PERSEPOLIS 461
tried to break into comics by working on fanzines and showing his work at conventions.
Marvel artist Rich Buckler saw Pérez’s folio and hired him as an assistant in 1973.
Perez’s fi rst professionally published story was a backup in Astonishing Tales #25. Pérez
left Buckler for personal reasons, but was immediately hired by Marvel to draw the
Man-Wolf series in Marvel’s Creatures on the Loose and the Sons of the Tiger series in
Deadly Hands of Kung Fu. While working on these series, Pérez was hired to replace
Buckler on Fantastic Four , and also took on a regular assignment on Avengers. Pérez’s
work on these titles gave him a reputation as an artist who could draw team superhero
comics and actually enjoyed doing so. Most artists hated such assignments because they
involved drawing more characters for the same page rate.
Pérez worked at Marvel throughout the 1970s, but in 1980 he was hired to draw
DC’s new series New Te e n T i t a n s. He took this job because he was also off ered Justice
League of America , but NTT soon became one of DC’s top-selling titles. By now Pérez
was a major superstar, and he was the natural choice to draw the JLA/Avengers cross-
over in 1983. Negotiations on this project collapsed, leading Pérez to leave Marvel for
10 years. In 1985 he drew Crisis on Infi nite Earths , which gave him a reputation as an
artist of “crossover” series (i.e. those featuring large numbers of characters from one or
more superhero universes). His fi rst major writing assignment was on the post- Crisis
revival of Wonder Woman. Pérez spent much of the late 1980s and early 1990s working
on smaller projects such as Sachs & Violens and Incredible Hulk : Future Imperfect , but he
returned to monthly comics in 1998 for a three-year run on Avengers. Health problems,
including diabetes, have made it diffi cult for Pérez to maintain a monthly schedule, and
most of his recent work has been on high-profi le limited series such as JLA/Avengers
and Final Crisis: Legion of Th ree Worlds.
Pérez is the preeminent contemporary artist of crossover and superhero team titles,
largely because of his superb compositional ability (which made him a sought-after
cover artist) and his willingness to draw large numbers of characters. Th e cover of
JLA/Avengers #3 alone features at least 200 characters. Pérez’s artwork is also famous
for its tight rendering and richness of detail. As a storyteller, Pérez consciously strives
not to repeat the same layout on consecutive pages, and tends to include an unusually
high number of panels on each page. His habit of giving fans more for their money has
diminished his speed and volume of work, but has helped make him one of the biggest
stars of contemporary superhero comics.
Selected Bibliography: Heintjes, Tom, ed. Focus on George Pérez. Agoura, CA: Fanta-
graphics Books, 1985; Nolen-Weathington, Eric, ed. Modern Masters Volume Two: George
Pérez. Raleigh, NC: TwoMorrows Publishing, 2003.
Aaron Kashtan
PERSEPOLIS , by the Iranian born Marjane Satrapi (1969–), is not only an auto-
biographical comic of her personal and family life from the age of 10 to 24, but also off ers
a view of Iran’s historical transformation during that time. It begins around the time of
