George Pérez

George Pérez
Pérez at the 2012 New York Comic Con
Born	(1954-06-09) June 9, 1954 (age 62) New York City, New York, United States
Nationality	American
Area(s)	Writer, penciller, inker
Notable works	Avengers Crisis on Infinite Earths New Teen Titans Wonder Woman, vol. 2
Awards	Eagle Award, 1979, 1980, 1986, 2000 Inkpot Award, 1983 Jack Kirby Award, 1985, 1986

George Pérez (born June 9, 1954) is an American writer and illustrator of comic books, whose titles include The Avengers, Teen Titans, and Wonder Woman. Writer Peter David has named Pérez his favorite artistic collaborator.

George Pérez was born in the South Bronx, New York City, on June 9, 1954, to Jorge Guzman Pérez and Luz Maria Izquierdo, who were both from Caguas, Puerto Rico, but who did not meet until approximately 1949 or 1950, after both had settled in New Jersey while searching for job opportunities. They married in October 26, 1954 and subsequently moved to New York, where Jorge worked in the meat packing industry while Luz was a homemaker. George's younger brother David was born May 28, 1955. Both brothers aspired at a young age to be artists. with George Pérez beginning to draw at the age of five.

Pérez's first involvement with the professional comics industry was as artist Rich Buckler's assistant in 1973, and made his professional debut in Marvel Comics' Astonishing Tales #25 (Aug. 1974) as penciler of an untitled two-page satire of Buckler's character Deathlok, star of that comic's main feature. Soon Pérez became a Marvel regular, penciling a run of "Sons of the Tiger", a serialized action-adventure strip published in Marvel's long-running Deadly Hands of Kung Fu magazine and authored by Bill Mantlo. He and Mantlo co-created the White Tiger (comics' first Puerto Rican superhero) a character that soon appeared in Marvel's color comics, most notably the Spider-Man titles.

Pérez came to prominence with Marvel's superhero-team comic The Avengers, starting with issue #141. In the 1970s, Pérez illustrated several other Marvel titles, including Creatures on the Loose, featuring the Man-Wolf; The Inhumans; and Fantastic Four. Writer Roy Thomas and Pérez crafted a metafictional story for Fantastic Four #176 (Nov. 1976) in which the Impossible Man visited the offices of Marvel Comics and met numerous comics creators. Whilst most of Pérez' Fantastic Four issues were written by Roy Thomas or Len Wein, it would be a Fantastic Four Annual where he would have his first major collaboration with writer Marv Wolfman. Pérez drew the first part of writer Jim Shooter's "The Korvac Saga", which featured nearly every Avenger who joined the team up to that point. Shooter and Pérez introduced the character of Henry Peter Gyrich, the Avengers' liaison to the United States National Security Council in the second chapter of that same storyline. Writer David Michelinie and Pérez created the Taskmaster in The Avengers #195 (May 1980).