I believe that for a variety of reasons, the 2000 award was never actually presented to George. As far as I know from discussions with Charles, the award presented here was the long-late 2000 award.

Image from "George Pérez receives CBLDF Defender of Liberty Award" (May 2000)

Topic: BALTIMORE CON ESCAPES THE SNIPER
posted 10-29-2002 04:36 PM

Call me a geek, but I love convention centers, and really enjoyed the Baltimore Convention Center.

I was really excited on Sunday to see so many people in downtown Baltimore all dressed up in costume and headed for the show, until I realized that those folks were actually dressed up in costume to attend the Baltimore Ravens/Pittsburgh Steelers football game.

Seeing Charles Brownstein surprise George Perez by presenting him the absolutely gorgeous Defender of Liberty Award at the Friday was quite touching. I'm still thinking of ways that I can possibly help the comics industry and specifically the CBLDF so that some day I may be deserving of such an honor.

(Vu: That last paragraph above confused me, because I did not know who actually won the award. Upon some research, I was able to find out that Charles Brownstein works for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, who are the presenters of the award. So it is a safe assumption that Pérez won the award! This was the original award that George was suposed to receive in 2000, please read Andy Mangel's explanation: October 29, 2002 | Defender of Liberty.)