George Perez, considered one of the defining comics artists of the 1980s, has announced his formal retirement from the industry.
“With respect to future published work in comics and such,” Perez said in a statement on his Facebook account, “while I know it’s been no secret that I’ve been dealing with a myriad number of health issues (diabetes, heart ailments, vision issues, etc.), they have indeed have forced me to, for all intents and purposes, formally retire from the business of creating new comic stories.” And so ends the career of one of the defining artists of the industry.
Perez went on to announce that he will be retiring from home sketch commissions as well as from on-site convention sketches. He will, however, be accepting orders equivalent to five sketches per convention day he attends this year when ordered in advance through his broker, The Artists Choice.
2019 will, for the most part, be his final year of convention touring as he winds down his career, although there will be one “make good” show in 2020.
George Perez’s Career
Perez began working in the comics industry in 1973 as Rich Buckler’s assistant, and then made his professional work debut in August 1974 in Astonishing Tales #25 for Marvel Comics. He continued to work for Marvel for several years and had a hand in creating characters such as Henry Gyrich with Jim Shooter, and Taskmaster while working with David Michelinie.
It was Perez’s work at DC Comics in the 1980s that launched him into the comics zeitgeist with his work on The New Teen Titans with writer Marv Wolfman. He would then go on to pencil one of the biggest storylines in DC history, Crisis on Infinite Earths. He also was the artist on the reboot of Wonder Woman in 1987 which still impacts the character to this day with the deeper integration with the Greek gods.
Perez would later return to Marvel for further work and ended up being the first penciler on the Infinity Gauntlet storyline written by Jim Starlin.
Throughout his career, he won numerous awards including the Eagle Award, Inkpot Award, Comics Buyer’s Guide Fan Awards, and several more.
Perez concluded his announcement by saying, “Long story short, I will be just fine. I’ve had a wonderfully good run doing exactly what I have wanted to do since I was a child. Now I can sit back and watch the stuff I helped create entertain whole new generations. That’s a pretty nice legacy to look back on.
And so much of that is thanks to all of you, the GREATEST fans in the world. I am humbled and forever grateful.”
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