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Nolen-Weathington on His Modern Masters Pérez Book: Q&A

Posted: Sunday, January 18, 2004
By: Tim O'Shea

Modern Masters Volume Two: George Pérez was released in late 2003 by TwoMorrows Publishing. Find a person that doesn’t think Pérez is one of the masters in comics and I think you’ve found a person that doesn’t enjoy comics in the way it should be appreciated. Adjectives don’t do justice to the work Pérez does with each project. SBC caught up with the Modern Masters editor Eric Nolen-Weathington to get the scoop on the book itself, as well as future Modern Masters volumes for 2004.

Tim O’Shea: How hard was it to cover all the ground you wanted to, over the course of >the eight hours you interviewed him? How much advance research did you do in order to minimize discussing issues he'd previously discussed and also in order to make the most of your interview time?

Eric Nolen-Weathington: George has been in the business right at 30 years, so I knew it would be impossible to cover everything. My goal with the interview was to balance the highlights of his career with subjects he hasn't talked about as much. I spent about a month reading every interview with him I could find, including older ones from Amazing Heroes, Focus on George Pérez, Accent on the First "E", etc., as well as every Pérez comic and letters page (you'd be surprised at how much you can glean from an old letters page) I could lay my hands on, taking notes along the way. With things like Crisis and New Teen Titans, there are certain questions I had to ask, but there was room to find things he hadn't previously talked about.

TO: Were there any aspects of his career (in terms of collaborations or other factors) that you were pleasantly surprised at how candid he was in discussing them? By the same token, were there any subjects that he deemed off-limits?

ENW: George is very affable and very candid. He doesn't shy away from any subject. If he didn't like someone's inks over his pencils (a common occurrence), he said so. He's always been very open about mistakes he's made, money problems he's had, his family life, etc., and it was no different in our interviews.

TO: How many folks (not counting myself) have told you after reading the book that they wished there had been more pages devoted to cheesecake--or is it just me being too greedy?

ENW: Actually, I've had more people complain about the lack of a checklist in the book than anything else. I don't include them because they take up a lot of space. In fact, Andy Mangels' The Pérez Archives is just a checklist and art and it's longer than the Modern Masters book. As for including more art, I have to abide by fair use laws, which I pushed to the upper limit with this book.

TO: Were you able to fit all the material you wanted into the book?

ENW: No, I would've needed at least twice the space to include everything I wanted, but I think I came up with a selection of material that represents George's career pretty well.

TO: What kind of value was added to your material through the assistance of Andy Mangels and Tony Lorenz?

ENW: Andy provided about 75% of the art I used in the book. He's got the most complete collection of Pérez artwork there is (even George says so). There were a lot of nice images I couldn't use, though, because the scans weren't at a publishable size or resolution, so if anybody reading this would like to contribute scans or photocopies of George's art, please contact Andy at http://www.andymangels.com. I'm sure Andy would appreciate any help he can get. Andy also let me borrow rare copies of Focus on George Pérez, Accent on the First "E," and The Pérez Archives, which were more helpful than I can say.

I first met Tony a few years back at the Heroes Con in Charlotte, NC, where he was promoting his then-new fanzine, The George Pérez Newsletter (now known as Pacesetter). He was kind enough to give me a copy, as he said his inspiration for doing the magazine was TwoMorrows' The Jack Kirby Collector. When I was pooling my resources to prepare for the book, I contacted him and we swapped some material. The Newsletter (and Pacesetter) helped me fill in some gaps where I didn't have a lot of background knowledge (particularly with George's work in the mid-'90s).

I should also mention the contributions of Michael Lovitz, who provided a handful of key pieces of artwork. You may have seen his name recently as the owner of the original pages of the soon to be completed Titans graphic novel, Games. Michael offered his help to me just out of the blue, and the book was much stronger for it.

TO: Some folks may wrongly assume that the book only addresses his art, but you also discuss his writing philosophy among other non-artistic creative elements. Did you end this project having a greater appreciation for Pérez's writing talents?

ENW: I think so, if for no other reason than coming to understand how much effort he puts into his writing. I've always thought he had a pretty good ear for dialogue, and it's a shame he may never write again. I don't think people realize just how many comics George wrote. People remember Wonder Woman, but they tend to overlook all the writing he was doing for Marvel in the mid-to-late '90s, as well as his creator-owned material.

TO: Inherently, like a motorist slowing down to look at the car wreck, comic fans seem drawn to the negative aspects/challenges of the industry. Do you fear that with the sudden changes at CrossGen and its impact on Pérez himself, lesser savvy people will look at the cover and assume the book focuses on his more recent work?

ENW: There's always that possibility, I suppose. Of course, with JLA/Avengers finally coming out, I'm not sure that would be an entirely bad thing. Originally I wanted George to use his Crimson Plague characters on the cover, since that would be more personal for George, but I always let the artist ultimately decide what they want to do. After all, it's their career we're talking about. Because George feels that Crimson Plague is a dead project and because of his strong loyalty to CrossGen, he felt it would be best to use the Solus characters instead. I have absolutely no problem with the decision, because George has done some great work for CrossGen, and he still has at least one more project in the works for them. Also, it should be noted that most of the gallery section was made up of commission work from the past five years.

TO: Again, because of the desire for negative stories, the fans don't always notice the positive stories. I was wondering, to your knowledge, had Pérez ever previously discussed in public that early in his career, Archie Goodwin (then with Marvel) arranged for Marvel to pay for the uninsured artist's treatment for a nerve pinch?

ENW: He did, in fact, mention it in a mid-'80s interview. I think it's a wonderful story, and just another notch in Archie's belt of good deeds. Of course, it was in Marvel's best interest to help George out, since he was one of their most popular and prolific artists. As it was George had to cut back his workload, but without the therapy he may have had to leave comics all together.

TO: What’s ahead for the Modern Masters series?

ENW: Coming up next is Modern Masters Vol. 3: Bruce Timm, which is due out in May. So far it's been an enormous amount of fun putting this one together, and I can't wait to get it out there. Modern Masters Vol. 4 is going to be on Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, an artist I feel hasn't gotten nearly the amount of credit he deserves. This is one of those "it's about time" projects, that hopefully people will respond to. The plan as it stands now is for the book to come out in late 2004.