George Pérez, Comic Book Artistic Icon, Passes Away at Age 67

George Pérez, Comic Book Artistic Icon, Passes Away at Age 67
George Pérez, the comic book artist known for multiple major DC and Marvel works, including New Teen Titans and Avengers, has died at age 67.
BY BRIAN CRONIN
PUBLISHED 3 HOURS AGO

Comic book icon George Pérez, one of the most popular and acclaimed American comic book artists of the last half-century, has died at the age of 67 due to complications from pancreatic cancer.

Pérez is probably best known for launching the New Teen Titans in 1980 with writer Marv Wolfman, where the two created Cyborg, Raven and Starfire and had Dick Grayson become Nightwing. Wolfman and Pérez later reshaped the DC Universe with Crisis on Infinite Earths, which, in turn, led to Pérez rebooting Wonder Woman in 1987 with a beloved five-year run that redefined Diana for a new generation. At Marvel, where Pérez got his start in comics, he is likely best remembered for two separate runs on the Avengers; with Steve Englehart in the 1970s and then with Kurt Busiek in the 1990s, where the two relaunched the series in 1998 to great acclaim.

Born in the South Bronx of New York City on June 9, 1954, Pérez knew that he wanted to be an artist from a very young age, starting to seriously draw when he was just 5 years old. He wasn't even 20 yet when he went to work as a studio assistant for Marvel artist Rich Buckler (Buckler's other assistants of that era included star artists like Denys Cowan, Arvell Jones and Keith Pollard). Pérez's first published comic book work for Marvel (and outside of a short story in the indie anthology, Hot Stuf a couple of months earlier, his first published comic book work period) was a short satire of Buckler's work on Deathlok in Astonishing Tales #25 in 1974.

Soon after, Pérez received his first regular feature, drawing the Sons of the Tiger feature (about a multi-ethnic team of martial artist heroes) in Marvel's black and white magazine, the Deadly Hands of Kung Fu. Pérez did some other minor assignments before getting his biggest gig yet, drawing the Avengers in the summer of 1975. He quickly added the Fantastic Four and the young artist was doing regular work on two of Marvel's biggest series for the next few years. During this period, while Pérez primarily worked with Jim Shooter and David Michelinie on The Avengers and Roy Thomas and Len Wein on Fantastic Four, he also did a Fantastic Four Annual with Wolfman that marked their first comic book collaboration...