I have a second-hand George story - I went to high school with Gus Vazquez, who ultimately became a professional artist at Marvel and DC. When George passed, he related a story on Facebook with an accomanying image - in 1995, when he was just starting out professionally, he pencilled his first ever cover on an indie title. I forget his details on how he pulled it off, but he actually got George to ink it. That's insane in itself. But here's the kicker -George knew that he was very nervous about this being the first cover he drew professionally, so he graciously signed his name as simply "Perez", in the same style alongside Gus', so this contribution (and, well, signature style), would not overshadow this accomplishment.

That's the kind of guy that George Perez was.

That story blew me away when I read it - George rarely inked other artists, but when he did it was a royal treat. And to be on that list is quite an honor, especially when you're just starting out.

Amusing comment on JB's influence on George Pérez deciding to work on Wonder Woman:

ANDY MANGELS: You once said you were going to retire for a few months after CRISIS. What prompted you to change your mind?

GEORGE PÉREZ: John Byrne.

ANDY: Pardon?

GEORGE: John Byrne. That sonofabitch. (Laughter.) Here I was, ready to say, “I’m not going to do another series.’’ I could see doing an odd story here and there, and a graphic novel, and then John Byrne decided he was going to do SUPERMAN. But with John Byrne doing SUPERMAN, and with all the plans they had for BATMAN - WONDER WOMAN they didn’t seem to have anyone who was interested in doing the book. I couldn't see that happening, because I had an interest in doing WONDER WOMAN. Originally, I didn’t want to do the new series because of its schedule - it would have come out two months after CRISIS, which would have meant drawing it while I was still drawing CRISIS. But they rescheduled it to a year later for me, — if it weren’t for John doing all these nifty things with SUPERMAN, I probably wouldn't have said okay to WONDER WOMAN.

ANDY: So you blame it all on John?

GEORGE: Yeah, yeah...

Here's the full interview from Comics Interview #50. LINK

-C!

-C!