George Perez is one of the favorite artists of comics fans. His popularity began with his work at Marvel in the early Seventies, but his creation, with Marv Wolfman, of THE NEW TEEN TITANS at DC cemented his position as one of the best in the comics field. After guiding the TEEN TITANS for some fifty issues, George Perez is leaving the book.

In early August, we discussed why he was leaving and his plans for the future.

Q. Have you always wanted to draw comics? Was that an ambition of yours? Or did you just fall into it?

A. Well, I've been drawing since I was five years ago. While I loved reading comics - I was reading comics for as long as I could read - they didn't really become a definite career until I got to high school and met for the first time other comic book fans, avid fans. Some of them had artistic ability and had the desire to become comic artists themselves. I finally got the incentive for being on my own because people were saying you are talented, you ought to try. They took me to my first convention and I got hooked from that point on. Of course, not ever having any kind of formal art training, I had a lot to learn. The first time I had ever gotten professional criticism was that time at the convention so it was a bit of a shaking experience to say the least. They raked me through the coals real well. Because obviously, as I find out being on the other end, there are a lot of people with varying degrees of talent or no talent who show their work to you. If you catch the artist on a good day or the artist is sympathetic, he will give you constructive criticism and even if you don't have what it takes, he will at least be polite. I just didn't happen to catch the artist on that day. But if nothing else, while I was starting out, I got a lot of criticism. I was one of those types of fans, as many fans are, who do not like criticisms. They want to be told they are really good. By being criticized, I decided that I will show them that they were wrong, so I was growing to spite them. I was benefiting by the fact that I became a better artist as I did it. It is probably a compliment to those who did criticize because they end up putting to those who did not criticize because they end up putting the right bee in my bonnet. I definitely improved because of that criticism while others might have been  dejected - which I was for a couple of days. It did give me incentive to do better.

Q. How did you end up working professionally from that point?

A. I had tried, like everyone, to send stuff to Marvel, which was the company I was really interested in at the time, and then some to DC. They always send me nice form letters. At the time, of course, I didn't know they were form letters. I started doing work for the school newspaper, and the school poster club until I met some people who were doing fanzine work, one of them being Sal Quartuccio, who still does portfolios, I believe. I went to Neal Adams; I went to a few other people. They told me yes, but no thanks. My first big break came when I met, through Sal Quartuccio, Rich Buckler, who needed an assistant. At this point - this was about 1973 - I was working as a bank teller.  He needed an assistant; at least the experience was of value. Also getting my name known among the people at Marvel Comics. I started diametrically opposed that eventually we had a falling out. Thankfully since then, we have straightened it out when I was all alone, when Marvel had two series, one called THE SONS OF THE TIGER and another one THE MAN-WOLF, that nobody wanted to draw, they called me. The situation was basically that these books are going to be cancelled anyway; who are we going to get to draw? They saw that I was starving for work; I had been fired from my bank job by this point. But they gave it to me figuring that THE SONS OF THE TIGER was a strip that eventually they would cancel within a few issues and MAN-WOLF would be something that no one cared about. By the time I finished THE SONS OF THE TIGER, it was a lead feature in the magazine in which it was showcased. MAN-WOLF actually managed to get the number two spot on the horror line that Marvel was putting out. The only one that outsold it was DRACULA. Now the horror line never sold being to begin with so it was just a big fish in a little pond. But still it proved that I had enough enthusiasms that what I lacked in polish, I made up in sheer love of the work I was doing and in willingness to experiment. Being young and hungry helps there.

Q. And then you went to the AVENGERS and the FANTASTIC FOUR at Marvel...

A. Yes, it was interesting. The FF I got because Rich Buckler who was drawing the book at the time had fallen being schedule or something along that line. Since I had worked as his assistant, Roy Thomas with rather questionable logic figured that maybe I would be right for the FANTASTIC FOUR. Our styles were different, to say the least, but at least they were still some of Rich's influences in my artwork at the time. Whatever had to be corrected could be corrected by inker Joe Sinnott. I had done it only for an annual. There was supposed to be an annual and the annual were cancelled at the point or became reprints. So they held it over for a two-part fill-in story for the regular run of FANTASTIC FOUR. At the time, I had already expressed an interest in doing THE AVENGERS, which was a book I had always wanted to do at Marvel and found out that the writer at the time, Steve Englehart, was looking for a new penciler. He said that he would be willing to give a new person a try, again, because of the fact that, being hungry, I would try to do things that others might have been less interested in doing. And THE AVENGERS was not a book everybody wanted to draw. It was a hard book to draw because of the number of characters. At the same time, I received a phone call from Bill Mantlo, who was at the time John Verpoorten's assistant, saying that they were introducing a new title featuring the Inhumans and they'd like me to do that book. Which was already a month late by the time they asked me.

Q. That's fast.

A. So, all of a sudden, I had THE MAN-WOLF, SONS OF THE TIGER, THE AVENGERS, THE INHUMANS, and FANTASTIC FOUR. Because with the FANTASTIC FOUR, they asked for two more stories. Suddenly there were four monthlies that I had to do with THE FANTASTIC FOUR. MAN-WOLF got cancelled so that so that took care of one book. But for a while I had four group books a month to draw. I was hungry and faster then. But the work suffers when you had draw a lot faster than if I had stayed on one book like the MAN-WOLF.

The first issues of THE AVENGERS and THE FANTASTIC FOUR and THE INHUMANS came out after I had only worked professionally for a year.

Q. That's fast.

A. And I had done a FANTASTIC FOUR story six months before that. It was just that it was delayed and then held over as a regular issue. At that point suddenly everyone got a handle on who George Perez was an I received the ultimately flattery when I got a phone call from Stan Lee's secretary who said he had asked to see me. I had no idea what he wanted to see me for. Never having met Stan at the time, I was highly intimidated. It was that Stan liked that issue of THE FANTASTIC FOUR, the first issue I had done. He assumed it was one of the regular old-timers, either John Romita or John Buscema, and was rather surprised to see this name he had never seen before and find out that it was a totally new artist. He had me over to his office, complimented me, and really me feel great, gave me a raise.

Q. Wonderful!

A. Couldn't complain about that. I've always had fond memories of Stan because of that. At a convention I was just at recently, he was there; he heard I was there and he still remembered my name and wanted to at least say hello. Unfortunately, we got so busy we never crossed.

Q. Why did you leave Marvel?

A. It wasn't as a decision I wanted to make as far as leaving Marvel. I was doing THE AVENGERS at the time. At this point I had already gone through a marriage and divorce so I was starting to get back into the swing of things after some fits of depression. I was doing THE AVENGERS, enjoying it. Marv Wolfman had just gone to DC earlier and had asked if I would be interested in doing a new series with them at DC called THE TEEN TITANS.  I couldn't believe it. THE TEEN TITANS, you've got to be kidding. They're going to resurrect that book again? I told them I would do THE TEEN TITANS on the specification that I had also get at least fill-in issue of THE JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, which was the one book I really wanted to do there, obviously, THE AVENGERS being Marvel's version of the JLA. I wanted to do that. Group books are something I always felt comfortable with.

I started working on THE TEEN TITANS figuring the book would be cancelled after five issues. I wouldn't have worry about it. I would have made Marv and everybody else happy by the fact that I did it but had no real hope that the book would ever survive. As it turned out, unfortunately, Dick Dillin died and I received a phone call from Paul Levitz asking if I would b interested in doing THE JUSTICE LEAGUE. Obviously, I wanted to do the book; that wasn't the way I wanted to do it. But I accepted the assignment. So now, I had THE AVENGERS, THE JUSTICE LEAGUE, and THE TEEN TITANS. The one thing that finally caused the decision to leave Marvel was that all the books suddenly upped their page count. DCs all went from seventeen to twenty-five pages and Marvel went from seventeen to twenty-three pages which meant that within the course of that quick jump, the equivalent of one extra book had been added on. Now I could no longer handle the assignments in all three books. Since I had just taken over the JLA and TEEN TITANS, I wanted to at least give them  a fair shot at it. I left the only book that I had enough time on that I could leave and that ended up being the only Marvel book. When THE TEEN TITANS became very successful, much to everyone's surprise, I became busier and busier. Every time Marvel offered me work, I had to refuse it for the lack of time. Finally, it became quite apparent that I couldn't work for Marvel. I had no time to work for Marvel. All my work from that point on ended up being DC's. It was more like they were phased out, as opposed to my making a conscious decision only to work at DC. It was just I had no time - that meant for any company other than DC. I was working on what ended up being their top book. I was starting to slow down in my drawing because I started to put more work in my drawings. That's also the point when I started inking my own covers and eventually, I would start inking a couple of TITAN stories too. I was a very very slow inker. Fast penciler, slow inker. It ended up being just happenstance. Eventually, I signed an exclusive contract with DC. I figured that if I'm going to be working for them, I  may as well get every benefit from it.