Do you think I'm too harsh on these reviews I do ? I guess I am, but these are first impressions I get when I get the latest George-related book. I've been meaning to write another more rounded review for the PEREZ ARCHIVES, but I have been lazy.

Anyroad, COMIC BOOK MARKETPLACE #86 will be released to the general public tomorrow, but thanks to Marcus Mebes I have an advance copy.

This is part ONE of a four part interview with George Pérez, by interviewer Bill Baker. Part one of the interview basically just focused on the AVENGERS and the various writers that worked with George (at one point Baker had no idea who wrote after Steve Englehart left the series). The artwork used in throughout the interview were just various covers of the AVENGERS, a little disappointing.

Part two of the interview will appear in COMIC BOOK MARKETPLACE #87 [see correction ], will focus more on the TEEN TITANS, CRISIS, and more.

Probably the coolest section is the two-page (three if you count the artwork embedded between the pages), are interviews with Tom Brevoort and Dan Raspler (both editors of the up-coming JLA/AVENGERS series) on the subject of George Pérez! Here is an excerpt of the interview with Brevoort:

CBM: You say that George is the greatest living superhero artist; what aspects of his work make him that in your opinion?
Brevoort: It's a number of things. George's work has a synthesis of the strengths of so many of the great comic book artist of the past. He's got the power and energy of Kirby. He's got the subtlety of a Curt Swan. He's got the quirkiness of a Steve Ditko. He sort of runs the gamut. He's the kind of guy that can do anything. In the course of a 22 page story, if you have a sequence that's just two characters sitting around a kitchen table, talking, he can give that scene life. He'll certainly convince you about the environment. He'll put the research in and give you a kitchen that looks like a real kitchen that real people live in, with appropriate items scattered around. The characters themselves will have distinctive faces, he doesn't use a stock face over and over again, and distinctive body language. And his pacing of the story is excellent.

I'm looking for a good excerpt for the George Pérez interview and all the answers are really, really long. This is because they are all really detailed, but for the sake of transcribing, I am going to use the mentioned of Jim Shooter (who originally disapproved of the original JLA/AVENGERS book).

CBM: How did "The Korvac Saga" come about?
Pérez: Well that was Jim's and my desire to do a big, epic Avengers storyline. I mean, they're going to have to rise from the dead to win this battle! And the guardians of the Galaxy? "Hey, these are characters I haven't drawn! More costumes, more characters! Hey, this is going to be fun!"
      He wanted to do it in order to use me as best he could. I guess that was as close to drawing as many characters as Legion had, that he'd be doing on The Avengers. And then I had to double-cross him by going through personal hassles and everything else - my marriage was falling apart - and I ended up not even finishing the saga that Jim started with the intention of it being a big magnum opus from the team of Shooter and Perez. And I was gone. And that was the big regret [for me about] that story - like, unfortunately, too many stories in my career - I started off with all maximum strength, some of the best I could do, but for one reason or another, I just could not finish it. And that was my regret because I think Jim and I were doing some really, really kick ass on that.

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