Do I need to say anything more? No, but I will anyway.

It was August of 1989 when I discovered George Perez. That summer, the world was pretty much infected with Batman fever. You couldn’t walk 10 feet without seeing some kid, or even adult with the Batman logo on their body. It was also the year that this Marvel Zombie branched out a bit.

At the time I was 11 years old and living on a small island in Alaska. There was only one place to buy comics and that was at one of the two grocery stores in town. Back in 1989, in a small island town, you were at the mercy of what was available on newsstands and what the manager ordered. So, while I was able to get all my 3 Spidey titles, they also carried Batman, Detective and the current Superman titles. Well, at the time, Batman was nipping at Spider-Man’s heels for the crown of “Jerry’s Favorite Superhero”. I definitely had more shirts, because they were more readily available at the time. Well, on one of my trips to the supermarket, I found Batman #439.

There was this character I had never heard of, Nightwing on the cover, hanging from a bell tower, the cover just filled with detail. Mind you, I had never seen Teen Titans or read Batman before this, so I had no idea this was the original Robin. Well, that cover alone hooked me and I was ready for the next issue. There was Batman, in the sights of a sniper rifle, the signal bright in the sky, and I had to have it. Then the next issue, Dick Grayson holding the Robin costume, details of the Batcave , and Batman and Two-Face at the top. This was quite a leap story wise for this 11 year old, but I was eating it up. After that, who can forget the iconic image of Robin swinging through the signal. George Perez drew me into the DC Universe, and to Nightwing in particular.

Now, I didn’t see nearly as much Spider-Man by George as I did Nightwing. You would mainly see George draw him in the big group pin-ups and rarely anywhere else. Luckily, we got to see a little more in the first issue of The Infinity Gauntlet, but not enough to satisfy me ;)

I had the chance to meet George when I was still in high school and he attended the Portland Comic Book show. Unfortunately, that was before I knew about convention sketches, so I never got a sketch from him, but I did get every single Perez book in my collection signed. Don’t worry, I made multiple trips, lol.

Fast forward to 2008. I had recently got back into collecting original art and knew that there were a select few that I HAD to get pieces from, and George was one of them. When I inquired around, I was told that George no longer accepted commissions and I knew that he no longer made many convention appearances, so I was pretty discouraged about that.

Well, I asked the right person who referred me to the even more right person at just the right time and I was able to secure a commission from George. While I couldn’t even come close to affording what I wanted from him, I was able to get torso shots of Mr. Grayson and Mr. Parker. I thought that he was going to do both on the same page, but he put each on their own board, I just Photoshopped them into one picture. I will post them separately at a later time.

So, I’ve rambled on long enough, but special thanks go out to colorist Tom Smith, who referred me to Spencer Beck at The Artist’s Choice, who set this up for me. They both helped me achieve getting one of my grail pieces.

And most of all, thank you to George Perez, who brought me into a whole new universe and introduced me to Mr. Grayson.

P.S. - I hate that I even have to put this in here, but please DO NOT reproduce these and post them somewhere else. Thank you so much.

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