for the DC Heroes roleplaying game (1985) from Mayfair Games as well as the cover for the fourth edition of the Champions roleplaying game (1989) from Hero Games.
Pérez returned as co-plotter/penciller of The New Teen Titans with issue #50 (Dec. 1988), with the series being renamed The New Titans, rewriting the origin of Wonder Girl, following the 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 storyline “A Lonely Place of Dying” crossed over with the Batman series and introduced Tim Drake as the new Robin. Pérez remained as inker for the cover art to issues #62–67 and co-plotted the stories for #66–67 before departing from the Titans series once again.
Pérez was involved with Superman in various times over his career, including his tenure on Justice League of America years before. In Action Comics #544 (June 1983), he designed Lex Luthor’s 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 today’s DC Comics continuity. Pérez pencilled DC Comics Presents #61 (Sept. 1983) which featured a Superman/OMAC team-up.
Pérez felt that DC was not doing enough to celebrate Wonder Woman’s 50-year anniversary. To make matters worse in his eyes, DC did not 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 title’s 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. In 1992, he was guest inker on Deathstroke the Terminator issues #10–11.
Also in 1991, Pérez signed on to pencil the six-issue limited series Infinity Gauntlet for Marvel Comics, which was written by Jim Starlin. However, due to the turbulence happening concurrently with War of the Gods, this was a very stressful personal period for Pérez, and he was not able to finish penciling the entire run of Infinity Gauntlet, leaving the project part way through issue #4. The Infinity Gauntlet editorial team decided to find a replacement artist to finish the miniseries, and Ron Lim was the artist chosen (although Pérez offered to remain on as the inker over Lim’s cover art for the remainder of the miniseries).
Pérez returned to DC Comics in October 1996 for 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.
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 was guest artist for an issue of JSA #82 (April 2006) and was cover artist from issues #82–87. He drew the first ten issues of DC’s The Brave and the Bold (vol. 2) in 2007 with writer Mark Waid.
He was co-chair of the board of the comic industry charity The Hero Initiative and served on its Disbursement Committee. In 2005, an animated version of him had cameo appearance in the Teen Titans animated series episode titled “Go”, which was an adaptation of his 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.
From September 2014 to December 2016, Pérez wrote and drew six issues of his own creation Sirens, published by BOOM! Studios. It is a science fiction miniseries dedicated to a group of women with extraordinary powers, who fight against evil across time and space.
In January 2019, Pérez announced that he was formally retiring due to various health issues, and would continue to produce only a limited number of convention-style head sketches on commission, and attend a limited number of conventions.
Pérez was married to Carol Flynn. He had no children. He had a brother David, and a niece and nephew.
In October 2013, Pérez revealed that he would soon undergo laser and injection surgeries to address hemorrhaging in his left eye that had effectively made him blind in that eye. By the following June, the procedures were not yet completed, but his condition had improved to the point that he was able to resume his work.
In May 2017, he was admitted to a hospital with chest pains due to a heart attack while traveling to a convention, and had a coronary stent fitted. By January 2019, Perez was dealing with multiple health issues, including diabetes and problems with his vision and his heart.
In December 2021, he revealed that after surgery for a blockage in his liver, he had been diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer. Given a prognosis of 6 to 12 months, he chose not to pursue treatment.
In early 2022, both DC and Marvel included tributes to him and his work in their comics, and jointly approved a limited-run reprint of the 2003 JLA/Avengers story he illustrated (long tied up by disagreements between the rival publishers), as a benefit for the Hero Initiative.
Pérez died on May 6, 2022 due to complications from pancreatic cancer. His friend Constance Eza wrote the next day that the 67-year-old artist “passed away yesterday, peacefully at home” with his wife Carol and their family by his side. An open memorial service was scheduled to be held at MegaCon Orlando on May 22.
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 and 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 company’s 50th anniversary publication Fifty Who Made DC Great.
His work (with Marv Wolfman and Romeo Tanghal), earned The New Teen Titans #50 a nomination for the 1985 Jack Kirby Award for Best Single Issue. His collaboration with Wolfman earned Crisis on Infinite Earths the Jack Kirby Award for Best Finite Series in both 1985 and 1986.
Pérez has won several Comics Buyer’s 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. Crisis on Infinite Earths won the award for “Favorite Limited Series” in 1985.
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
In 2022, Pérez was awarded the Inkwell Awards Stacey Aragon Special Recognition Award (SASRA) for his lifetime achievement in inking.
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