WAR OF THE GODS
written by Patrick Daniel O'Neil
interview with George Pérez, appearing in COMICS INTERVIEW #104 (Winter 1991)
transcribed by Vu
(excerpt)
Pat Daniel O'Neil: I understand that Wonder Woman may be worth a lot more to DC on the level of licensing than as a published character, although I also understand that their agreement with the Marston estate is that they have to keep publishing it or else they don't have rights to the character.
George Pérez: That I've not heard and I'm not privy to that information.
Pat Daniel O'Neil: That came from a reliable source.
George Pérez: If that's true, it explains why DC's still doing it. I appreciate the compliment about the good work I was doing with Wonder Woman but I had hoped that they would have had a little more faith in the character. Particularly on the fiftieth anniversary. This is, after all, the longest-running female character in comics, almost non-stop!
I had proposed other things that they could have done for her anniversary. I was really pushing these projects - for example, the anniversary poster, which I drew. They were supposed to be doing a WONDER WOMAN trade paperback. WONDER WOMAN: YEAR ONE, which reprints the first eight issues of my WONDER WOMAN, is nice but I don't consider it an anniversary book - because there's nothing from the fifty years, just from my version. When I first heard about it, they were planning to print it with regular comic paper like they did DEATH IN THE FAMILY and I said, "For fiftieth anniversary, this is what you're going to give us?"
Now that they're not advertising WAR OF THE GODS as a WONDER WOMAN book they don't have anything to advertise. If I were drawing it, they would have advertised it as such, because then they would have figured that the Perez name would override any negative feedback that would follow a WONDER WOMAN anniversary since DC's faith in Wonder Woman is pretty much nil; other characters that didn't sell well were promoted because it was prestigious.
I was feeling a bit angry because it was like I was the only person fighting for Wonder Woman. Then I lost my editor due to an act of God and of husband because she went into labor. Karen Berger went on maternity leave and so we ended up with an editor who, try as he might, is still a novice who doesn't have the push that Karen has in the company. Everything was starting to fall apart and at this point I was incredibly depressed.
I was trying to contact the editor for a week without any luck, and I wasn't the only one; the new artist had been trying to get through, and he couldn't contact the editor, either. DC had this new answering machine - unfortunately the new answering machine doesn't tell you if the person is in or not, it just take the message. I had a good number of pages of artwork turned in and they sat on a desk at DC for over a week and no one even knew they were there.
It was quickly becoming a fiasco and the second issue really came out late because of all the problems. I knew when I had finished scripting the last page of issue two that the book was late - but I didn't understand why it was so late. I was doing the scripting after the inking had already been done. And when it came out they let a lot of mistakes get through, even after I proofread and pointed out the mistakes. And unfortunately the new artist suffered from the WAR curse, too. We were getting artwork from him for the pin-ups in random order; we finished all the pinups for issue four before I got half of the pin-ups for issue three. The editor should have prioritized the work by saying that he need the artwork for the work due now, not for the work due later.
I later heard that there was never any newsstand distribution for WAR OF THE GODS #1. Diamond Distributors asked me if there would be a newsstand edition of #1. I knew that physically there would be no difference, but - as far as I know - no newsstand has carried WAR OF THE GODS. Automatically, WAR OF THE GODS #1 sales have been cut down because all of a sudden it had no newsstand distribution. Anyone reading comics that has no access to a comics shop would have the crossovers with no availability to the main story!
I must say that there were some people who were put on the spot in working on this project! Keith Giffen really came through, considering he had no knowledge of WAR OF THE GODS until I called him. John Ostrander was a real prince to work with, as was Marv Wolfman. Marv literally had to stop mid-stride with what he was doing to fit my storyline in. he actually regretted that he couldn't have done more with the Titans.
The last straw was in the case of WONDER WOMAN when I have Steve Trevor and Etta Candy getting married in the last issue. I had it in the synopsis months ago, the plot was handed in, I finally scripted it, off it went, and when I receive a phone call saying that Bill Loebs is now the writer and that he was going to be doing the wedding. This was something that I was setting up and I was the one who wanted to handle it. It could even have been a misunderstanding between Bill and me - maybe he assumed that iw as just getting them engaged and he was taking care of the wedding - but the fact that was the entire issue went through all the final steps, the wedding had to be redrawn and I just refused to rewrite it.
I finally was so angry that I had to ask Karen Berger to please send me a check, which they had already delayed by two weeks, and I just hung up the phone.
I have not spoken to anyone at DC Comics since then.
Right now I'm working for Marvel and other people. I once compared Marvel and DC, when Marvel was going through the controversial Jim Shooter stage, to one being a tank and the other a cab. Marvel was the tank at the time. When I faced up to it I realized that this was a dangerous machine coming at me and I have to get out of the way.
To me, DC has now become a cab where you don't know that the driver is asleep at the wheel. You think it's benign and you have nothing to worry about - until it's too late. If the problems were just with WAR OF THE GODS, I could say definitely it's just me. But other people tell me I'm no the only kid on the block in that situation at DC.
[ Read more in COMICS INTERVIEW #104 ]
BATMAN
(1991), art by Chris Sprous/George Perez, colors by Rick Taylor, published in WAR OF THE GODS #3 (Direct)
Tue, 20 Mar 2007 16:05:52 CST
