Two comic legends passed in one month. This year has been a pretty rough go for fans of Silver and Bronze age comics. On the heels of Neal Adam's death, the comic industry also lost George Perez last week. Perez's death, while incredibly sad, wasn't unexpected, as he announced that he had inoperable cancer toward the end of 2021.
I already wrote a piece about Perez when he announced his illness, but as a massive fan of his Teen Titans work, it felt wrong not to say a few words after his passing too. I'm not going to rehash what I put in the last article, but I will tell a personal story about the time I met Mr. Perez.
When I was spending literally every penny from my after-school job on comics, Perez, Mark Waid, and DC Comics announced that they were relaunching Brave and the Bold during my senior year of high school. Since I had just finished reading Perez and Marv Wolfman's run on Teen Titans a year prior, I knew I had to get in on the ground floor of this new series. When the convention circuit for that year began, I found out that Perez would be in attendance at my local convention: Dragon Con.
After standing in line for an hour to get his signature, Perez – full of warmth- talked with me about the Teen Titans at length. I'm sure I wasn't the most exciting conversationalist, as I was probably too star-struck to speak, but Perez gracefully carried the interaction with a smile. After our brief chat, Perez endorsed my copy of Brave and the Bold and shook my hand. That issue is still one of the most prized possessions in my entire collection.
Thanks for the fantastic stories and memories, Mr. Perez.
