Aric Shapiro is a comic art collector with the good taste to pursue a series of Justice League of America member spotlight commissions by the always incredible George Pérez. An online acolyte of Pérez, Mitch Ballard, then colored some of the pieces with Shapiro's consent.
"Wonder Woman by the greatest artist to ever draw her!!!!! This piece is a huge trip down memory lane and now proudly hangs in my daughter's room. Brilliant is an understatement. Thanks to Mark for picking this up for me"Pérez's uncolored original can be viewed here.
Seeing as I've featured a lot of posts spotlighting the art of Brian Bolland (who only provided covers for about 3½ of the Amazing Amazon's lowest selling years,) and comparatively few for Pérez (who rebooted the character, drew her comics for a couple of years, and wrote them for five,) I continue to swim against the current of Princess Diana fandom. I'm glad Pérez stuck with his own nifty Post-Crisis costume, but then he gives Diana that weird Ross Andru-ish face that started cropping up in his work in the late 90's. I'm not a huge fan of the moonfaced maiden Pérez invented in the mid-80s either, so I guess I'd rather set the Wayback Machine to Pérez's flirtations with the character during the Bronze Age, back when she had an Invisible Plane and Steve Trevor as a love interest and wasn't just Supergirl in a bathing suit working at a Greek Whataburger.
2012 “JLA by George Perez” Commissions
- The Atom @ Power of the Atom
- Elongated Man @ Justice League Detroit
- Firestorm @ DC Bloodlines
- Martian Manhunter @ The Idol-Head of Diabolu
2 comments:
I dont know what it is about Perez's artwork these last few years; his WW has always been EPIC, he drew the loveliest version I ever saw since Dick Giordano, but her face here looks haggard. Remember the hullabaloo caused when he drew the cover for the 600th issue and everyone criticised Diana's face there...his art is world-class as ever but his faces these days leave something to be desired. I have his 'WW Through The Ages' poster on my wall and his versions of her back then were simply spell-binding.
Well, what Perez did, and Jose Luis Garcia Lopez still does, is homogenetic, model pretty, typically Anglo-Saxon faces. The heroes were idealized, and we fans responded to that. I don't think Perez's art has declined, but his choice to create more specific, realistic, ethnic faces dispels the sort of universal (if prejudiced) Platonic ideal super-hero that he helped popularize. It's like how you can draw a James Bond type character, and all his fans will recognize the type, but as soon as you specifically reference Sean Connery, you alienate the fans of all the other actors. Same is true with Disney animated characters versus Ralph Bakshi rotoscope characters. By being more real, he makes the heroes less broadly accessible.
Post a Comment