EAST COAST COMICON 2019 (17-19 May 2019)
Meadowlands, New Jersey

Fast-forward a few months and I was able to sit down with Perez for a one-on-one panel at East Coast Comicon, one of the few stops on his convention farewell tour. In front of a crowded room, we went through every project in the TOP 13, from 13 to 1.

The result? THE GEORGE PEREZ INTERVIEWS, which we’re running here across 13 weeks, starting on Perez’s 65th birthday June 9.

13. The Infinity Gauntlet.

(excerpt)

Perez: Well, the reason I even took on the project was that I wanted to draw as many characters at Marvel as I could, you know? (Laughter)

Unfortunately, I also chose to do that at the same time I had contracted to write and draw War of the Gods over at DC, and it ended up being way too much work. And there was a slight touch of disappointment when Jim (Starlin) finally took the superheroes into outer space, where they faced Thanos for the next couple of issues. I said, that means no more superheroes are gonna be able to show up in these stories now. This is it, this is the cast now. I wanted more characters to draw!

But either way I had to bow out. And quite honestly, I always thought that the books should have been done by Ron Lim to begin with. Ron Lim set up everything with Jim Starlin, he did The Thanos Quest and everything else. So, it seemed only just that Ron should — because Ron was only supposed to replace me for the last half of Issue #4 because I was falling far behind. And when they said Ron could fill in and jump onto Issue #5, I said, “Why don’t you just let Ron finish the series? And I’ll glad;y ink Ron’s covers just to show that there’s not any petulance on my part.”

But I just realized that I was not going to be able to keep that book on schedule and Ron managed to do what I couldn’t do. So that’s why, of course, it always has that asterisk that … it’s the series George Perez couldn’t finish.

You know, in hindsight, how many people will even remember War of the Gods — and look at how much money Infinity Gauntlet is making! (Laughter)