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Modern Masters Volume Two: George Pérez edited by Eric Nolen-Weathington (book review).

As I’ve commented in the past, if you’re patient and look around even the hardest to find books can often pop up and I managed to find a rare paper version of ‘Modern Masters Volume Two: George Pérez’ from 2007 late last year. It’s not quite the most obscure book on the now retired artist. ‘George Pérez: Accent On The First E’ might well be that and from his interview here caught out in a small print run.

Pérez’ history should be pretty well-known to comicbook fans. Pretty much self-taught and refined a little by working for Rich Buckler before going solo at Marvel before moving to DC Comics who got him under an exclusive contract. From the interview here he actually wanted to work on the ‘Justice League Of America’ more than ‘The New Teen Titans’ and worked on both for a time.

His reputation for liking to draw team books a constant reminder throughout his career. When it came to ‘Crisis On Infinite Earths’, apart from the art, he also contributed its title. You can also tell how he developed as a plotter and, ultimately, with ‘Wonder Woman’, its scripter and did a period of both jobs.

I was surprised to discover Pérez was a type one diabetic but it does explain his current eye problems as it is why we get annual tests in the UK.

He’s extremely candid about taking on far too much work and missing deadline in the middle of his career. Looking at his early work, he doesn’t rely on blocking blacks so much. Seeing his later work and some of his black areas, it does look oddly balanced, more so as he does his own inking. In the final section of this book, he explains how he draws, rarely doing small layouts but working direct to the page, photo-reference for real life things and blocking blacks had been problematic.

He also has a dislike of artists who can’t tell stories from plots which is understandable. I would probably add to that people who buy comicbook pages would actually like aspects of the story than just a pin-up. I know my choice of original art pages were because they were plot significant.

The most significant thing is Pérez attained his position from being self-taught, although regrets not having any formal training. Art is one profession where it’s the final result that counts not if or where you were trained. That and a lot of practice.

There are some paper copies of this book in the secondary market which shows how his fans keep their copies, but you can still pull a digital copy so it’s not lost to the public.

GF Willmetts

January 2021

(pub: TwoMorrows Publishing, 2007. 126 page illustrated softcover. Price: I pulled my copy for about £14.00 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-893905-74-0. Direct from them, you can get a digital copy for £ 5.99 (US))

check out websites: www.TwoMorrows.com and https://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=95_70&products_id=191

UncleGeoff

Geoff Willmetts has been editor at SFCrowsnest for some 21 plus years now, showing a versatility and knowledge in not only Science Fiction, but also the sciences and arts, all of which has been displayed here through editorials, reviews, articles and stories. With the latter, he has been running a short story series under the title of ‘Psi-Kicks’ If you want to contribute to SFCrowsnest, read the guidelines and show him what you can do. If it isn’t usable, he spends as much time telling you what the problems is as he would with material he accepts. This is largely how he got called an Uncle, as in Dutch Uncle. He’s not actually Dutch but hails from the west country in the UK.

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