In praise & defense of George Perez: the man who transformed DC Comics

[Darrell D.]

I think you'd have to have Howard Chaykin on the list just for his impact on modern storytelling alone. Like I argued for Neal Adams earlier in this thread, Byrne cast such a massive shadow over everything that followed from his seminal work that even if you don't like his work, it's hard to imagine what comics would be without it. There aren't a lot of people adopting Chaykin's figure style for their own, but his innovations as far storytelling pretty much form the backbone of what we'd consider modern storytelling. As much as I love Garcia-Lopez' and Perez' work, I don't think they've had that universal of an impact on how artists approach telling stories. That's not to say that they're not influencial-- they most certainly are-- but that their influence doesn't cover the medium like a blanket.

You should try to find Twilight by Chaykin and Garcia-Lopez. His art in that was amazing. The panel layouts were amazing, and the storytelling top-notch.
But, it had that Chaykin look to it, so I wonder if the page layouts were breakdowns by Chaykin himself.

[FanboyStranger]

You should try to find Twilight by Chaykin and Garcia-Lopez. His art in that was amazing. The panel layouts were amazing, and the storytelling top-notch.
But, it had that Chaykin look to it, so I wonder if the page layouts were breakdowns by Chaykin himself.

I'm a major fan of Twilight, and I always recommend it when people are asking for good but lesser known works. I've always assumed that Chaykin did breakdowns because the storytelling is very much vintage Chaykin, but overall, it's really the best of both worlds. I remember the house ads said that this was the work that was finally going to break Garcia-Lopez into household name status, but sadly, it was overlooked. (As was Chaykin's later Ironwolf OGN with Mignola art set in the same universe.)

[protonik]

Mostly, Byrne should never try to ink himself.

Yet most of his revered work is him inking himself.

[protonik]

I tried to like Byrne, I really did. I started with Man of Steel. The guy at the counter said "it's Byrne at his best!" I was incredibly disappointed, and unfortunately, that statement rang true for everything read afterward. Wonder Woman, Generations, Genesis, Action Comics, Doom Patrol, JLA...when you use the same panel templates every issue, you know something is wrong. Flat, stiff, and uninspiring. Nothing technically wrong, of course (not even that legendary sixth finger on Sue Storm bothered me), but entirely boring.

But that was a limitation of the times and most of the works you cite here are from after he started using modern layout styles. Personally I think if you can't tell a story with a grid, you need to not be drawing comics. Erik Larsen went to the grid for a long run of the Savage Dragon and his skills as a storyteller improved as a result.

[marriedguy]

Anyone who states George Perez as 'overrated' is sadly ignorant about their comic book history.
The man showed a level of professionalism & eye to detail unheard of on a monthly comic.

AND he's a genuine top bloke as well!

[Jim Thompson]

Anyone who states George Perez as 'overrated' is sadly ignorant about their comic book history.
The man showed a level of professionalism & eye to detail unheard of on a monthly comic.

Aye, I never got the whole "over-rated" tag either. I can understand people who say Perez's work doesn't appeal to them, but saying he's an over-rated artist just seems off-base to me.

AND he's a genuine top bloke as well!

Very, very much agreed.

[dancj]

"Better" being an almost wholly subjective assessment in this case.

True, but irrelevant.

[Jim Thompson]

True, but irrelevant.

How do you see it as being irrelevant to this discussion?

[dancj]

How do you see it as being irrelevant to this discussion?

Because any discussn about whether an artist is good is always going to be subjective, but it doesn't make the opinions less valid. The best you can ever hope for is to work out what the general consensus is.

[Flashpoint]

Anyone who states George Perez as 'overrated' is sadly ignorant about their comic book history.
The man showed a level of professionalism & eye to detail unheard of on a monthly comic.
AND he's a genuine top bloke as well!

Aye, I never got the whole "over-rated" tag either. I can understand people who say Perez's work doesn't appeal to them, but saying he's an over-rated artist just seems off-base to me.

Very, very much agreed.

Thank you both, but especially to Jim Thompson. That is the whole point of even starting this thread. If you don't like George Perez's artwork, fine with me. But to claim he's not talented or dated is laughable in the extreme. If you don't like his art, ok, you don't like it.

But, again, the man is one of the hardest-working and most talented artists to ever work in the comic book industry in the past 100 years. Believe it.

[big al]

IMHO Perez is the best "pure" comic book artist in the world. His stories are always gold, the characters are awesome when he does them and he's never produced anything (art wise) that I thought was not good. As a writer I don't really like what he does but that's another thread. As an artist...can you find a better drawn series than JLA vs The Avengers....or Perez's run on The Avengers or his Titans run...or even his work on Legion of 3 Worlds? the guy is fantastic. I would almost pay to see him draw the 1980's version of Red Circles Mighty Crusaders cause I think that series was cool and those characters deserve to be drawn by george at least once.

[Hamdinger]

Wow. We really aren't going to agree on this. Especially when your primary example is Keith Giffen. I was one of Giffen's biggest fans in the early 80s during his initial run on LSH. His pencils under Larry Mahlstedt's inks were jaw-droppingly beautiful. Then it just went all downhill from there--and even Giffen has publicly admitted he really screwed up. Once he started literally tracing Jose Munoz's Alack Sinner, his artwork took a major nosedive in quality. Plus, the notorious Comics Journal expose of Giffen's tracing Munoz cost Giffen a great deal of work and majorly hurt his reputation for quite a few years.

As much as Giffen has polished away the rough edges he developed during his tracing of Munoz's work in the Eighties, the fact is that Giffen's art has never been as slick, polished or modern as it was during his first LSH run. And Giffen has always been guilty of ape-ing Kirby's style, sometimes even copying poses and layouts from Kirby's past work.

I love Kevin Maguire's art, but again I think he, too, has slowed a bit with age and his output now isn't as slick and detailed as it was in the late Eighties and early Nineties. Now, again, I think Maguire's art is still top notch and very beautiful. But everyone ages and thus their output isn't as fast nor as detailed as when they were the hot young guns in the halcyon days of the comics industry's Bronze Age. I think Perez and Maguire are both holding up equally well as they get older.

As for comparing Perez to Swan, I am sorry but that's bunk. Swan was one of the biggest offenders when it comes to using the stale "boy face/girl face" gimmick. I loved him as a kid, but few artists' work looks more dated to me than Swan. Same with Don Heck and, yes, I'll say it--Jack Kirby. You can't get more dated than Kirby.

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/10/...-art-surfaces/

Jack from his time with marvel just kept taking on more and more work and then started to not care about quality and just pumped it out and just let his anatomy go to hell and his page layouts got dull and everyone looked alike etc. But some of his earlier work that he took the time on was just fantastic and not dated and still exciting.

[protonik]

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/10/...-art-surfaces/

Jack from his time with marvel just kept taking on more and more work and then started to not care about quality and just pumped it out and just let his anatomy go to hell and his page layouts got dull and everyone looked alike etc. But some of his earlier work that he took the time on was just fantastic and not dated and still exciting.

That is some gorgeous work but I tend to love when Kirby unleashed himself personally. I see very little dated in his work aside from his 30s and 40s sensibilities which work in the worlds he was putting out there. The Eternals was just epic art & story wise, even with the chintzy dialogue.

[dupersuper]

Supermans cape in the background is a nice touch.

I'm a major fan of Twilight

Be careful now.

[Jim Thompson]

Because any discussn about whether an artist is good is always going to be subjective, but it doesn't make the opinions less valid. The best you can ever hope for is to work out what the general consensus is.

Making note that the thought being forwarded is subjective is not equivalent to saying it is invalid. Don't know where you're getting the idea I was implying his thought was invalid from.