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My favorite artist, George Perez announced that he has Stage 3 Pancreatic Cancer and the doctors gave him six months to a year to live. You can read the full statement on his public Facebook.
To honor the man, I have put together a top ten unpublished George Perez list. Don’t think of this as ten failures, but rather, what we could have had, if things had gone a certain way.
>>>
#10 HOW TO DRAW SUPER HEROES (1986)
Advertisement shows “afterword by George Pérez”, yet when the book was published, it was sans afterword.
Fan Jim wrote, “I remember George mentioned this, either in Focus or the Comics Interview collection, probably the latter. [Rich] Buckler kept pressuring George to say "this IS the way to do it" or some such, and George disagreed and finally had to back out under the pressure.”
Rich Buckler and George Perez long buried the hatchet, as you can see the two pictured together in 2014. As you know, Buckler is the person that hired Perez as an art assistant. This led Perez to taking over Fantastic Four and becoming one of Marvel’s superstar artist.
Sadly, Buckler died in May 2017.
#9 SWORDQUEST #4: AIRWORLD (1983)
Atari hired George to draw their Swordquest mini-comics... which he produced Earthworld, Fireworld, Waterworld, and would have drawn Airworld... But unfortunately, the game was cancelled in 1983, so the comic book was never produced.
According to writer Gerry Conway, he never got around to thinking of a story when he was told the game was cancelled. Obviously, no script or artwork was ever produced for Airworld… but it would have been nice to complete the series with the final world.
#8 WIZARD 100TH ISSUE POSTER (2000)
George Pérez did the layout (blue pencils) for this poster, featuring 100 characters, but unfortunately, because of poor scheduling, the poster was never completed.
George wrote, “A couple of years ago WIZARD had asked me to lay out a proposed poster for their 100th issue. The piece would be a montage of 100 characters to be pencilled and inked by various artists but the whole thing was designed in blue pencil by me. That's why each of the characters, from various companies and creators, were numbered, so that the other artists could refer to a key and draw their character where indicated. That particular artwork was never completed, presumably because of the inability to coordinate it with the schedules and availability of many of the artists WIZARD wanted involved.”
#7 CLASSIC ILLUSTRATED: JULIUS CAESAR #1 (1990)
George writes, “During First Comics' revival of CLASSIC ILLUSTRATED, I was scheduled to adapt Williams Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. This incomplete cover was all that was done before the Classics line was discontinued.”
Bonus: JULIUS CAESAR IN SPACE
”At one time I considered doing a Julius Caesar Portfolio, setting it in outer space and casting it with aliens. At left is "Antony", at right is "Caesar".”
#6 DC COMICS PRESENTS ANNUAL #4 (1985)
In April 1984, writer Marv Wolfman wrote, “the Titans will also be the guest stars in the DC PRESENTS ANNUAL, featuring our favorites and a certain unnamed Man of Steel. I'll be writing the story, and if deadlines permit, George will be handling the art!”
This Teen Titans / Superman story never happened because both creators were far too busy working on Crisis on Infinite Earths and other projects. However, Wolfman did write a team-up in 1983 for Action Comics #546, and John Byrne had them together in 1987 with #584.
#5 SOJOURN/LADY DEATH (2004)
George produced 2 covers and 5 pages for Sojourn / Lady Death crossover. Unfortunately, by this time in 2004, CrossGen Comics went bankrupted and was purchased by Disney.
Bonus: THE WAR
George was meant to work on CrossGen's first cross-over event called “The War”, but couldn't commit due to JLA/Avengers. The event was changed to the Negation War, and the story never concluded.
#4 BIRDS OF PREY #7 (2012)
New 52 editors forgot that George Perez was working on Birds of Prey.
George said, “the editors decided that plot changes needed to be made and thus I could only produce these 8 pages and waited for months for the revisions that never came. I finally had to find other work and this story just got forgotten to death.”
See all 8 pages here here.
#3 STAN LEE’S CRISIS (2000)
George had always wanted to work with Stan Lee, so he immediately agreed to work on Just Imagine Stan Lee’s Crisis in June 2000. Unfortunately, Lee didn’t write the story until 2002, and by that time, George signed an exclusive contract with CrossGen.
Perez said everytime he saw Lee at a convention, Lee always asks Perez, “Why haven’t we worked together?” The reality is that this will never happen, since Stan Lee died in Nov 2018.
#2 CRIMSON PLAGUE (1997 & 2000)
George’s passion project, Crimson Plague started in the 90s, stopped and restarted with Gorilla Comics in 2000. He stated that he was personally losing over $20k on Crimson Plague #1 & #2. Artwork for #3 and the spirit of Crimson Plaguewas carried over to Sirens.
Sirens was the spiritual successor to Crimson Plague, recycling the same idea of using real fans (mostly costplayers) rendered in the pages of the comic book. In many ways, Crimson Plague and Sirens was George’s love letter to his fans. Sirens was really the last series that he started and finished.
#1 JLA/AVENGERS (1983)
The original 80s JLA/Avengers never happened. Most of the blame fell on Jim Shooter, but he didn't see it that way. George drew 21 pages, before he heard the news that the book was cancelled. We eventually got a very different version of JLA/Avengers in 2003.
The fallout caused George to leave Marvel, even refusing to draw the final cover to his Black Widow storyline in Marvel Fanfare.
Bonus: TEEN TITANS / X-MEN #2 (1985)
The continuing disagreements over JLA/Avengers in the 80s led to the cancellation of Teen Titans/X-Men #2. George Perez was schedule to draw the crossover with Marv Wolfman as writer.
To honor the man, I have put together a top ten unpublished George Perez list. Don’t think of this as ten failures, but rather, what we could have had, if things had gone a certain way.
>>>
|
How to Draw Super Heroes
|
Advertisement shows “afterword by George Pérez”, yet when the book was published, it was sans afterword.
Fan Jim wrote, “I remember George mentioned this, either in Focus or the Comics Interview collection, probably the latter. [Rich] Buckler kept pressuring George to say "this IS the way to do it" or some such, and George disagreed and finally had to back out under the pressure.”
Rich Buckler and George Perez long buried the hatchet, as you can see the two pictured together in 2014. As you know, Buckler is the person that hired Perez as an art assistant. This led Perez to taking over Fantastic Four and becoming one of Marvel’s superstar artist.
Sadly, Buckler died in May 2017.
|
|
Atari hired George to draw their Swordquest mini-comics... which he produced Earthworld, Fireworld, Waterworld, and would have drawn Airworld... But unfortunately, the game was cancelled in 1983, so the comic book was never produced.
According to writer Gerry Conway, he never got around to thinking of a story when he was told the game was cancelled. Obviously, no script or artwork was ever produced for Airworld… but it would have been nice to complete the series with the final world.
|
Wizard Poster
|
George Pérez did the layout (blue pencils) for this poster, featuring 100 characters, but unfortunately, because of poor scheduling, the poster was never completed.
George wrote, “A couple of years ago WIZARD had asked me to lay out a proposed poster for their 100th issue. The piece would be a montage of 100 characters to be pencilled and inked by various artists but the whole thing was designed in blue pencil by me. That's why each of the characters, from various companies and creators, were numbered, so that the other artists could refer to a key and draw their character where indicated. That particular artwork was never completed, presumably because of the inability to coordinate it with the schedules and availability of many of the artists WIZARD wanted involved.”
| Julius Caesar
|
George writes, “During First Comics' revival of CLASSIC ILLUSTRATED, I was scheduled to adapt Williams Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. This incomplete cover was all that was done before the Classics line was discontinued.”
Bonus: JULIUS CAESAR IN SPACE
”At one time I considered doing a Julius Caesar Portfolio, setting it in outer space and casting it with aliens. At left is "Antony", at right is "Caesar".”
|
Teen Titans / Superman
|
In April 1984, writer Marv Wolfman wrote, “the Titans will also be the guest stars in the DC PRESENTS ANNUAL, featuring our favorites and a certain unnamed Man of Steel. I'll be writing the story, and if deadlines permit, George will be handling the art!”
This Teen Titans / Superman story never happened because both creators were far too busy working on Crisis on Infinite Earths and other projects. However, Wolfman did write a team-up in 1983 for Action Comics #546, and John Byrne had them together in 1987 with #584.
| Sojourn / Lady Death
|
George produced 2 covers and 5 pages for Sojourn / Lady Death crossover. Unfortunately, by this time in 2004, CrossGen Comics went bankrupted and was purchased by Disney.
Bonus: THE WAR
George was meant to work on CrossGen's first cross-over event called “The War”, but couldn't commit due to JLA/Avengers. The event was changed to the Negation War, and the story never concluded.
|
Birds of Prey #7
|
New 52 editors forgot that George Perez was working on Birds of Prey.
George said, “the editors decided that plot changes needed to be made and thus I could only produce these 8 pages and waited for months for the revisions that never came. I finally had to find other work and this story just got forgotten to death.”
See all 8 pages here here.
| Stan Lee’s Crisis
|
George had always wanted to work with Stan Lee, so he immediately agreed to work on Just Imagine Stan Lee’s Crisis in June 2000. Unfortunately, Lee didn’t write the story until 2002, and by that time, George signed an exclusive contract with CrossGen.
Perez said everytime he saw Lee at a convention, Lee always asks Perez, “Why haven’t we worked together?” The reality is that this will never happen, since Stan Lee died in Nov 2018.
|
Crimson Plague
|
George’s passion project, Crimson Plague started in the 90s, stopped and restarted with Gorilla Comics in 2000. He stated that he was personally losing over $20k on Crimson Plague #1 & #2. Artwork for #3 and the spirit of Crimson Plaguewas carried over to Sirens.
Sirens was the spiritual successor to Crimson Plague, recycling the same idea of using real fans (mostly costplayers) rendered in the pages of the comic book. In many ways, Crimson Plague and Sirens was George’s love letter to his fans. Sirens was really the last series that he started and finished.
| JLA/Avengers
|
The original 80s JLA/Avengers never happened. Most of the blame fell on Jim Shooter, but he didn't see it that way. George drew 21 pages, before he heard the news that the book was cancelled. We eventually got a very different version of JLA/Avengers in 2003.
The fallout caused George to leave Marvel, even refusing to draw the final cover to his Black Widow storyline in Marvel Fanfare.
Bonus: TEEN TITANS / X-MEN #2 (1985)
The continuing disagreements over JLA/Avengers in the 80s led to the cancellation of Teen Titans/X-Men #2. George Perez was schedule to draw the crossover with Marv Wolfman as writer.
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