[From FOCUS ON GEORGE Pérez, 1985]
MacDONALD: How did your relationship with Marv develop over this
period?
Pérez: Well, you know, we were working together. As it turned out,
we were living very close to each other at the time. We developed respect
for each other, we developed a friendship. From two people who barely
knew each other at all at Marvel, we developed a very close relationship
as a team, and as friends. And also, it gave us an enviable position
as far as co-creators were concerned. We had both come off critically
acclaimed series-in my case, the Avengers, in his case, Dracula. Plus,
he had had his day in the sun, as had I. But neither of us had an ego-stroking
by doing the Teen Titans series as a way of making it a George Pérez
book or a Marv Wolfman book. Or even making it into a Wolfman/Pérez
book. Just the fact that we had to make the Teen Titans successful in
their own right, so we never had to worry about egos being bruised.
Marv would be as open to making suggestions on things I could do as
I would to things I thought he could do in writing, certain challenges
that I'd figured. I talked his way in the artwork, so that he had to
do something that he might not have thought of doing before, and ditto
with me. I mean, he knew that I was not going to be afraid of a challenge.
I'd never back out of work as far as comics were concerned. I would
not be taking shortcuts. And if I wasn't going to be taking shortcuts,
neither was he. So we ended up having a very good working relationship,
to this day. Obviously, I still work with Marv, it has not been a question
of trying to b.s., of trying to fight each other to produce something
that we both feel would be better. We're pretty good at second-guessing
each other now.
[…]
The relationship has been very, very good with Marv. It's rather rare,
I think, with a lot of creative teams these days, I think we've proved
that you can do a successful book. If we took the fanfare really seriously,
we'd have our heads swelling to the skies. It's just a comic book, without
it meaning to sound derogatory, but it's not more Important than life
itself, and the book Is successful because of the effort that we put
into It as a team. If either one of us leaves, whether the sales are
affected or not, it's going to be based on the fact that the other person
knows that he still cannot put less than his best effort in. If Marv
had left, I'd still have to produce the best I could. Now l'm gone,
and now Marv is still producing the best he can. If he finds someone
else to work with him, in the same manner of putting his all into the
script, then I can't see it failing just because the artist wasn't doing
what he wanted.
MacDONALD: Okay, I want to get back to that, but I also want to
get into you and Marv co-plotting it.
Pérez: Well, we co-plotted a lot. Eventually Marv stopped writing plots,
because we would sit down and talk it over. I can hold about five plots
in my head at the same time. I would draw the book, based on what I
remembered from the plot, and use everything. Marv has a terrible memory.
I would annotate the art. At first, I didn't even annotate it. I would
just let Marv figure out what the artwork was saying, and then do It,
but sometimes I got a little too subtle and Marv misinterpreted the
drawing.
Then I thought of adding explanations. But It got to the point that
we were CO-plotting to such a degree together that we didn't need to
write it down any more. He trusted that I knew enough about the characters
to work totally from a verbal discussion. An indication of the type
of integrity Marv has as a writer is, not only did Marv Insist on my
getting CO-plotting credits, he paid me a CO-plotting rate, from his
own pocket, until DC arranged a CO-plotting rate itself. We didn't take
up bookkeeping, but Marv made sure that since I was CO-plotting that
I was paid as co-plotter. So I got half the CO-plotting rate. Which
means that since he gets the highest plotting rate of the company, I
was getting half of the highest rate. lt's an indication of the respect
Marv and I had for each other.
[...]
MacDONALD: Why did you decide to leave? The last chapter here.
Pérez: I was getting to the point where I wanted to do so much with
my artwork, I was starting to slow down, and while enjoying the Titans,
I realized that the Titans was stopping me from doing anything else.
I couldn't do anything as long as I was doing the Teen Titans. And I
really wanted to do other things. I couldn't do a graphic novel, even
a Titans graphic novel, because of the Teen Titans. So it became a question
that I was starting to become a little depressed, disenchanted with
my situation, as opposed to the book itself, and I started slowing down
further and further, the book kept falling further and further behind
schedule.
I didn't want to develop a reputation of Brian Bolland. At least Brian
is slow because he's really meticulous. I was becoming slow because
I was becoming disenchanted. It wasn't serving the book any good, so
I had that infamous day of going to the San Diego comics convention,
when I made the decision. I had made the decision to take a leave of
absence. It was on the airplane going to San Diego that I made the decision,
that I was leaving indefinitely, and told Dick on the airplane. I'm
lucky he didn't jump out. And I made an official announcement at the
San Diego show.
It was just that I had to do other things, and Crisis on infinite Earths
was a book that was definitely something that DC would put a lot of
stock in, and for better or for worse, I figured I could put my two
cents in there, and after losing the JLA-Avengers, I was determined
to do one gigantic team-up book that I was really going to put my best
foot forward in. And, that's why I am dropping the Titans and am taking
on Crisis on Infinite Earths. But also, Crisis on Infinite Earths will
also be my last regularly scheduled series for the foreseeable future.
I am starting to get a little burned out, and I do want to slow down
and take extra time on the work, and start inking the majority of my
own work.
[Comics Interview #50, 1987]
[…]
ANDY: Now in TITANS, you CO-plotted with Marv issues #6 through
#8, and #38 on...
GEORGE: Well, actually, we were CO-plotting even before then. #38 was
when it became the strongest, when he and I were coming in as equal
partners. He and I talked out plots way before that, but then he would
type out the plot and use what we talked about together - so Marv had
written the plot. The difference was, starting with issue #38, we never
had a written plot from that point on. We just talked about it, I drew
it, he wrote it. So he was counting as much on my writing notes to him
as I used to on getting notes from him. That's when it became an official
CO-plotting, because there was no written plot by Marv Wolfman himself.
ANDY: Scripts don't exist?
GEORGE: No, scripts do exist. He had to do the dialogue for the letterer.
I drew the story from our conversations, though.
ANDY: How do you do plots with Marv? Which scenes are yours? There
's the Cyborg scene in issue #8, where we first meet Sarah Simms and
them...
GEORGE: Right.
ANDY: What are some of the other scenes that you have specifically
put in?
GEORGE: Well, Kory taking her dress off in the middle of the park,
in that same issue, is something I thought expressed her. (Laughter.)
A lot of the stuff with Cyborg; the whole scene with Cyborg and his
parents in the #40s issues - I wrote out notes like crazy for Marv,
so he paraphrased the entire scene from what I had written in there.
ANDY: Cyborg 's grandparents?
GEORGE: His grandparents, excuse me and thank you. His grandparents
were really a lot of what I wanted to put in there, I created the physical
idea, I based them on Sarah Cully, the late actress who played Mother
Jefferson on THE JEFFERSONS TV series, and on Scatman Crothers, and
used them as my basis, thus affecting how I would handle the characters'
dialog. And I came up with that scene. A lot of the wedding I came up
with. I knew more about a large wedding, because I had one; Marv never
had a large wedding. So I knew about all the political and emotional
things that happen there, plus using the titles we worked out on those.
And a few things I tossed in. It was my idea to use Harlequin in that
story, 'cause he hated Harlequin, and I knew he didn't want to put her
in there. So I put her in there, anyway.
ANDY: That made some of us fans very happy.
GEORGE: And, of course, putting in a lot of the TITAN TALKERS. Marv
okayed that - I didn't do it behind his back - but as to where, I was
in charge. I knew more of them; I knew most of the girls and guys who
are involved in Titan Club. I'm much more personal about my relationship
with the fans than Marv is. Marv enjoys his fans, but enjoys his privacy.
I'm much more gregarious, much more outgoing, so a lot of the fans contact
me on a personal basis through letters or phone calls. So I did a lot
of the wedding issue.
"Who is Donna Troy?" is one book we worked so closely together,
I couldn't tell you what scenes were mine and what scenes were Marv's.
It was symbiotic. That one is a real Pérez/Wolfman collaboration. Or
Wolfman/Pérez collaboration, depending on your point of view. (Laughter.)
And that one I couldn't honestly tell you.., the only scenes I know
were fully mine were the framing sequence - having Dick Grayson in the
midst of that black office, having him turn on his tape recorder, call
Kory and say how good he felt, because Marv and I decided to put a happy
ending on it. We weren t quite sure how to end it, and we decided to
give it a happy ending. Dick calling Kory was my idea and I came up
with the dialog, a couple of lines that Dick says, Kory, it's me."
"Great. I feel just great. What are you doing tonight?" That
was my scene.
There are others that I can't think of. Probably just as well; it shows
that in our symbiotic relationship, we start losing track of who did
what, 'cause it's such a contribution from the both of us. The only
ones where I didn't contribute much are the ones having to do with Brother
Blood. I don't understand the character! Of course, since I designed
Jericho, a lot of the stuff I did with Jericho's body language and reactions
to people was more mine; I had a grasp of sign language at the time,
since I had books on it.
