COMICS INTERVIEW #104
(Winter 1991)
Fictioneer
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WAR OF THE GODS
written by Patrick Daniel O'Neil
interview with George Pérez, appearing in COMICS INTERVIEW #104 (Winter 1991)
transcribed by Vu
(excerpt)
Pat Daniel O'Neil: I understand that Wonder Woman may be worth a lot
more to DC on the level of licensing than as a published character,
although I also understand that their agreement with the Marston estate
is that they have to keep publishing it or else they don't have rights
to the character.
George Pérez: That I've not heard and I'm not privy to that information.
Pat Daniel O'Neil: That came from a reliable source.
George Pérez: If that's true, it explains why DC's still doing it. I
appreciate the compliment about the good work I was doing with Wonder
Woman but I had hoped that they would have had a little more faith in
the character. Particularly on the fiftieth anniversary. This is, after
all, the longest-running female character in comics, almost non-stop!
I had proposed other things that they could have done for her
anniversary. I was really pushing these projects - for example, the
anniversary poster, which I drew. They were supposed to be doing a
WONDER WOMAN trade paperback. WONDER WOMAN: YEAR ONE, which reprints
the first eight issues of my WONDER WOMAN, is nice but I don't consider
it an anniversary book - because there's nothing from the fifty years,
just from my version. When I first heard about it, they were planning
to print it with regular comic paper like they did DEATH IN THE FAMILY
and I said, "For fiftieth anniversary, this is what you're going to give us?"
Now that they're not advertising WAR OF THE GODS as a WONDER WOMAN book
they don't have anything to advertise. If I were drawing it, they would
have advertised it as such, because then they would have figured that
the Perez name would override any negative feedback that would follow a
WONDER WOMAN anniversary since DC's faith in Wonder Woman is pretty much
nil; other characters that didn't sell well were promoted because it
was prestigious.
I was feeling a bit angry because it was like I was the only person
fighting for Wonder Woman. Then I lost my editor due to an act of God
and of husband because she went into labor. Karen Berger went on
maternity leave and so we ended up with an editor who, try as he might,
is still a novice who doesn't have the push that Karen has in the
company. Everything was starting to fall apart and at this point I was
incredibly depressed.
I was trying to contact the editor for a week without any luck, and I
wasn't the only one; the new artist had been trying to get through, and
he couldn't contact the editor, either. DC had this new answering
machine - unfortunately the new answering machine doesn't tell you if
the person is in or not, it just take the message. I had a good number
of pages of artwork turned in and they sat on a desk at DC for over a
week and no one even knew they were there.
It was quickly becoming a fiasco and the second issue really came out
late because of all the problems. I knew when I had finished scripting
the last page of issue two that the book was late - but I didn't
understand why it was so late. I was doing the scripting after the
inking had already been done. And when it came out they let a lot of
mistakes get through, even after I proofread and pointed out the
mistakes. And unfortunately the new artist suffered from the WAR curse,
too. We were getting artwork from him for the pin-ups in random order;
we finished all the pinups for issue four before I got half of the
pin-ups for issue three. The editor should have prioritized the work by
saying that he need the artwork for the work due now, not for the work
due later.
I later heard that there was never any newsstand distribution for WAR OF
THE GODS #1. Diamond Distributors asked me if there would be a
newsstand edition of #1. I knew that physically there would be no
difference, but - as far as I know - no newsstand has carried WAR OF THE
GODS. Automatically, WAR OF THE GODS #1 sales have been cut down
because all of a sudden it had no newsstand distribution. Anyone reading
comics that has no access to a comics shop would have the crossovers
with no availability to the main story!
I must say that there were some people who were put on the spot in
working on this project! Keith Giffen really came through, considering
he had no knowledge of WAR OF THE GODS until I called him. John
Ostrander was a real prince to work with, as was Marv Wolfman. Marv
literally had to stop mid-stride with what he was doing to fit my
storyline in. he actually regretted that he couldn't have done more with
the Titans.
The last straw was in the case of WONDER WOMAN when I have Steve Trevor
and Etta Candy getting married in the last issue. I had it in the
synopsis months ago, the plot was handed in, I finally scripted it, off
it went, and when I receive a phone call saying that Bill Loebs is now
the writer and that he was going to be doing the wedding. This was
something that I was setting up and I was the one who wanted to handle
it. It could even have been a misunderstanding between Bill and me -
maybe he assumed that iw as just getting them engaged and he was taking
care of the wedding - but the fact that was the entire issue went
through all the final steps, the wedding had to be redrawn and I just
refused to rewrite it.
I finally was so angry that I had to ask Karen Berger to please send me a
check, which they had already delayed by two weeks, and I just hung up
the phone.
I have not spoken to anyone at DC Comics since then.
Right now I'm working for Marvel and other people. I once compared
Marvel and DC, when Marvel was going through the controversial Jim
Shooter stage, to one being a tank and the other a cab. Marvel was the
tank at the time. When I faced up to it I realized that this was a
dangerous machine coming at me and I have to get out of the way.
To me, DC has now become a cab where you don't know that the driver is
asleep at the wheel. You think it's benign and you have nothing to
worry about - until it's too late. If the problems were just with WAR OF
THE GODS, I could say definitely it's just me. But other people tell me
I'm no the only kid on the block in that situation at DC.
[ Read more in COMICS INTERVIEW #104 ]
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