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News: Pittsburgh Comicon - Comic Genius
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Pittsburgh Comicon - Comic Genius
04/21/2005
Bill Vidonic, Times Staff
© Beaver County Times Allegheny Times 2005
Comic book artist George Perez is getting old enough to be a grandfather to a new legion of fans enamored of his work, which features intricately detailed drawings of some of today's biggest superheroes, including Superman, Batman and Captain America.
PITTSBURGH COMICON 2005 (April 22-24, 2005)
Even at the age of 50, with more than 30 years in the comic industry, Perez said he's not ready to rest on his laurels just yet, constantly challenging himself to attract even more new fans.
"If I can nab them in their first viewing of my work, I can be viable in this industry again," Perez said. "Hopefully, my best work will be ahead of me. I gotta keep going. I can't just be satisfied with what I've done."
Perez will be one of the headliners at the annual Pittsburgh Comicon, Friday through Sunday at the Pittsburgh ExpoMart at the Monroeville Mall. Others set to attend include Margot Kidder, best known as Lois Lane in several "Superman" movies, and Ernie Hudson, one of the movie "Ghostbusters."
Though he's been cutting back on convention appearances, Perez said he's always glad to come to the Pittsburgh convention for several reasons. First, he said, it's more of a family atmosphere and concentrates on the comic industry.
Second, Perez uses his convention appearances to raise money for various charities, including Make-A-Wish, and he said that his Pittsburgh appearances are among the most profitable for that charity. Perez, in a phone interview last week from his Florida home, said he's already lined up about $3,000 in donations, "and I haven't even hit the convention floor."
While at the convention, Perez will celebrate the 25th anniversary of "The Teen Titans," the comic that Perez said put him on the map. Published by DC Comics, the book featured heroes including Batman's sidekick Robin, Kid Flash and Wonder Girl.
Perez also has had a hand in plotting, writing or penciling other projects, including a run on Wonder Woman, and he also drew and co-plotted "Crisis on Infinite Earths" in 1985, perhaps his best-known project. In that 12-issue series that redefined the history of the DC Comics universe, Perez stunned readers with some of his art, which included one two-page spread that featured nearly 200 characters.
Perez is in the midst of a career resurgence, brought about by a few high-profile projects in the last several years.
Among them was "JLA/Avengers," a book uniting characters from the two largest competing comics companies, DC and Marvel. Perez had drawn 21 pages for the project in 1983, but then problems between the two companies stalled it. It took 20 years for the four-issue series to move ahead, but the project was received a couple of years ago with wide acclaim.
Perez said one comic writer compared him to John Travolta, as he skyrocketed in his movie career with "Saturday Night Fever" and then regained glory two decades later with "Pulp Fiction."
Because of his intricate style, Perez can take a single day to pencil one page of comic art, but two or three days to ink a page. That process, Perez said, is slower, because he can simply erase a penciling mistake, but inking errors are much more difficult to correct.
When he announced in 1997 he would draw monthly issues of the Avengers, a group including Captain America, Iron Man and Thor, Perez said no one expected him to complete six issues before he would have to have someone else fill in so he could catch up.
He was proud of an uninterrupted 15-issue run, with three of those issues extra-sized. "It's a very changing industry," Perez said. "In order to be viable and vital again, I needed to do something high profile and regular."
After suffering from a bout of tendonitis, Perez's work output dropped, and he said he did very little in 2004.
But he's back with a vengeance, working on several projects, including inking a mini-series featuring the return from the dead of Donna Troy, formerly the Titans' Wonder Girl character. He's also working to finish a graphic novel entitled "Games," featuring members of the Titans, a project he started in the late 1980s.
Perez's career looks to be back in full swing, and the comics industry is in the midst of its own renaissance, with both DC and Marvel comics planning projects that should alter their images for years to come, according to comic and mainstream publications.
In the DC universe, creators are working toward unifying the comics in a darker world, and there are even rumors of a nervous breakdown for Batman. In the Marvel universe, continuity will be thrown out the window for several months in several main titles, but when the continuity is restored, changes will abound, including a rumored massacre of many mutants under the X-Men titles.
But despite all the attention the new projects are getting in the mainstream press, and the sales that the projects will generate, Perez said comic creators need to remember that it's not always about the glitz and the fancy packaging.
If creators tell the best story that they can, they'll keep the readers they have and gain new ones, he said.
"The attention should be paid to the characters that made people love these comics in the first place," Perez said.
Bill Vidonic can be reached online at bvidonic[a]timesonline.com.
WHAT'S UP
Event: 2005 Pittsburgh Comicon.
When: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday; and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday.
Where: Pittsburgh ExpoMart, Monroeville.
Admission: $17 each day, or $45 three-day pass.
Information: (814) 467-4116 or www.pittsburghcomicon.com.
