"THIS IS WHERE I NEED TO GO NOW"
GEORGE PÉREZ ON CROSSGEN MOVE
Thursday December 21, 2000
By Beau Yarbrough

Note to would-be suitors of George Pérez: The full court press works with him. After all, that's how CrossGen Comics got him to go from handling the art on a few issues of "CrossGen Chronicles" to signing an exclusive contract with the company, as was announced earlier this week. (See CBR's Comic Brief for CrossGen's press release on the topic.)

"I was sort of overwhelmed by all the effort," Pérez told the Comic Wire on Wednesday. "I hope I'm worth it! ... My wife's comment was 'good god, they really want you!'"

CrossGen initially contacted the legendary artist before their first comic was even published. But it took one of his partners at the Gorilla imprint coming on board to convince him to give them a closer look.

"If they can win a skeptic like Mark [Waid] over, I should investigate this a little more," Pérez said. Waid joined CrossGen's staff as their third staff writer earlier this year, although he won't be fully exclusive with the company until his run writing DC Comics' "JLA" comes to an end.

Like Waid, Pérez doesn't exactly have to go begging for freelance assignments from the major companies. But CrossGen was offering something that they weren't.

"Despite the fact of being able to get a lot of work -- lord knows I have no problem as far as work being offered -- because of concerns of my health, as well as my age creeping up ... I have to start worrying about my future.

"The great thing about working with CrossGen is they do things like profit-sharing and being able to build up money for retirement."

The company is bending some of their rules for the artist: While he already lives in Florida, he won't be relocating from his home in Orlando to the company's studios outside Tampa, as is the norm. Pérez is a diabetic, and has special needs that made him reluctant to pick up stakes and move across the state -- much less commute two-and-a-half hours each way daily.

"The more they understood, the more they were willing to listen to what some of the problems were and were willing to work around them, the more I realized that this is not normal at Marvel and DC, since with them, the knowledge is always there that, first and foremost, I was just another freelancer."

Of course, he'd heard some of this before.

"Since I'd had experience with other companies that had backing initially, before going bust later on, I was a little anxious at first."

The Gorilla Comics imprint initially was to be funded by a full-service comic Web site. When that never materialized, the creator-owned comics like Waid's "Empire" and Pérez's "Crimson Plague" suddenly became much more tricky propositions, with the creators fronting the money for the production and publication of the books.

"Crimson Plague" is "a nice labor of love," he said, "But it's not making me any money I'm going to retire on."

Waid reportedly has the ability to do more "Empire" in an exception to his exclusivity clause, and Pérez likewise has the right to do a JLA/Avengers crossover book if DC and Marvel (and their respective parent companies) ever get all their legal ducks in a row. But as for "Crimson Plague," Pérez doesn't know what its future is at this point.

"I'll make an announcement soon. I'm still weighing [the decision]," he said. "With all the problems that Gorilla has had, it's been a tough haul."

He will be talking to his Gorilla partners and the models for "Crimson Plague" (who normally would be buying plane tickets and planning summer convention appearances early in the new year) before making the decision.

"There will be a decision on that in the next couple of weeks."

Much more definite, though, is him tackling a genre he's done relatively little with. After years making his mark on superhero comics for DC and Marvel, Pérez says fantasy comics offer him a chance to grow as an artist.

"After drawing my first issue for CrossGen," -- "CrossGen Chronicles" #2 -- "I really liked it. That Ron Marz, he's going to kill me! And it looks like Barbara Kesel's going to try the same thing," he laughed. "I'm drawing things I don't normally get a call to do. My first issue, I had to draw armadas in battle at sea. ... The more I want to curse the writer, the more I improve as an artist."

Pérez is just starting work on "CrossGen Chronicles" #3, which will flesh out the history of the story in "Meridian."

Before his exclusivity contract kicks in, though, DC Comics fans will see Pérez returning to one of his old haunts one more time, when he pitches in on the next major story arc in "Wonder Woman." Pérez, who relaunched comicdom's most famous female superhero as a writer-artist, is co-plotting with that title's new writer-artist double threat, Phil Jimenez.

"He basically just wanted to do a story with me involved. I basically think he's giving me too much credit. A lot of it, I'm not familiar with Wonder Woman and her pantheon since I've been gone," Pérez said. "I've been more of a kibitzer. I once made a suggestion that basically turned Phil around, and that scared me. I thought 'wow, what power!'"

Contrary to some earlier reports, Pérez is staying out of the scripting end of things.

"I don't feel that I should be filtering his words at this point. And he already has an editor on that book."

Returning home to Paradise Island more than 100 issues after he left "is kind of a thrill," he said, "Even in the more peripheral capacity that I am. ... That leaves 'Fantastic Four' for books I haven't touched since I left."

Make that ongoing books: "I sincerely doubt they'll bring back 'Man-Wolf' or 'Logan's Run.' ... Or 'Sons of the Tiger,'" he laughed.

But for now, Pérez is thinking about the future with CrossGen.

"This is where I need to go now. The industry is suffering, no doubt about it. In addition to taking care of me and my own, there was also CrossGen's desire to create a new crop of talent, with people like me as inspiration or," he laughed, "Tribal elders, I guess.

"When I'm gone, there will be an extra legacy beyond the printed page. ... When I started working in comics, and I used to live near enough to Marvel's offices that I would visit maybe once or twice a week ... I would get invaluable advice. ... All these people would tell me what I was doing wrong, as well as what I was doing right. ... Now that we're such a scattered industry ... it's a nice return, a nice throwback. ... When I visited the CrossGen studios, THAT was how I imagined a comic book studio when I was a child."