Board 8 > R.I.P George Perez

(+) Yeah! (+)

One week after Neal, christ.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/3/6/AAeolZAADNO8.jpg

When George Perez was doing Avengers with Kurt Busiek, an issue had a two-page splash of just Beast's smiling face. Anyone who knows his art knows he is the king of details, but being that it's just a furry blue guy's face, there wasn't much he could do. He told Busiek he felt bad that he wasn't giving it 'his all' on these pages, who assured him it was perfect.

Because it was.

RIP

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/6/5/AABy0dAADNPZ.jpg

George Perez was my all-time favorite comic artist. I always like to point to Crisis on Infinite Earths as one of my jumping-on points for comics, despite reading it decades after it came out for the first. George took 500 characters and made each one feel unique, with carefully detailed mannerisms that brought out at least some aspect of who they were, even in the shots of dozens upon dozens surrounding them. He made me want to learn more about the annoyed looking Firehair or these shocked looking Forgotten Heroes. Every single panel was just a goldmine of DC's treasured history and I honestly can't think of an artist who has better represented both DC and Marvel. Perez always did justice to any character he ever portrayed. I also don't think that he's as stuck in the past as someone like Alex Ross is. Perez just managed faithful, meaningful portrayals of his subjects, wherever he went.

This is easily the comics death that hurts me the most. I know I'll be pulling out my Kang Dynasty, my Crisis, my JLA/Avengers during the coming weeks and looking back at all of his phenomenal work.

God, I loved George Perez's work. A complete legend. He's been involved in art for so many stories I love. His style was always so crisp and distinct and I honestly think his style is what I default to when I think about comic book art.

Crisis on Infinite Earths is the first comic I ever read with the goal of "I want to read DC Comics" rather than " I finished rrwatching Teen Titans and want more Teen Titans (ironically I have yet to actually read late 80s/early 90s Teen Titans, though I did read 90s Titans).

Sure, perhaps the person who I asked where I should start responding with "CoIE and then everything after that" was being a sarcastic, and me taking thatch at face value was pretty ignorant as to what I was getting myself into, but I'm honestly glad they did. There's no artist more representative of an era than Perez. When they tried to shoehorn into more modern stuff with more modern coloring and prints, it was obvious that they couldn't appreciate what it meant to play into his strengths *coughNew52Supermancough*, but he always gave it his all.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/7/6/AAeolZAADNPk.jpg

Rock those Hawaiian shirts in the after life my dude.

I wanna say something in reference to a comment outside of here I saw, where someone mentioned that Perez was great for his era but comic art just wasn't very good back then. Couldn't disagree more, it was just that comic art was different back then before the ages of digital. I think this mindset is perpetuated by how often the big 2 try to trot out old predigital artists for new work and it just doesn't hit, but at the time some of these people were legends and deservedly so. Am I more attracted to the modern high scheen art from the like of Manapul, Reis, Mahnke, and Rocafort? Sure, it's more pleasing in a vacuum, they're more "artistic", but none of them could have done something like CoIE in their wildest dreams. Their art doesn't support that type of script, that type of need. Imagine Reis trying to do that page I just posted, there's no WAY they could keep their standards to that kind of spread. They wouldn't even try to tackle such a layout to begin with. Perez being able to do such a thing without sacrificing any of his attention is an incredible feat.

Yeah, I remember being overwhelmed when I was getting into DC and reading Crisis. There is so much going on in that story and even more going in the art. But really that is a testament to Perez's skill that's easy to see as I grow familiar with the medium over time. He was so good at having these very complicated arts with tons of details without sacrificing the clarity of the image, basically forcing you to reckon with the entire scale all at once. I mean just look at that Anti-Monitor image. Goat shit.