The artist honors his collaborator and friend … East Coast Comicon is this weekend in New Jersey and George Perez is there as part of his farewell tour. Originally, on Friday night, Perez and writer Marv Wolfman were to do a panel discussion covering their storied collaboration on titles such as The New Teen Titans and Crisis on Infinite Earths, moderated by yours truly. Unfortunately, Wolfman was injured in a fall on his way to the convention – click here for the details — and was unable to attend ECC. But the show must go on, as they say, so instead Perez and I did a retrospective of his career. (Much, much more on that to come soon enough.) In any event, Perez took a moment to pay a moving tribute to Wolfman, while he discussed the classic The New Teen Titans #8 story A Day in the Lives. Here’s what he had to say: “I regret that Marv couldn’t be here and I’ve said this to him personally, I’ve said it about him in interviews, and I’ll say it again today: Marv Wolfman is the gold standard by which I measure any collaborative effort. “The man not only is a talented writer, he’s the most generous of collaborators. He wants the person working with him to be at his best as well. He wants you to contribute. “At one point I remember reading the fan mail, and noticing one particular letter, commenting about the characters and the stories and everything else. But never once mentioned that they liked the art. “And I was like, ‘Yeah, y’know, did they like the art?’” and Marv said this: ‘Look, they didn’t comment on the clever wordplay either. They commented on the story. We created a story that they’re alive in. It’s bigger than either one of us.’ “So, the fact that one of the great things that Marv — who is a perfect example of it, and I’ve tried to emulate that ever since — ego has no place in the creative process when it comes to doing a story that other people have to relate to. “They don’t want to hear about me. They don’t want to hear about Marv. They want to hear about the characters and it has to be as alive to them as their own neighbors...