Welcome back to 20th Century Refugee, the official newsletter of Glen Cadigan. No, that X next to the title doesn’t mean that somebody voted. It means that this is the tenth installment of the newsletter, and I'm soon going to have to start looking up Roman Numerals because I'm only good for the first dozen.
If you're here, chances are it's because you've read some of my comic book books in the past. If that's the case, you're in for a treat because this newsletter is all about comics! Let’s begin!
No News is Still Good News
I've teased upcoming projects here before, and this month I still can’t announce them. Hopefully, the ball will soon drop on at least one of them, and it's not what you think!
All Good Things
Here's something different: instead of a reprint, a preprint! For the past twenty years, Tony Lorenz has been producing Pacesetter: The George Perez Magazine, but it's all coming to an end this year. With the passing of George in 2022, Tony is putting together the final issue of Pacesetter and has encouraged people to send in their "...art, photo(s), a written tribute, or all of the above. What did George mean to you? How were you associated with him? What do you remember most about George?"
The deadline for contributions is April 15, 2023. (Tony's email is tlorenzp@yahoo.com, in case you’ve got a story of your own.) Here’s mine:
Nice Guys Finish First
This is a George Perez story that I've told before, in other places, but here it is again:
When I interviewed George for The Titans Companion, I knew that both he and Marv Wolfman were the two most important interviews for the book and that I had a lot of ground to cover. Keeping that in mind, I kept George on the phone for two hours before he said we'd have to wrap it up the next day because he still had work to do.
So I called him back roughly twenty-four hours later, thinking that I wanted to finish the interview before anything got in the way. One of the first things George said when he answered the phone was, "Yeah, I can't talk that long today."
A pang went through my heart! I felt so guilty for keeping him from his work, and I knew I was pushing it (and making him later on his current assignment), so I dove right in to cover as much ground as I could before he'd look at the clock and decide that the interview was over. There were things we hadn't talked about the previous day that I still had to cover – things like how his work on Wonder Woman affected Wonder Girl, inking Dan Jurgen's Titans series, and his thoughts on the Teen Titans Go! cartoon – but I needn't have worried. We talked for another hour, and I got it all in, making it the longest interview I'd ever done with anyone, before or since.
A couple of years later I saw him standing around outside a panel at San Diego and went up, thanked him for doing the interview, and got him to sign a copy. I was starstruck – there was George Perez, and he was standing right there! To me, it was like meeting a rock star. I couldn't believe we were in the same place at the same time. How did the universe allow that to happen?
That same con, I also got Neal Adams and Eduardo Barreto to sign it. They, along with Nick Cardy, Dick Giordano, and Len Wein (who are also in the book) are all gone now, so I'm glad I did The Titans Companion when I did, and I'm glad they all made themselves available for it.
George's importance and influence on the industry cannot be overstated. And yet, the thing that most people mentioned about him when he died was how he was a better human being than an artist, and he was a superstar artist. If there was an award for the nicest person in comics, he would've won it every year. George Perez is a great example of how being talented and treating people the right way are not mutually exclusive.
I'm glad that I got to speak with him – and meet him – when I did. And mine is just one story out of countless others over decades of George being the best ambassador for both the medium and the industry that anyone could've imagined. Artistically and professionally, he was in a league all by himself.
That interview was conducted over May 5-6, 2005. By my calculations, the next comic George drew was pages in Infinite Crisis, the first issue of which was published in October. Of course, he could've been drawing anything, but it's fun to speculate!
Cover Stories
Speaking of The Titans Companion, here's some behind the scenes artwork for the book. First up is the cover rough, provided by Phil Jimenez.
And now here's his black and white artwork.
And the final version, colored by Tom Ziuko.
I really liked it because it reminded me of pictures George had drawn for Lone Star Comics’ New Issue Club Express newsletter back in 1981. I could pretend that it was an outtake, never published until now!
If the cover of The Titans Companion wasn't going to be done by George, then it was Phil's job to lose. And funnily enough, he thought that might happen!
When I first reached out to Phil, I gave him a deadline of about Christmas. (This was months before that.) So time went by and I got an email from him one day in which he said, looking ahead, he was busy and he might not be able to do it, and I should probably get someone else.
That would've been a heart-stopping email (there was no Plan B) if the real deadline wasn't closer to Valentine's Day. So I told Phil when it actually had to be in, and he emailed me back something that made me laugh (which I can't remember right now), but said basically, yeah, sure he could make it. And he did, and it was great!
I hope everyone here got their copy, because it goes for crazy silly money now that it's out of print. And for various legal and complicated reasons, it's not going back into print, so it's used or nothing.
Cover Stories 2
While we're on the topic of Titans Companions, the cover for the second volume in the series was illustrated by Mike McKone, based upon a cover rough he'd done which wasn't used. I don't know if it was intended for a reprint collection or a magazine cover (Wizard was still around back then) but I saw it, like it, and figured it would speed up the whole process if I just went with something that already existed. There was more than one unused rough, so I selected the one that you see here.
When the artwork was turned in, the positions of Cyborg and Superboy had been reversed.
Since the whole process went through Mike's agent, I didn't ask, I was just happy to have it. I can't speak with certainty why the change was made, but I can certainly guess. This was during the period when Superboy was dead in the DC Universe, and I think it was Mike's way of protesting that decision. When I interviewed him in San Diego (my only face-to-face interview) he wasn't a fan of the move, and putting Superboy front and center certainly puts the focus on him. It was also the only place where he could appear, since he wouldn't be appearing in a DC comic for the foreseeable future. (He later got better, coincidentally around the time when legal issues with the Siegel family were resolved).
Here's the finished cover....
And here's a photo taken of myself and Mike, right after I did the interview with him at San Diego.
It was the last day of the con, done after it was closed and everyone was shutting everything down. Only my TwoMorrows Exhibitor badge kept me from getting kicked out. I remember Mike looking up at me with an “Oh, right,” look on his face when I showed up. The photo was taken by Mike’s agent, Art Shotton.
Still on Sale
You know how people say they’ll get around to buying a book later? Well, it’s later now.
If it was any later, it’d be late!
Next time, (hopefully) an announcement (or two)!
‘Til then,
Glen