Not A Cheese

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.