Late last year, acclaimed comic book creator George Pérez announced that he has terminal prostate cancer. Since then, the outpouring of love for the artist of Crisis on Infinite Earths, The Infinity Gauntlet, New Teen Titans, Future Imperfect, JLA/Avengers, and too many other projects to name from the comics world has been both massive and unending — and 1000% deserved.
Pérez’s declining health even managed to get DC Entertainment and Marvel Comics to cooperate again on a limited reprint of JLA/Avengers.
While I have the individual issues — I bought them at Capitol Comics in Raleigh almost twenty years ago — I ordered the collection through work, knowing it was limited, knowing it would probably be allocated, knowing I would probably get hosed on it…
Which I did. Diamond cancelled my order.
And that’s okay. It happens.
Late last week, DC Comics revealed a tribute to Pérez that will appear in their comics, a jam piece featuring work by Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane (!), Walt Simonson, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Dan Jurgens, Adam Hughes, Jerry Ordway, Kevin Maguire, and many others.
If DC sells this as a poster, I will buy it in a heartbeat. It would look fantastic in my apartment. But DC doesn’t do a lot in the way of posters.
In any case, the artwork is really close to a 10×8 image, close enough that will a little bit of cloning on the bottom edge I could fake it well enough to send it to Walgreen’s and get it printed so I could stick it in a frame and hang it on my bedroom wall.
Which is exactly what I did.
There, beneath the reproduction of the cover to New Teen Titans #1, originally drawn by Pérez, which I bought at Ollie’s the night I received my first COVID vaccination — a night memorable because I felt my blood catch fire — hangs DC’s tribute to Pérez.
It looks good. I still want a poster, though. 🙂