In the last couple of days, the comics community got some grim news - that George Pérez, a titan of the field and by all accounts a wonderful person outside it, had been diagnosed with inoperable cancer. (Link here.) The vast outpouring of love that followed the awful news was a testament to the lives he’s touched in his work and in person. In that spirit, I present the original art from the one time I was lucky enough to work with Mr Pérez, in all its considerable glory. (Via Tom Brevoort, on Twitter.)
And it was luck - more luck than I deserved. I was already doing a lot of pages for Marvel #1000 - but I’d been the last person to do anything with White Tiger in continuity, and George Pérez wanted to do a last page for Marvel as part of the project… featuring the original White Tiger, Hector Ayala, who he’d co-created with Bill Mantlo, as a tribute to him. George also wanted to incorporate the Sons Of The Tiger and the modern incarnation into the page as well, if only as visual cameos. So I was brought in to write a page that’d do that. Needless to say, I jumped at it… and was immediately crushed to a metaphorical powder under the weight of responsibility. You would be, too.
I got it together enough to provide the script - a five-panel affair, built around a montage of Hector’s life - but I felt kind of nervous handing it in. I’d put a lot of heart into that single-pager, writing and rewriting it until it was what it needed to be, and I felt I’d hit all the bases… but I was conscious of that montage, which I’d put right in the middle of a fight with ninjas. Was it going to work? Had… had I thrown too much in there?
Fool that I was. This was George Pérez.
I got back what you see above. The timid five-panel layout is now a gorgeous excercise in storytelling that roams freely all over the page - like a tiger? Why not? A horde of ninjas is dispatched in wide-angle shot by the modern White Tiger twosome - their contrasting personalities expertly delineated from just a few lines of description from me. Interjections from off-panel become panels in their own right. The Sons of the Tiger get their cameo, the life of Hector is played out with graceful economy, and Hector’s spirit blesses his successors in the final panel in an absolutely stunning use of negative space. Masterful work, from a master of the form.
When it came to the lettering draft, I trimmed the fat like never before. I was horribly conscious that every wasted word that fattened a balloon was a sin against that gorgeous page. The end result read much more efficiently and was, I hope, worthy of the art it accompanied - but I’m glad to have the original in my inbox, and I’m glad Tom made it available for all to see.
I never actually met George Pérez in the flesh, or interacted with him much on the email - shyness, to be honest - but I did take the opportunity in the script to let him know what an honor it was to work with him, and I’ll repeat that here, because it really, really was, and is.
Thank you for so many great comics through the years, Mr. Pérez. Thanks for your work for the Hero Initiative. Thanks for this amazing page.
Thanks for everything, and may the time left bring you nothing but joy.
RIP, George Pérez. From what I’ve seen online, he passed peacefully with his family around him. An all-time great, and beloved by so many.
Moved to Tidal after Spotify laid one straw too many on the camel’s back, and it threw this up at random - a song I haven’t listened to or even thought about in years, but very much a favorite even so.
A couple of years ago I got into Matt Berry as a musician. This one’s got a certain XTC quality I like a lot - I might post a bit more from him in the fullness of time.
I was going to post something else today, but then I found out Meat Loaf died. I wouldn’t call myself a major fan, but he was definitely a cultural touchstone of the times I’ve lived in and one of my all-purpose karaoke go-tos, and I always had a lot of time for his brand of rock-operatic deadpan. I only discovered the 12-minute version of this last year, and it takes everything I already liked in the song and delivers more of it with more gusto, so it seemed appropriate.
“These Days” is a well-used song title, apparently. There’s a kind of apocalyptic, revelatory quality to this one - whose scales are being rearranged, and did William Blake ever paint him? What scattered bones form the meal?
I count covers as new finds, so this is the first new find of 2020. I didn’t know Glen Campbell had done a version of this - he obviously brings a very different energy to it, and the video suggests it’s a goodbye of sorts, a meditation on leaving the business of life.
Took a break from posting music vids for the holidays, but here’s my latest repeat listen - Frank Black.
I’m trying the experiment of using my work playlists as marketing tools, with an “every track has a secret meaning” gimmick - on the one hand, the X-MEN RED playlist has a few people fascinated, which is fun, but the downside is that that playlist is now pretty much locked for at least a while. Which is a shame, because this might have gone on it.
There’s not much Christ in my Christmas - the fact that I generally call it “Yule” is a giveaway - but there is a fair amount of Dickens.
In that spirit - thank you, fifty times, for the kind thoughts and wishes you’ve sent my way this year, and I hope to see you all on this channel when the year turns again. And in the meantime, I wish you all a Cool Yule and the Happiest Holidays possible.
