Black Man of the Day: Dwayne McDuffie (Comic Book Visionary Milestone) Update: MILESTONE doc on HBO MAX 7/29/22!
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The Wife of Legendary Comics Writer Dwayne McDuffie Wants to Make Sure People Never Forget His Legacy
Evan Narcisse
11/23/16 11:00am
Filed to: DWAYNE MCDUFFIE
35.1K
2537
Icon, Hardware, and the expansive editorial vision of the Milestone Media universe. Justice League Unlimited. Ben 10. Depending on when you’ve encountered it, chances are you’ve loved something Dwayne McDuffie worked on. Now, plans are afoot to preserve the legacy of one of geek culture’s most beloved writers.
For those unfamiliar with his output, Dwayne McDuffie was a creator whose work spanned decades, with high points seen in work done for Marvel, DC, and Cartoon Network. His creation Damage Control—a property for Marvel about a company that cleans up the devastation from superhero battles—is slated to become a TV series on ABC. His work as a writer/producer on the Justice Leagueseries helped that show become one of the best superhero adaptations ever. McDuffie also co-founded Milestone Media, which gave readers an inclusive, multicultural superhero universe that he provided the editorial vision for.
Why Justice League Unlimited Was, and Still Is, the Best Superhero TV Show
We live in a golden age of superhero television. Hits like The Flash, Agent Carter, Arrow, and…
Read more
When McDuffie died suddenly in 2011, the mainstream comics and animation communities reacted with stunned sadness. The person at the epicenter of the public’s grief and subsequent calls for memorialization has been animation writer Charlotte McDuffie, his wife. In 2015, she established the first Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics, which have been given out at the Long Beach Comic Expo. (Note: Submissions for the 2017 Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics are open now but close at the end of the year.) Later in 2015, the first Dwayne McDuffie Award for Kids’ Comics, also began to be presented annually at the Ann Arbor Comic Arts Festival in Michigan. Now she wants to do much more to solidify her late husband’s legacy so that future can live on for future generations.
When I spoke to her on the phone a few weeks ago, Charlotte McDuffie told me the idea for the creation of a Dwayne McDuffie Foundation has come from the fans, friends, and family mourning the loss of the creator. “The idea was first presented to me immediately after he died,” McDuffie told me. “His family, his friends, our friends, industry people, and companies were wanting to charitable donations in his name. We didn’t have a foundation set up. Since then, during the past five years, I’ve been approached by fans asking about that idea.”
McDuffie has launched a crowdfunding campaign on GoFundMe to start the Dwayne McDuffie Fund. In the short term, the hope is to offset the cost for things like the physical awards that get handed out in his name, fees to explore the possibility of getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and the digital archiving of her late husband’s older typewritten work. She’s been paying for the awards given out in Dwayne’s name but wants to set up an infrastructure that lets them continue after she’s gone. But she also sees the fund as the first step to establishing a Dwayne McDuffie Foundation with larger ambitions.
“Not everybody knows that Dwayne was a physicist,” she told me, referring to the master’s degree in applied physics he earned at the University of Michigan. “He was a huge promoter of academic and scholarly thought. So I’ve wanted to honor that part of him, too, with academic scholarships for diverse students. I’d love to have one at his beloved childhood school, The Roeper School in Michigan. He just said he had the time of his life there. He really found himself.”
The self that Dwayne found was a kind, occasionally acerbic man who put his beliefs in his work and that’s one of the reasons he’s so fondly remembered. When we remember a creator’s legacy, it’s not just about their output; it’s also about the kind of person they were, an aspect of life that isn’t necessarily so readily available to the public. In addition to Charlotte McDuffie, I spoke with writer/producers Matt Wayne and Eugene Son, who worked separately with the late McDuffie in comics and animation. Wayne’s friendship with McDuffie went all the way back to their teen years together at the University of Michigan and then on into his eventual employment as a writer/editor at Milestone. He and Son met while working in animation and became mutual friends who set up the McDuffies up on their first date, which Charlotte McDuffie reminisced about.
“I wasn’t familiar with Milestone or Dwayne’s work with Justice League. [I thought] “Okay, he’s just this nice guy?” We went out to lunch on a Tuesday. I thought, ‘Okay, I can have lunch with anybody for an hour.’,” she told me. “The joke is I was expecting him to be one of these superhero fanboys who doesn’t have any other topic of conversation. Like, ‘And then in Aquaman #547....’ ‘Uh-huh.’ I thought I would be looking at my watch or that we would have nothing to talk about. ‘So, that Matt and Eugene sure are nice guys, aren’t they?’ ‘Yup. They sure are.’ But we hit it off like you wouldn’t believe. I still don’t believe it. I thought Eugene and Matt had fed him lines about what to say,” Charlotte related.
“‘Who is this guy? How do we know each other so well?’,” McDuffie remembers thing. “We were hitting it off right out of the gate. Our first date lasted five hours. The restaurant was dimming the lighting and the staff was going off shift, changing it for dinner. By the time we left, we joked, we should have had our second date. Richard Feynman, my favorite physicist, came up in conversation. Dwayne did the gesture with his water glass that Feynman famously did with in conjunction with the Challenger disaster and the o-ring failure. The fact that he did it and I recognized it, I was like, ‘Okay, this is just crazy.’
The simpatico energy of that first date grew into a longer relationship, one where comic book references eventually became part of their banter.
“He used to say that he was Superman and I was Batman,” McDuffie told me. “He said that’s why I’m always stressed out because I have a million different contingency plans. If this happens, I’ll do this. If this happens, I’ll do this. He said, he’s Superman. He has the ego the size of a planet. [laughs] And that he can walk into any situation and assume his natural intellectual superiority which carries him through. He said it with a smile but I think he also meant it. A lot of self-confidence and rightfully so.”
Like those of Milestone co-founder Christopher Priest, Wayne’s memories of Dwayne also invoke the idea of his intellect. What was it like being around a guy that smart? “[It was] intimidating,” Wayne laughed. “[Dwayne’s] idea of a crazy weekend was he would go to a bookstore and buy three or four new books, a bunch of magazines, a box of cookies and a gallon of milk, and go home,” he elaborated.
Comic Writer Christopher Priest on Luke Cage, Dwayne McDuffie, and One of Batman’s Biggest Dick…
The man who’s currently writing DC’s excellent Deathstroke series has had one of the most eventful…
Read more
“We both went to a school for smarty-pants in Detroit, years apart. The right answer mattered a lot to him. He loved casually talking about physics. He read Peggy Noonan and not because he agreed with her.”
After writing on Justice League, Batman: The Brave and The Bold and Lego Marvel Superheroes: Maximum Overload, Wayne is now a story editor at Amazon Studios. “[Dwayne] was a guy who introduced me to so much,” he said. “He introduced me to Preston Sturges, Octavia Butler, and Ralph Ellison. Just knowing him and how he put things together, a conversation with him would be like a two-hour session where you would be mapping a new corner of the world.”
When Wayne moved to New York City in the late 1980s, Dwayne was working at Marvel as an assistant editor, learning the ropes of monthly comics production. “He was working for Bob Budiansky in the special projects division,” Wayne told me. “It was a great position for him because everything was being built from scratch, so he got to see every custom project. He got to see the different ways you can attack each comic, and what the business model was for comics in publishing. It really was influential in how he thought about everything.”
McDuffie was one of a very few black people working at Marvel at the time. When I shared a story that Dwayne told me about a Marvel editor who infamously kept a Sambo figurine on his desk, Wayne told me he’d heard the same thing from his late friend. It goes like this: Offended by the racist caricature curio, McDuffie, artist/Milestone co-founder Denys Cowan, and other freelancers who’d come through the offices would snatch the figure from the desk. “Yeah, they would steal it,” Wayne told me. “But [the editor] would always get another one.”
“Institutional racism at Marvel was something that got talked about,” Wayne remembered. “It was a small office. [Artist] Mark Bright would come in and suddenly we’d all be talking about how there are some artists at Marvel who didn’t want to be seen talking to two black people in the hall. People would go by and say, ‘Maybe they’re planning something.’ But that’s corporate culture in America probably to this day. Although I think it’s a lot less of the norm than it used to be.”
During his time at Milestone, Wayne got to see his friend’s endeavors to subvert that norm, which included concerted efforts to bring in new talent into the industry. Artists who are now respected veterans, like Tommy Lee Edwards, John Paul Leon and ChrisCross, got some of their first major breaks at Milestone, with the chance to get paid while they learned the ropes of sequential storytelling. When new comics companies launch, the trend is to pack the creative stable with established stars as a way to pull in readers and mitigate risk. But from the very start, Milestone put young unheralded creators on important titles right next to work being done by veterans.
“That was intentional,” Wayne said. “[Milestone co-founder] Michael Davis was teaching at the School of Visual Arts at the time. He knew lots of people who wanted to be comics artists and were just on the cusp of breaking in. John Paul’s first sale was to Dark Horse. But his second sale was Static #1. I think that was part of the business model. Dwayne wanted to have a strong editorial voice and part of it was to get these people.”
Years later, Eugene Son was one of the people that Dwayne helped mentor in animation. Son has now been a writer and story editor for years, contributing to several successful Marvel animated shows like Avengers: Ultron Revolutionand Ultimate Spider-Man: Web Warriors. Early into his friendship with Dwayne, he was just a guy trying to get more work on Ben 10; he told me that Dwayne McDuffie’s passion for finding new talent also carried over into the animation medium. “He knew that there were a lot of amazing African-American, Hispanic, gay, lesbian, women, Asian [creators] that were really talented. He always wanted to be giving people their chance and thought that all you had to do was fish around a little bit and you would pull out amazing talent.”
He remembered experiencing that kind of working relationship firsthand.
“[Dwayne] was super kind and super polite but, at the same time, demanding,” Son said. “He wanted a lot out of you creatively. When I turned in the second Ben 10: Alien Force script I did for him, he was like, “It was great. You gave me exactly what I needed. I did the rewrites on it and it will be fine.” I was on the phone with him and I said, “Keeping in mind that we’re friends and that I want to keep working with you for a long time, what changes would you recommend to keep in mind so that my scripts are going to be better in the future?”
Son chuckles before continuing, “Then he pauses and goes, ‘All right... you clearly saw a plot hole and you tried to cover it up by putting a little spackle over it and it was really obvious.’ I said, ‘Okay.’ He said, ‘I recognize that everyone had made a mistake, we all missed this plot hole, you spotted it, you fixed it by trying to bridge it over with a little change and it didn’t work. It just made the plot hole worse. You had to go back through and make further changes to cover it.’ Then he added, ‘Oh, and you tried to fit in a funny scene here where it shouldn’t fit. It was a great scene but we had to kill it.’ And after it was over I really appreciated it. Because he was really honest and he gave me honest good feedback.”
In similar fashion, the feedback loop between creator and audience was important to Dwayne McDuffie. Charlotte McDuffie says that, even though they both worked in animation, their marriage wasn’t one where they talked about work all the time. But she’s been reckoning with the totality of his work and the impact it’s still having.
“I’m not a religious person. Dwayne was not a religious person,” McDuffie offered. “But, to see that he really did have an impact on other people with his work is very lovely. He was always so frustrated that he felt that people were not listening to him and were not taking what he was doing seriously. Particularly because he was going through the superhero genre, not just animation but comic books.”
“It was kind of like, ‘Oh, you’re not in features, you’re in television. Oh, you’re not in television, you’re in children’s television,’” McDuffie told me. “[Like it was] double slumming. The idea that you can’t have any serious discussion or serious dialogue or address serious issues in a context that’s appropriate for children frustrated him. When you look at Ben 10, that’s a character who’s fighting the Highbreed, who are essentially racial/genetic purists. They are the Nazis. The way he defeats them is turning them into mutts and befriending the very first ruler of the Highbreed.”
“Yes, it’s a cartoon,” McDuffie said. “But as you get older, you’re like, ‘Wow, that was actually really about something.’ Dwayne hoped his work could have had an effect on the way people think about the world when they’re young, so that once they get out into the world, they’re not hearing about these issues or having these things thrown at them for the first time.”
McDuffie says that the National Museum of African-American History and Culture has expressed interest in Dwayne’s work. “It’s all very early on at this point but they’ve invited Dwayne to be represented in it. I have a lot of original artwork from Milestone and they talked about housing his business papers in the Library of Congress.”
Speaking about her hopes to establish a Dwayne McDuffie Foundation, Charlotte said, “I’m sure there’s some a little miniature Dwayne McDuffie wannabe that’s driving his or her parents crazy right now,” she posited. “A kid like Dwayne was, someone that would benefit greatly from the rigorous academics of a private school like that but couldn’t necessarily afford it. I think things like that would be a perfect avenue for a Dwayne McDuffie Foundation.”
Last year’s McDuffie Award presentation was on the anniversary of the writer’s death and Charlotte says she couldn’t keep her composure. “When I’ve gotten up there to present the award in the past, I always tend to be choked up,” she recalled. “I miss him as my husband but also, he was only 49 years old. The fact that he did so much in so little time is actually amazing. I just can’t believe he managed it.”
http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-wife-of-legendary-comics-writer-dwayne-mcduffie-wan-1789270102
Evan Narcisse
11/23/16 11:00am
Filed to: DWAYNE MCDUFFIE
35.1K
2537
Icon, Hardware, and the expansive editorial vision of the Milestone Media universe. Justice League Unlimited. Ben 10. Depending on when you’ve encountered it, chances are you’ve loved something Dwayne McDuffie worked on. Now, plans are afoot to preserve the legacy of one of geek culture’s most beloved writers.
For those unfamiliar with his output, Dwayne McDuffie was a creator whose work spanned decades, with high points seen in work done for Marvel, DC, and Cartoon Network. His creation Damage Control—a property for Marvel about a company that cleans up the devastation from superhero battles—is slated to become a TV series on ABC. His work as a writer/producer on the Justice Leagueseries helped that show become one of the best superhero adaptations ever. McDuffie also co-founded Milestone Media, which gave readers an inclusive, multicultural superhero universe that he provided the editorial vision for.
Why Justice League Unlimited Was, and Still Is, the Best Superhero TV Show
We live in a golden age of superhero television. Hits like The Flash, Agent Carter, Arrow, and…
Read more
When McDuffie died suddenly in 2011, the mainstream comics and animation communities reacted with stunned sadness. The person at the epicenter of the public’s grief and subsequent calls for memorialization has been animation writer Charlotte McDuffie, his wife. In 2015, she established the first Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics, which have been given out at the Long Beach Comic Expo. (Note: Submissions for the 2017 Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics are open now but close at the end of the year.) Later in 2015, the first Dwayne McDuffie Award for Kids’ Comics, also began to be presented annually at the Ann Arbor Comic Arts Festival in Michigan. Now she wants to do much more to solidify her late husband’s legacy so that future can live on for future generations.
When I spoke to her on the phone a few weeks ago, Charlotte McDuffie told me the idea for the creation of a Dwayne McDuffie Foundation has come from the fans, friends, and family mourning the loss of the creator. “The idea was first presented to me immediately after he died,” McDuffie told me. “His family, his friends, our friends, industry people, and companies were wanting to charitable donations in his name. We didn’t have a foundation set up. Since then, during the past five years, I’ve been approached by fans asking about that idea.”
McDuffie has launched a crowdfunding campaign on GoFundMe to start the Dwayne McDuffie Fund. In the short term, the hope is to offset the cost for things like the physical awards that get handed out in his name, fees to explore the possibility of getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and the digital archiving of her late husband’s older typewritten work. She’s been paying for the awards given out in Dwayne’s name but wants to set up an infrastructure that lets them continue after she’s gone. But she also sees the fund as the first step to establishing a Dwayne McDuffie Foundation with larger ambitions.
“Not everybody knows that Dwayne was a physicist,” she told me, referring to the master’s degree in applied physics he earned at the University of Michigan. “He was a huge promoter of academic and scholarly thought. So I’ve wanted to honor that part of him, too, with academic scholarships for diverse students. I’d love to have one at his beloved childhood school, The Roeper School in Michigan. He just said he had the time of his life there. He really found himself.”
The self that Dwayne found was a kind, occasionally acerbic man who put his beliefs in his work and that’s one of the reasons he’s so fondly remembered. When we remember a creator’s legacy, it’s not just about their output; it’s also about the kind of person they were, an aspect of life that isn’t necessarily so readily available to the public. In addition to Charlotte McDuffie, I spoke with writer/producers Matt Wayne and Eugene Son, who worked separately with the late McDuffie in comics and animation. Wayne’s friendship with McDuffie went all the way back to their teen years together at the University of Michigan and then on into his eventual employment as a writer/editor at Milestone. He and Son met while working in animation and became mutual friends who set up the McDuffies up on their first date, which Charlotte McDuffie reminisced about.
“I wasn’t familiar with Milestone or Dwayne’s work with Justice League. [I thought] “Okay, he’s just this nice guy?” We went out to lunch on a Tuesday. I thought, ‘Okay, I can have lunch with anybody for an hour.’,” she told me. “The joke is I was expecting him to be one of these superhero fanboys who doesn’t have any other topic of conversation. Like, ‘And then in Aquaman #547....’ ‘Uh-huh.’ I thought I would be looking at my watch or that we would have nothing to talk about. ‘So, that Matt and Eugene sure are nice guys, aren’t they?’ ‘Yup. They sure are.’ But we hit it off like you wouldn’t believe. I still don’t believe it. I thought Eugene and Matt had fed him lines about what to say,” Charlotte related.
“‘Who is this guy? How do we know each other so well?’,” McDuffie remembers thing. “We were hitting it off right out of the gate. Our first date lasted five hours. The restaurant was dimming the lighting and the staff was going off shift, changing it for dinner. By the time we left, we joked, we should have had our second date. Richard Feynman, my favorite physicist, came up in conversation. Dwayne did the gesture with his water glass that Feynman famously did with in conjunction with the Challenger disaster and the o-ring failure. The fact that he did it and I recognized it, I was like, ‘Okay, this is just crazy.’
The simpatico energy of that first date grew into a longer relationship, one where comic book references eventually became part of their banter.
“He used to say that he was Superman and I was Batman,” McDuffie told me. “He said that’s why I’m always stressed out because I have a million different contingency plans. If this happens, I’ll do this. If this happens, I’ll do this. He said, he’s Superman. He has the ego the size of a planet. [laughs] And that he can walk into any situation and assume his natural intellectual superiority which carries him through. He said it with a smile but I think he also meant it. A lot of self-confidence and rightfully so.”
Like those of Milestone co-founder Christopher Priest, Wayne’s memories of Dwayne also invoke the idea of his intellect. What was it like being around a guy that smart? “[It was] intimidating,” Wayne laughed. “[Dwayne’s] idea of a crazy weekend was he would go to a bookstore and buy three or four new books, a bunch of magazines, a box of cookies and a gallon of milk, and go home,” he elaborated.
Comic Writer Christopher Priest on Luke Cage, Dwayne McDuffie, and One of Batman’s Biggest Dick…
The man who’s currently writing DC’s excellent Deathstroke series has had one of the most eventful…
Read more
“We both went to a school for smarty-pants in Detroit, years apart. The right answer mattered a lot to him. He loved casually talking about physics. He read Peggy Noonan and not because he agreed with her.”
After writing on Justice League, Batman: The Brave and The Bold and Lego Marvel Superheroes: Maximum Overload, Wayne is now a story editor at Amazon Studios. “[Dwayne] was a guy who introduced me to so much,” he said. “He introduced me to Preston Sturges, Octavia Butler, and Ralph Ellison. Just knowing him and how he put things together, a conversation with him would be like a two-hour session where you would be mapping a new corner of the world.”
When Wayne moved to New York City in the late 1980s, Dwayne was working at Marvel as an assistant editor, learning the ropes of monthly comics production. “He was working for Bob Budiansky in the special projects division,” Wayne told me. “It was a great position for him because everything was being built from scratch, so he got to see every custom project. He got to see the different ways you can attack each comic, and what the business model was for comics in publishing. It really was influential in how he thought about everything.”
McDuffie was one of a very few black people working at Marvel at the time. When I shared a story that Dwayne told me about a Marvel editor who infamously kept a Sambo figurine on his desk, Wayne told me he’d heard the same thing from his late friend. It goes like this: Offended by the racist caricature curio, McDuffie, artist/Milestone co-founder Denys Cowan, and other freelancers who’d come through the offices would snatch the figure from the desk. “Yeah, they would steal it,” Wayne told me. “But [the editor] would always get another one.”
“Institutional racism at Marvel was something that got talked about,” Wayne remembered. “It was a small office. [Artist] Mark Bright would come in and suddenly we’d all be talking about how there are some artists at Marvel who didn’t want to be seen talking to two black people in the hall. People would go by and say, ‘Maybe they’re planning something.’ But that’s corporate culture in America probably to this day. Although I think it’s a lot less of the norm than it used to be.”
During his time at Milestone, Wayne got to see his friend’s endeavors to subvert that norm, which included concerted efforts to bring in new talent into the industry. Artists who are now respected veterans, like Tommy Lee Edwards, John Paul Leon and ChrisCross, got some of their first major breaks at Milestone, with the chance to get paid while they learned the ropes of sequential storytelling. When new comics companies launch, the trend is to pack the creative stable with established stars as a way to pull in readers and mitigate risk. But from the very start, Milestone put young unheralded creators on important titles right next to work being done by veterans.
“That was intentional,” Wayne said. “[Milestone co-founder] Michael Davis was teaching at the School of Visual Arts at the time. He knew lots of people who wanted to be comics artists and were just on the cusp of breaking in. John Paul’s first sale was to Dark Horse. But his second sale was Static #1. I think that was part of the business model. Dwayne wanted to have a strong editorial voice and part of it was to get these people.”
Years later, Eugene Son was one of the people that Dwayne helped mentor in animation. Son has now been a writer and story editor for years, contributing to several successful Marvel animated shows like Avengers: Ultron Revolutionand Ultimate Spider-Man: Web Warriors. Early into his friendship with Dwayne, he was just a guy trying to get more work on Ben 10; he told me that Dwayne McDuffie’s passion for finding new talent also carried over into the animation medium. “He knew that there were a lot of amazing African-American, Hispanic, gay, lesbian, women, Asian [creators] that were really talented. He always wanted to be giving people their chance and thought that all you had to do was fish around a little bit and you would pull out amazing talent.”
He remembered experiencing that kind of working relationship firsthand.
“[Dwayne] was super kind and super polite but, at the same time, demanding,” Son said. “He wanted a lot out of you creatively. When I turned in the second Ben 10: Alien Force script I did for him, he was like, “It was great. You gave me exactly what I needed. I did the rewrites on it and it will be fine.” I was on the phone with him and I said, “Keeping in mind that we’re friends and that I want to keep working with you for a long time, what changes would you recommend to keep in mind so that my scripts are going to be better in the future?”
Son chuckles before continuing, “Then he pauses and goes, ‘All right... you clearly saw a plot hole and you tried to cover it up by putting a little spackle over it and it was really obvious.’ I said, ‘Okay.’ He said, ‘I recognize that everyone had made a mistake, we all missed this plot hole, you spotted it, you fixed it by trying to bridge it over with a little change and it didn’t work. It just made the plot hole worse. You had to go back through and make further changes to cover it.’ Then he added, ‘Oh, and you tried to fit in a funny scene here where it shouldn’t fit. It was a great scene but we had to kill it.’ And after it was over I really appreciated it. Because he was really honest and he gave me honest good feedback.”
In similar fashion, the feedback loop between creator and audience was important to Dwayne McDuffie. Charlotte McDuffie says that, even though they both worked in animation, their marriage wasn’t one where they talked about work all the time. But she’s been reckoning with the totality of his work and the impact it’s still having.
“I’m not a religious person. Dwayne was not a religious person,” McDuffie offered. “But, to see that he really did have an impact on other people with his work is very lovely. He was always so frustrated that he felt that people were not listening to him and were not taking what he was doing seriously. Particularly because he was going through the superhero genre, not just animation but comic books.”
“It was kind of like, ‘Oh, you’re not in features, you’re in television. Oh, you’re not in television, you’re in children’s television,’” McDuffie told me. “[Like it was] double slumming. The idea that you can’t have any serious discussion or serious dialogue or address serious issues in a context that’s appropriate for children frustrated him. When you look at Ben 10, that’s a character who’s fighting the Highbreed, who are essentially racial/genetic purists. They are the Nazis. The way he defeats them is turning them into mutts and befriending the very first ruler of the Highbreed.”
“Yes, it’s a cartoon,” McDuffie said. “But as you get older, you’re like, ‘Wow, that was actually really about something.’ Dwayne hoped his work could have had an effect on the way people think about the world when they’re young, so that once they get out into the world, they’re not hearing about these issues or having these things thrown at them for the first time.”
McDuffie says that the National Museum of African-American History and Culture has expressed interest in Dwayne’s work. “It’s all very early on at this point but they’ve invited Dwayne to be represented in it. I have a lot of original artwork from Milestone and they talked about housing his business papers in the Library of Congress.”
Speaking about her hopes to establish a Dwayne McDuffie Foundation, Charlotte said, “I’m sure there’s some a little miniature Dwayne McDuffie wannabe that’s driving his or her parents crazy right now,” she posited. “A kid like Dwayne was, someone that would benefit greatly from the rigorous academics of a private school like that but couldn’t necessarily afford it. I think things like that would be a perfect avenue for a Dwayne McDuffie Foundation.”
Last year’s McDuffie Award presentation was on the anniversary of the writer’s death and Charlotte says she couldn’t keep her composure. “When I’ve gotten up there to present the award in the past, I always tend to be choked up,” she recalled. “I miss him as my husband but also, he was only 49 years old. The fact that he did so much in so little time is actually amazing. I just can’t believe he managed it.”
http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-wife-of-legendary-comics-writer-dwayne-mcduffie-wan-1789270102
Joseph Illidge: How Dwayne McDuffie was 'a catalyst' for diversity in comics
Named after the late visionary, an award — ‘a testament to his example and generosity,’ Illidge says — will be presented at this weekend’s Long Beach Comic Expo.
JOSEPH ILLIDGE@JOSEPHPILLIDGE
POSTED ON FEBRUARY 17, 2017 AT 4:20PM EDT
LION FORGE
This weekend at Long Beach Comic Expo, the comic book industry will celebrate diversity with the third annual Dwayne McDuffie Awards. Presented in honor of the acclaimed comic and television writer (Justice League, Ben 10), the ceremony, according to its official criteria, works on “broadening the range of characters portrayed in comics, adding to the variety of creators contributing to the medium, influence on the marketplace and contributions to the advancement of women, minorities and LGBTs in comic books and pop culture.”
One of the judges for this year’s ceremony is longtime comics veteran Joe Illidge. Illidge is currently an editor at comic publisher Lion Forge, where he is assembling a new shared universe of superheroes called Catalyst Prime with a team of top-level talent. Set to launch this May with a one-shot special before branching off into seven new titles, Catalyst Prime carries on the legacy of the Milestone imprint, which McDuffie co-founded in the early ’90s and created a wealth of imaginative new black superhero characters including Icon and Static (who then went on to star in a popular WB cartoon helmed by McDuffie).
In an exclusive essay for EW, Illidge shares his first encounter with McDuffie’s work, and how it has gone on to influence his current work with Lion Forge and Catalyst Prime. Check that out below, along with covers for the upcoming Catalyst Prime series Incidentals (above, by Larry Stroman, Rob Stull, and Snakebite Cortez), Noble (by Roger Robinson and Juan Fernandez), and Summit (by Jan Duursema and Kelly Fitzpatrick). Catalyst Prime: The Event hits stores May 6 as part of Free Comic Book Day.
MILESTONE
The moment of change was 24 years ago for me.
It was February of 1993, and I was unemployed.
I walked into a small store on Utica Avenue in Brooklyn, New York and looked at the spinner rack full of comic books. The comic book that stood out among all the others was a comic book called Icon. It was the second issue, which meant I missed seeing the first.
On the cover was a Black man and a Black teenage girl, two superheroes fighting a large group of S.W.A.T. officers, all dressed in advanced body armor with helmets and guns. The line “STOP! DO NOT HOP ON COP!” was under the title and over the image of battle.
I wanted that book, for reasons both clear and elusive to me at the time, and I couldn’t afford it, but I took note of the company behind the book.
Milestone.
A friend of mine told me about Milestone weeks earlier. He was an intern at the company, and they were about to launch a line of multicultural superhero comic books. As an intern, he was working for free, and without a reward of money. I had no interest in working for any organization without getting paid.
But that “Icon” comic book spoke to me. It was the evidence of empowerment, when I was feeling powerless. I knew at that moment, even with the absence of an immediate income, I wanted to be on the side where history was being made instead of the side of the observer.
That was the day my career in the comic book industry was born. Not the vague idea of working on comic books in some way, shape, or form. A real career in the field.
Impetus.
Meeting Dwayne McDuffie on the day of the interview was the next event.
Matt Wayne, an editor at Milestone Media, Inc., was in the room with both of us during the interview. Matt did most of the talking. Dwayne spent most of the time watching me, and while he was considerably taller and more massive than me physically, he was truly a giant during that interview because the silence coming from his side of the room spoke volumes about his presence as a person.
Despite the fact that I had totally blown the interview to hell, a friend spoke up for me, and Dwayne and his partners decided to give a young know-it-all a chance to make a contribution.
For the following years, along with the instruction and lessons from his partners at Milestone, Dwayne took me under his wing. He showed me the meaning of story, and the importance of being a participant in the story. Not a guest star, a side note, a sacrificial lamb, or a “lesser than.” An active participant within the story and a facilitator of story creation.
LION FORGE
LION FORGE
Catalyst.
The ideas of impetus and catalyst would define Dwayne’s presence in entertainment industries for many years during and after Milestone’s creation.
Dwayne’s favorite comic book characters were The Fantastic Four. The original quartet. The ones who flew into space and accidentally gained powers from being bombarded with cosmic rays. Gifted with super powers, four people chose to use abilities gained through the impetus of science to be a catalyst for the human race’s capacity to push the boundaries of science and imagination.
In the origin of the superhero world of Milestone, known as “The Dakotaverse” as it was named after the main fictional city of Dakota, a large group of gangbangers was exposed to a toxic gas that was meant to weaken them so they could all be apprehended by the police. The gas had a secret ingredient that allowed people to gain powers based on their perception of reality. A mastermind in that world created the gas to facilitate the development of superpowered people. A new breed of heroes.
The impetus of science. Emergence of a catalyst.
Was Dwayne’s love of The Fantastic Four influential in the origin he shaped for the comic book universe he co-created?
Maybe.
Milestone Comics, as a publishing house (working in conjunction with DC Comics), was the starting point for the careers of many a writer, artist, and editor. People who worked at Milestone and people who did not. People who created the books, and people who read them. Both creator and fan were equally and profoundly impacted by the company’s presence, publishing slate, and mission statement.
The first example of a wide-scale universe of costumed heroes in which the cultural demographics closely mirrored those of the real world, Milestone helped activate the desire for world-building for many other people and companies, small and large.
Go to the various comic book conventions throughout the United States. Not just the most-hyped conventions, but the dozens of others in cities such as Detroit, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Chicago, and the realization of new, vast worlds full of diverse characters with extraordinary abilities is evident in hundreds of comic books by dozens of creators.
Was Milestone influential in the manifestation of some of these varied fictional worlds?
Possibly.
Dwayne McDuffie died in 2009 and in the wake of his passing, the comic book industry was left with a gaping hole…but it was also galvanized.
Creators from various walks of life, people whose lives were touched by Dwayne’s work in various media, were compelled to make decisions, statements, stories…all of which would come from the same underlying unspoken sentiment:
“We will not go back to the way things were.”
This year, the various fictional worlds of heroes in comic books will be joined by a new one.
The publisher of this world, its origin partially born from the work of Dwayne McDuffie and his partners.
People inspired and empowered by McDuffie’s work helped shape the new world.
One in which a group of people from different cultural backgrounds attempt to do what most people would consider impossible. Traveling to the stars, in order to save the human race from extinction. The aftermath of their act will lead to the emergence of superpowered people on Earth.
An impetus of science.
This world is named Catalyst Prime.
Cause and effect. Impact and aftermath.
We have lost a friend, but we have gained so much from his presence, efforts, and stories.
The award for diversity in McDuffie’s name is a testament to his example and generosity.
We will never go back to the way things were. We’re headed forward to the horizon, pushing boundaries and testing the limits of our imagination as we go.
See you there.
-Joseph Phillip Illidge
http://ew.com/books/2017/02/17/joe-illidge-dwayne-mcduffie-catalyst-diversity-comics/
Final Shortlist for Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics Revealed (Exclusive)
Deitrich Smith/Dynamite Entertainment
Upgrade Soul by Ezra Claytan Daniels
Shaft: Imitation of Life by David Walker and Dietrich Smith
Amazing Forest by Ulises Farinas, Erick Freitas and more
StarHammer by J. N. Monk and Harry Bogosian
14 Nights by Kristina Stipetic
"I am pleased to once again welcome another group of outstanding work and all of these remarkable creators to be forever associated with my late husband's name, and I look forward to seeing where our 2017 nominees' careers go from here," said Dwayne's widow, Charlotte Fullerton McDuffie. She added, "Everything they create from now on, they'll do attached to Dwayne's reputation for not just inclusiveness but excellence. Please continue to do him proud in all ways, always."
McDuffie's career included work on Warner Bros. Animation's Justice League Unlimited, Ben 10 and Static Shockseries — the latter of which he co-created, based on the Milestone Media property he was partially responsible for. He also worked on projects for Marvel, DC and other publishers. In 1993, he became one of the founding partners of Milestone Media, a studio created to promote diversity in mainstream comic books and other media. He died in 2011, aged 49.
"The Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity continues to be one of the personal highlights of the weekend for me, bringing together such an incredibly talented and diverse group from all aspects of the business," Martha Donato, executive director and founder of the Long Beach Comic Expo, told Heat Vision about the annual award, which debuted in 2015. "We are so honored to pay tribute to one of the visionaries of the comic book medium, though the work of those whom he inspires. This year's nominees continue in that tradition, and I am looking so forward to seeing who takes home this year's honor."
Judges for this year's award include a number of comic book industry luminaries, including celebrated Black Panther writer Don McGregor, Batgirl and Birds of Prey writer Gail Simone, Green Lantern and Iron Man artist Mark D. Bright, and Milestone Media's Matt Wayne, among many others. The winner of the award will be announced at a special ceremony on Saturday at the Long Beach Comic Expo.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/he...duffie-award-diversity-comics-revealed-976497
Deitrich Smith/Dynamite Entertainment
Upgrade Soul by Ezra Claytan Daniels
Shaft: Imitation of Life by David Walker and Dietrich Smith
Amazing Forest by Ulises Farinas, Erick Freitas and more
StarHammer by J. N. Monk and Harry Bogosian
14 Nights by Kristina Stipetic
"I am pleased to once again welcome another group of outstanding work and all of these remarkable creators to be forever associated with my late husband's name, and I look forward to seeing where our 2017 nominees' careers go from here," said Dwayne's widow, Charlotte Fullerton McDuffie. She added, "Everything they create from now on, they'll do attached to Dwayne's reputation for not just inclusiveness but excellence. Please continue to do him proud in all ways, always."
McDuffie's career included work on Warner Bros. Animation's Justice League Unlimited, Ben 10 and Static Shockseries — the latter of which he co-created, based on the Milestone Media property he was partially responsible for. He also worked on projects for Marvel, DC and other publishers. In 1993, he became one of the founding partners of Milestone Media, a studio created to promote diversity in mainstream comic books and other media. He died in 2011, aged 49.
"The Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity continues to be one of the personal highlights of the weekend for me, bringing together such an incredibly talented and diverse group from all aspects of the business," Martha Donato, executive director and founder of the Long Beach Comic Expo, told Heat Vision about the annual award, which debuted in 2015. "We are so honored to pay tribute to one of the visionaries of the comic book medium, though the work of those whom he inspires. This year's nominees continue in that tradition, and I am looking so forward to seeing who takes home this year's honor."
Judges for this year's award include a number of comic book industry luminaries, including celebrated Black Panther writer Don McGregor, Batgirl and Birds of Prey writer Gail Simone, Green Lantern and Iron Man artist Mark D. Bright, and Milestone Media's Matt Wayne, among many others. The winner of the award will be announced at a special ceremony on Saturday at the Long Beach Comic Expo.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/he...duffie-award-diversity-comics-revealed-976497
bet a million his wife is fat and white
Robert Kirkman’s Secret History of ComicsQ&A – Denys Cowan (Comic Artist and Milestone Comics Co-Founder)
Posted by Ashleen Wicklow
17 hours ago
Denys Cowan, comic artist and co-founder of Milestone Comics, discusses creating the creator-owned African-American comic imprint, what he would change from that time, and he teases new material for Milestone fans.
Q: In the episode, you talk about how you got the idea for Milestone, for creating these new black heroes, almost like a bolt of lightning. What was it like building this business from the ground up?
A: The whole “let’s create a comic book company that does these kinds of characters and we could do it independently” — that was a bolt of lightning. But the content of what we were talking about was just years of thinking about this kind of stuff. The actual process took about a year, and it was a year of trial and error — of writing things down, a lot of meetings, a lot of discussion whenever we had time to do it because we were all working full-time, so it was a lot of late nights ’til 12, 1 a.m. in the morning.
I think the hardest thing was keeping the whole thing a secret. It had to be a secret. We were young black professionals in the industry and here’s the thing — you start talking about stuff with different people outside of what you’re doing, and people come up with all kinds of reasons why you shouldn’t do it or why it’s a bad idea. “Nah, nah, man, that sucks, they’ll never let you do that.” We could have heard a lot of that while we were putting this together, but one of the things we did was swore each other to secrecy. We didn’t even speak about it if we were out in public, because we were that paranoid that either someone else would do it or that we would just hear stuff that was not going to help us. So, you create an atmosphere of relentless positivity that this is going to work because you’re not listening to anyone who says that it wouldn’t, who would stop you from doing what you’re doing. … So, when we gave it to Paul [Levitz, former President of DC Comics], it was as a total surprise. No one had any idea that any of us were working on anything like this. It was stunning to them – and completely blind naiveté by us that it would actually work.
Q: Were you surprised that Milestone resonated with so many fans?
A: We were very happy about it. In the middle of it, you don’t realize just how good it is. You’re just so busy working and trying to survive that you’re not even thinking of being particularly revolutionary. You’re just kind of doing it and getting through it. … We got all the responses that you might imagine because something like this hadn’t existed. The other thing I should emphasize is this: Milestone was not about black people. It was black people who founded it, but our main thrust was multiculturalism. It was not Black Power. Transgender people, gay people, women, minorities, with a focus on what we really knew — [multiculturalism] was our goal. That’s what Milestone was. So we got reactions not only from black people, but we got reactions from a whole spectrum of people who had been under-represented, or felt that they were.
Q: Is there something you’re most proud of that you accomplished at Milestone?
A: Probably I’m proudest of introducing this multicultural approach in comics where it had not existed before. That multicultural approach, I think, changed the face of comics. It would be awfully hard to create stereotypical black characters or a stereotypical anything because you’re kind of going backwards. It’s not a good look. A lot of things that have come out after Milestone trying to do what we did have failed, because it’s a particular blend of things, it’s a particular approach to things.
Q: The Milestone story is filled with many stranger-than-fiction movie moments and reconnections. Do you think Milestone could have been born without the initial relationship between you all, especially between you and Derek Dingle?
A: No. I think it would have been something totally different. There were other things that were formed by other people in different companies that came after us. But it was a particular combination of Derek and I, and Dwayne [McDuffie] and I, and Derek, Dwayne and Michael and I and Jim Owsley that made that possible. You take one person out of that group, it’s not the same, and it wouldn’t have happened. It happened precisely because those people were involved in the way that they were. I think it would have been something else and something totally different or created a character or two. But coming out with a force like that? No. With four books and 100 characters already? No.
Derek really did show up at my door. … And it was really like seeing a ghost. It was like, “What the hell?” He didn’t call, he didn’t say, “I’m on my way.” He just showed up in a way that people do not do anymore. People don’t show up and knock on your door and say, “Hey, how you doin’?” You’d be like, “What?”
Q: In the episode, you talk a lot about what you feel to be your own personal shortcomings in the legacy of Milestone. Would you change anything if you could go back?
A: Of course I would. I equated this in the film to being in a rock band… [and] how hard that is to keep four guys together, thinking the same way, doing the same things. The Rolling Stones are a miracle. They’re still together 55 years. The Beatles lasted 10 years… It’s hard keeping it together. My regret is that I couldn’t separate my own ego from the importance of the mission at that point, or the importance of what we were doing. And my regret is that I left the way I did, and it went down the way it did. I should have stayed and dealt with whatever problems there were head on, however painful they were, whatever form they took. Don’t ever leave, unless there’s no other way out. And it was not the best decision and [I have] a lot of regrets. Some regrets about the way we handled the situation with DC, even me personally, like I probably could have done more, I probably should have said something. Again, this comes back to the dynamics of the people. Once you take one person out of the equation, it changes the dynamic of everything. The Rolling Stones without Keith Richards is not the Rolling Stones… This is the same way. It’s not like I was Keith Richards, but when I left Milestone, the other three guys were kind of limping along. … If I was there, that would not have happened that way. Now it may have eventually killed me to stay, I don’t know, but continuing would have been a much better thing to do, to work it out and figure out a way to keep Milestone going.
Q: What kind of advice would you give your younger self?
A: If I could step back in time, I would counsel my young self the way I counsel my 26-year-old son now — which is [to have] patience. You’re in a hurry, you get everything done, but you learn so much by waiting, seeing how a situation will work out. Don’t react right away. Take your time, assess and then act. Don’t react emotionally to everything that happens, which is what you do when you’re younger. It’s all about your feelings. I would go back and tell my young self, “Don’t have any feelings!”
Q: The episode ends on a great high note that Milestone Media is coming back, and just recently, it was announced that five new Milestone books would come out in 2018. Can you talk more about what fans can expect about the future of Milestone?
A: I was there as part of the announcement… at New York Comic Con. We did a whole Milestone panel where [Robert] Kirkman came up and introduced the Milestone segment of his Secret History of Comicsand we talked about the new titles we were doing and showed the artwork and everything else and a reconstituted Milestone. So, yes, it’s back and it’s very exciting. It’s not the same as it was before. It’s not the same Milestone. Some of the same people are involved, me and Derek, but Dwayne isn’t around anymore and some of the other creative people have not participated as of yet. It’s different. It’s a band with new members. And we’re going to do some stuff that’s very exciting and very innovative and different and great, but it’s not 1992. It’s a different world. We’re all very excited and DC’s excited. Anytime people actually start paying money for something, they mean it. DC’s actually paying money to produce these books and get them done. We’re all really hyped about it.
Q: What are you most excited to bring to a new audience?
A: Even now, with all the comics there are now, there are some exceptions where some of the multicultural characters are written really well. But, for the most part, it’s still run by 55-year-old white guys who want to keep it exactly like it was. They’re jazzing up Superman. They’re jazzing up Batman. But they’re pretty comfortable and keeping it right where it is. That’s why you haven’t seen a whole lot of multicultural characters. That’s why the Black Panther’s such a big effing deal. To a big audience and especially to black people and people of color, it’s a huge deal because nothing much has changed. It’s not like they’ve had a whole lot of choices. It’s not like the Milestone stuff’s been continually in print or you have a Static Shock movie. So what I want to bring to that new audience is the same excitement that we brought to the other audience for the same reason — because not much has changed. The world still needs these characters. The world still needs to be told these stories from this perspective… The new stuff we have is really going to shake people up because it’s still outside of anything that’s being done now in comics. So people are going to be like, “Oh my God, I can’t believe these guys are actually doing this.”
Q: It seems like the comic book audience is hungry for this new material.
A: Yeah, they are. I think they’re hungry to see new characters. As great as the experiment was, and I think it was really cool, seeing old characters like Spider-Man, and even though Miles Morales is a great character, but it’s still Spider-Man, now he’s black. It’s still Captain America, but he’s the black Captain America. Or Superman, but he’s black Superman. That stuff is okay, but it’s not the real thing. Very good story, very good stuff, but it’s not really original characters with an original viewpoint. That’s still missing, and that’s what we’re going to bring back.
Read an interview with Jeffery Moulton, author of The Superhero Response: How 9/11 Changed Our Superheroes and Why It Matters.
Posted by Ashleen Wicklow
17 hours ago
Denys Cowan, comic artist and co-founder of Milestone Comics, discusses creating the creator-owned African-American comic imprint, what he would change from that time, and he teases new material for Milestone fans.
Q: In the episode, you talk about how you got the idea for Milestone, for creating these new black heroes, almost like a bolt of lightning. What was it like building this business from the ground up?
A: The whole “let’s create a comic book company that does these kinds of characters and we could do it independently” — that was a bolt of lightning. But the content of what we were talking about was just years of thinking about this kind of stuff. The actual process took about a year, and it was a year of trial and error — of writing things down, a lot of meetings, a lot of discussion whenever we had time to do it because we were all working full-time, so it was a lot of late nights ’til 12, 1 a.m. in the morning.
I think the hardest thing was keeping the whole thing a secret. It had to be a secret. We were young black professionals in the industry and here’s the thing — you start talking about stuff with different people outside of what you’re doing, and people come up with all kinds of reasons why you shouldn’t do it or why it’s a bad idea. “Nah, nah, man, that sucks, they’ll never let you do that.” We could have heard a lot of that while we were putting this together, but one of the things we did was swore each other to secrecy. We didn’t even speak about it if we were out in public, because we were that paranoid that either someone else would do it or that we would just hear stuff that was not going to help us. So, you create an atmosphere of relentless positivity that this is going to work because you’re not listening to anyone who says that it wouldn’t, who would stop you from doing what you’re doing. … So, when we gave it to Paul [Levitz, former President of DC Comics], it was as a total surprise. No one had any idea that any of us were working on anything like this. It was stunning to them – and completely blind naiveté by us that it would actually work.
Q: Were you surprised that Milestone resonated with so many fans?
A: We were very happy about it. In the middle of it, you don’t realize just how good it is. You’re just so busy working and trying to survive that you’re not even thinking of being particularly revolutionary. You’re just kind of doing it and getting through it. … We got all the responses that you might imagine because something like this hadn’t existed. The other thing I should emphasize is this: Milestone was not about black people. It was black people who founded it, but our main thrust was multiculturalism. It was not Black Power. Transgender people, gay people, women, minorities, with a focus on what we really knew — [multiculturalism] was our goal. That’s what Milestone was. So we got reactions not only from black people, but we got reactions from a whole spectrum of people who had been under-represented, or felt that they were.
Q: Is there something you’re most proud of that you accomplished at Milestone?
A: Probably I’m proudest of introducing this multicultural approach in comics where it had not existed before. That multicultural approach, I think, changed the face of comics. It would be awfully hard to create stereotypical black characters or a stereotypical anything because you’re kind of going backwards. It’s not a good look. A lot of things that have come out after Milestone trying to do what we did have failed, because it’s a particular blend of things, it’s a particular approach to things.
Q: The Milestone story is filled with many stranger-than-fiction movie moments and reconnections. Do you think Milestone could have been born without the initial relationship between you all, especially between you and Derek Dingle?
A: No. I think it would have been something totally different. There were other things that were formed by other people in different companies that came after us. But it was a particular combination of Derek and I, and Dwayne [McDuffie] and I, and Derek, Dwayne and Michael and I and Jim Owsley that made that possible. You take one person out of that group, it’s not the same, and it wouldn’t have happened. It happened precisely because those people were involved in the way that they were. I think it would have been something else and something totally different or created a character or two. But coming out with a force like that? No. With four books and 100 characters already? No.
Derek really did show up at my door. … And it was really like seeing a ghost. It was like, “What the hell?” He didn’t call, he didn’t say, “I’m on my way.” He just showed up in a way that people do not do anymore. People don’t show up and knock on your door and say, “Hey, how you doin’?” You’d be like, “What?”
Q: In the episode, you talk a lot about what you feel to be your own personal shortcomings in the legacy of Milestone. Would you change anything if you could go back?
A: Of course I would. I equated this in the film to being in a rock band… [and] how hard that is to keep four guys together, thinking the same way, doing the same things. The Rolling Stones are a miracle. They’re still together 55 years. The Beatles lasted 10 years… It’s hard keeping it together. My regret is that I couldn’t separate my own ego from the importance of the mission at that point, or the importance of what we were doing. And my regret is that I left the way I did, and it went down the way it did. I should have stayed and dealt with whatever problems there were head on, however painful they were, whatever form they took. Don’t ever leave, unless there’s no other way out. And it was not the best decision and [I have] a lot of regrets. Some regrets about the way we handled the situation with DC, even me personally, like I probably could have done more, I probably should have said something. Again, this comes back to the dynamics of the people. Once you take one person out of the equation, it changes the dynamic of everything. The Rolling Stones without Keith Richards is not the Rolling Stones… This is the same way. It’s not like I was Keith Richards, but when I left Milestone, the other three guys were kind of limping along. … If I was there, that would not have happened that way. Now it may have eventually killed me to stay, I don’t know, but continuing would have been a much better thing to do, to work it out and figure out a way to keep Milestone going.
Q: What kind of advice would you give your younger self?
A: If I could step back in time, I would counsel my young self the way I counsel my 26-year-old son now — which is [to have] patience. You’re in a hurry, you get everything done, but you learn so much by waiting, seeing how a situation will work out. Don’t react right away. Take your time, assess and then act. Don’t react emotionally to everything that happens, which is what you do when you’re younger. It’s all about your feelings. I would go back and tell my young self, “Don’t have any feelings!”
Q: The episode ends on a great high note that Milestone Media is coming back, and just recently, it was announced that five new Milestone books would come out in 2018. Can you talk more about what fans can expect about the future of Milestone?
A: I was there as part of the announcement… at New York Comic Con. We did a whole Milestone panel where [Robert] Kirkman came up and introduced the Milestone segment of his Secret History of Comicsand we talked about the new titles we were doing and showed the artwork and everything else and a reconstituted Milestone. So, yes, it’s back and it’s very exciting. It’s not the same as it was before. It’s not the same Milestone. Some of the same people are involved, me and Derek, but Dwayne isn’t around anymore and some of the other creative people have not participated as of yet. It’s different. It’s a band with new members. And we’re going to do some stuff that’s very exciting and very innovative and different and great, but it’s not 1992. It’s a different world. We’re all very excited and DC’s excited. Anytime people actually start paying money for something, they mean it. DC’s actually paying money to produce these books and get them done. We’re all really hyped about it.
Q: What are you most excited to bring to a new audience?
A: Even now, with all the comics there are now, there are some exceptions where some of the multicultural characters are written really well. But, for the most part, it’s still run by 55-year-old white guys who want to keep it exactly like it was. They’re jazzing up Superman. They’re jazzing up Batman. But they’re pretty comfortable and keeping it right where it is. That’s why you haven’t seen a whole lot of multicultural characters. That’s why the Black Panther’s such a big effing deal. To a big audience and especially to black people and people of color, it’s a huge deal because nothing much has changed. It’s not like they’ve had a whole lot of choices. It’s not like the Milestone stuff’s been continually in print or you have a Static Shock movie. So what I want to bring to that new audience is the same excitement that we brought to the other audience for the same reason — because not much has changed. The world still needs these characters. The world still needs to be told these stories from this perspective… The new stuff we have is really going to shake people up because it’s still outside of anything that’s being done now in comics. So people are going to be like, “Oh my God, I can’t believe these guys are actually doing this.”
Q: It seems like the comic book audience is hungry for this new material.
A: Yeah, they are. I think they’re hungry to see new characters. As great as the experiment was, and I think it was really cool, seeing old characters like Spider-Man, and even though Miles Morales is a great character, but it’s still Spider-Man, now he’s black. It’s still Captain America, but he’s the black Captain America. Or Superman, but he’s black Superman. That stuff is okay, but it’s not the real thing. Very good story, very good stuff, but it’s not really original characters with an original viewpoint. That’s still missing, and that’s what we’re going to bring back.
Read an interview with Jeffery Moulton, author of The Superhero Response: How 9/11 Changed Our Superheroes and Why It Matters.
Ha.....bruh was not playing with the bullshit
you NEED to see hat documentary...
I KNOW he is looking down proud as hell right now.
Milestone Returns With Static Shock, Earth M From DC Comics
10.05.2017by Stephen Gerdingin Comic NewsComment
The heroes (and villains) of Milestone are back, and they’re officially taking up residence on the DC Universe’s Earth M.
Announced today at New York Comic Con by Milestone Media and DC Comics, the latest addition to the DC Multiverse will be populated by faces both new and familiar. Reginald Hudlin and Milestone co-founder and artist Denys Cowan were joined by DC co-publisher Jim Lee to reveal the series and characters that will make up the relaunched Milestone Universe’s first line of titles when they debut in spring of 2018.
RELATED: NYCC: DC’s Milestone Panel Reveals Plans for Revived Imprint
Earth M’s existence will kick off in Milestone, an all-new series written by Reginald Hudlin with art by Ken Lashley. The title’s stories will be built around Icon and Rocket, two of the first Milestone characters to be introduced in the ’90s, though other heroes and villains will be featured as well, as Milestone actively sets the stage for future Earth M series to launch of off.
Milestone co-founder Derek Dingle and Earth M’s roster of talent, including Alice Randall, Kyle Baker, Ken Lashley and Greg Pak, were also present to discuss their plans, which include:
Milestone Media was founded in 1993 by Cowan, Dingle, Michael Davis and the late Dwayne McDuffie, with the goal of promoting diversity in the comics industry through both its characters and behind-the-scenes talent, along with an emphasis on social issues. Christopher Priest worked closely in the development of Milestone but left the company before its launch. In 2015, Hudlin, Cowan and Dingle announced the return of Milestone, under the unofficial moniker Milestone 2.0, months before the original plans for Earth-M were revealed.
Milestone’s comics debuted in the 1990s as part of a unique publishing partnership with DC — Milestone was a separate company, but its comics were published and distributed by DC, who shared the profits while Milestone retained creative control. Though the Milestone characters were originally depicted as existing in their own separate fictional universe, a 2008 revival saw them integrated into mainstream DC continuity. Now, the characters will once again be separate — but maybe not entirely.
10.05.2017by Stephen Gerdingin Comic NewsComment
The heroes (and villains) of Milestone are back, and they’re officially taking up residence on the DC Universe’s Earth M.
Announced today at New York Comic Con by Milestone Media and DC Comics, the latest addition to the DC Multiverse will be populated by faces both new and familiar. Reginald Hudlin and Milestone co-founder and artist Denys Cowan were joined by DC co-publisher Jim Lee to reveal the series and characters that will make up the relaunched Milestone Universe’s first line of titles when they debut in spring of 2018.
RELATED: NYCC: DC’s Milestone Panel Reveals Plans for Revived Imprint
Earth M’s existence will kick off in Milestone, an all-new series written by Reginald Hudlin with art by Ken Lashley. The title’s stories will be built around Icon and Rocket, two of the first Milestone characters to be introduced in the ’90s, though other heroes and villains will be featured as well, as Milestone actively sets the stage for future Earth M series to launch of off.
Milestone co-founder Derek Dingle and Earth M’s roster of talent, including Alice Randall, Kyle Baker, Ken Lashley and Greg Pak, were also present to discuss their plans, which include:
- STATIC SHOCK, an ongoing series from Hudlin and Kyle Baker, focusing on 14-year-old Virgil Hawkins, a kid with a love of comics and science who develops dazzling, electric superpowers.
- DUO, a new Earth M miniseries written by Greg Pak, introducing the twisted story of a couple sharing one body for eternity.
- LOVE ARMY, a miniseries with story by Hudlin, about a secret army of women with amazing abilities and super-strength, sworn to protect the planet.
- EARTH M, a new series from Hudlin and Alice Randall featuring a mysterious new vigilante character.
Milestone Media was founded in 1993 by Cowan, Dingle, Michael Davis and the late Dwayne McDuffie, with the goal of promoting diversity in the comics industry through both its characters and behind-the-scenes talent, along with an emphasis on social issues. Christopher Priest worked closely in the development of Milestone but left the company before its launch. In 2015, Hudlin, Cowan and Dingle announced the return of Milestone, under the unofficial moniker Milestone 2.0, months before the original plans for Earth-M were revealed.
Milestone’s comics debuted in the 1990s as part of a unique publishing partnership with DC — Milestone was a separate company, but its comics were published and distributed by DC, who shared the profits while Milestone retained creative control. Though the Milestone characters were originally depicted as existing in their own separate fictional universe, a 2008 revival saw them integrated into mainstream DC continuity. Now, the characters will once again be separate — but maybe not entirely.
NYCC: DC’s Milestone Panel Reveals Plans for Revived Imprint
10.05.2017by Albert Chingin Comic NewsComment
Art by Denys Cowan from the original 1993 Static series.
It’s been a long road for the Milestone revival. In January 2015, comic book writer and film director Reginald Hudlin and comic book artist and original Milestone co-founder Denys Cowan announced plans for “Milestone 2.0,” bringing back the comics imprint that made major gains for industry diversity both on the page and behind the scenes, and gave fans characters like Static Shock and Icon.
Since then, it’s been confirmed that DC Comics — the publishing partner of the original Milestone — would be involved with the new imprint, but other than that, there hasn’t been much news on when to expect the new Milestone or in what form. This past August, it was reported that the estate of late writer and original Milestone co-founder Dwayne McDuffie is suing Hudlin, Cowan and Milestone co-founder Derek Dingle for using Milestone intellectual property without the consent of McDuffie’s heirs. (The legal matter wasn’t mentioned during Thursday’s panel.)
RELATED: Hudlin & Cowan on “Milestone 2.0”: “We’re Not in the Nostalgia Business”
Details on the imprint’s publishing future were revealed on Thursday, at DC Comics’ Milestone panel Thursday afternoon at New York Comic Con. On the panel: Denys Cowan, Derek Dingle, Reginald Hudlin, Alice Randall, Greg Pak, Ken Lashley, Kyle Baker and Jim Lee, with Dan Evans, DC’s VP, Creative Affairs, serving as moderator.
Cowan shared that he wanted Hudlin to join the original incarnation of Milestone, but Hudlin was busy directing House Party. Hudlin briefly discussed his soon-to-be-released film Marshall, starring Chadwick Boseman as Thurgood Marshall. Randall, the writer of The Wind Done Gone, told the crowd she has known Hudlin since they were teenagers, and that she “likes weird genres and going into new things.” Pak said that Hudlin called him about two years ago to get involved with the new Milestone. “I’m, frankly, honored to be here,” Pak said. “This is an incredible group of people who have done legendary things.”
Lashley said he was approached five years ago to join the new iteration of Milestone. “This is a dream come true for any Black artist to be a part of this,” Lashley said. “I want to make sure that whatever I do here, I’ll represent everybody equally.” Lee said this is his 30th year in comic books, and that he’s known Hudlin since the writer/director was interested in developing Deathblow in the early days of Image Comics.
“When Derek approached Dennis and I about reforming Milestone, we sat down and talked about it,” Hudlin told the crowd, saying that they knew they couldn’t just repeat what came before. “For us just to repeat and rehash what had been done before was not that exciting to us, collectively.”
“The new universe is called Earth-M, inspired by Geoff Johns,” Cowan told the crowd of how the Milestone characters will fit into the DC Universe. An “Earth-M” logo was shown to the audience; we’ll share an image as soon as possible.
“We thought the Milestone characters work best pretty separate from the original DCU,” Hudlin said (in recent years, Milestone characters such as Static Shock have been a part of the DC Universe proper). “It’s called Earth-M also because not everything takes place in Dakota,” Cowan added.
The first book from the new Milestone will be Milestone #1, feautring Icon and Rocket. The comic is scheduled for release in spring 2018, with a story by Reginald Hudlin & Denys Cowan, with art by Ken Lashley.
“This is a reset, so no previous knowledge required,” Hudlin said. “Just pick this book up and go from there. At the same time, we will be reissuing the classic lines over time.” “It’ll be a story that Superman would never do,” Hudlin teased for Milestone #1.
Hudlin & Cowan will also team for a new Static Shock series, illustrated by Kyle Baker. “The book’s really awesome,” Hudlin said. “I’ve written about 140 pages of it already. We’re way down the road.” Hudlin introduced a slide of a new character in the book, a blonde female caped character named Amber. Hudlin said he didn’t want to say too much about the character yet, other than, “Usually in a Black neighborhood, there’s a white family who can’t afford to move out.”
Hudlin added that the only thing else he wanted to say about Static Shock at this time was, “I’m from St. Louis. You know what’s in St. Louis? Ferguson.”
Pak discussed his new Milestone series, Duo, written by Pak with a story by Hudlin & Cowan. It’s inspired by the original Milestone series Xombi, but with a twist that sees a couple share an immortal body.
“It was this crazy mix of science and supernatural,” Pak said of the original Xombi. “We want to carry through on that vibe. It’s going to be a ton of fun.”
Lee said that Duo starts as a “very sweet, romantic story” and then morphs into “something more horrific.”
Also on the way: Love Army, a miniseries written by Hudlin with art by Ryan Benjamin and starring a new team of characters — a secret army of super-strong women. Earth M is written by Hudlin and Alice Randall, and illustrated by Cowan and Bill Sienkiewicz. Hudlin said the series is about a “really bold new” vigilante character, and as they’re making the book, they’re finding out “how far” DC is willing to push boundaries with its content.
“We’re very proud of this set of characters and books, but wait until you see what the second wave will be,” Hudlin said.
Joining the panel after the lineup announcement: Robert Kirkman. The Walking Dead creator discussed his upcoming AMC documentary series, Heroes and Villains: The History of Comic Books, which will include an episode titled “The Color of Comics” — focusing on the historical lack of diversity in the comics industry, and Milestone’s role in that starting to turn around.
Kirkman cued up a lengthy clip from the episode, which included interviews with Denys Cowan, Paul Levitz, Jenette Kahn, Arvell Jones, Milestone co-founder Michael Davis, Christopher Priest and archival interview footage of the late Dwayne McDuffie.
“My only inclination was to create comics that were more contemporary,” McDuffie said in the interview clip. “He was a brilliant writer,” Priest said of McDuffie. “Not just a brilliant writer, but a brilliant person.”
In the clip, Cowan discussed pitching Milestone to Davis, and said that he had always wanted to see superheroes that looked like themselves, and “The only way we will see it is to do it.” Davis’ initial reaction was to tell him he was crazy.
After the clip, Hudlin — prompted by the appearance of Priest in the documentary preview — said, “Of course Christopher Priest will be working on us in the Milestone books.
Cowan closed the panel by saying it’s no secret that times are tough currently, and it’s a, “Time for heroes. And we intend to show as many of them as we possibly can.”
10.05.2017by Albert Chingin Comic NewsComment
Art by Denys Cowan from the original 1993 Static series.
It’s been a long road for the Milestone revival. In January 2015, comic book writer and film director Reginald Hudlin and comic book artist and original Milestone co-founder Denys Cowan announced plans for “Milestone 2.0,” bringing back the comics imprint that made major gains for industry diversity both on the page and behind the scenes, and gave fans characters like Static Shock and Icon.
Since then, it’s been confirmed that DC Comics — the publishing partner of the original Milestone — would be involved with the new imprint, but other than that, there hasn’t been much news on when to expect the new Milestone or in what form. This past August, it was reported that the estate of late writer and original Milestone co-founder Dwayne McDuffie is suing Hudlin, Cowan and Milestone co-founder Derek Dingle for using Milestone intellectual property without the consent of McDuffie’s heirs. (The legal matter wasn’t mentioned during Thursday’s panel.)
RELATED: Hudlin & Cowan on “Milestone 2.0”: “We’re Not in the Nostalgia Business”
Details on the imprint’s publishing future were revealed on Thursday, at DC Comics’ Milestone panel Thursday afternoon at New York Comic Con. On the panel: Denys Cowan, Derek Dingle, Reginald Hudlin, Alice Randall, Greg Pak, Ken Lashley, Kyle Baker and Jim Lee, with Dan Evans, DC’s VP, Creative Affairs, serving as moderator.
Cowan shared that he wanted Hudlin to join the original incarnation of Milestone, but Hudlin was busy directing House Party. Hudlin briefly discussed his soon-to-be-released film Marshall, starring Chadwick Boseman as Thurgood Marshall. Randall, the writer of The Wind Done Gone, told the crowd she has known Hudlin since they were teenagers, and that she “likes weird genres and going into new things.” Pak said that Hudlin called him about two years ago to get involved with the new Milestone. “I’m, frankly, honored to be here,” Pak said. “This is an incredible group of people who have done legendary things.”
Lashley said he was approached five years ago to join the new iteration of Milestone. “This is a dream come true for any Black artist to be a part of this,” Lashley said. “I want to make sure that whatever I do here, I’ll represent everybody equally.” Lee said this is his 30th year in comic books, and that he’s known Hudlin since the writer/director was interested in developing Deathblow in the early days of Image Comics.
“When Derek approached Dennis and I about reforming Milestone, we sat down and talked about it,” Hudlin told the crowd, saying that they knew they couldn’t just repeat what came before. “For us just to repeat and rehash what had been done before was not that exciting to us, collectively.”
“The new universe is called Earth-M, inspired by Geoff Johns,” Cowan told the crowd of how the Milestone characters will fit into the DC Universe. An “Earth-M” logo was shown to the audience; we’ll share an image as soon as possible.
“We thought the Milestone characters work best pretty separate from the original DCU,” Hudlin said (in recent years, Milestone characters such as Static Shock have been a part of the DC Universe proper). “It’s called Earth-M also because not everything takes place in Dakota,” Cowan added.
The first book from the new Milestone will be Milestone #1, feautring Icon and Rocket. The comic is scheduled for release in spring 2018, with a story by Reginald Hudlin & Denys Cowan, with art by Ken Lashley.
“This is a reset, so no previous knowledge required,” Hudlin said. “Just pick this book up and go from there. At the same time, we will be reissuing the classic lines over time.” “It’ll be a story that Superman would never do,” Hudlin teased for Milestone #1.
Hudlin & Cowan will also team for a new Static Shock series, illustrated by Kyle Baker. “The book’s really awesome,” Hudlin said. “I’ve written about 140 pages of it already. We’re way down the road.” Hudlin introduced a slide of a new character in the book, a blonde female caped character named Amber. Hudlin said he didn’t want to say too much about the character yet, other than, “Usually in a Black neighborhood, there’s a white family who can’t afford to move out.”
Hudlin added that the only thing else he wanted to say about Static Shock at this time was, “I’m from St. Louis. You know what’s in St. Louis? Ferguson.”
Pak discussed his new Milestone series, Duo, written by Pak with a story by Hudlin & Cowan. It’s inspired by the original Milestone series Xombi, but with a twist that sees a couple share an immortal body.
“It was this crazy mix of science and supernatural,” Pak said of the original Xombi. “We want to carry through on that vibe. It’s going to be a ton of fun.”
Lee said that Duo starts as a “very sweet, romantic story” and then morphs into “something more horrific.”
Also on the way: Love Army, a miniseries written by Hudlin with art by Ryan Benjamin and starring a new team of characters — a secret army of super-strong women. Earth M is written by Hudlin and Alice Randall, and illustrated by Cowan and Bill Sienkiewicz. Hudlin said the series is about a “really bold new” vigilante character, and as they’re making the book, they’re finding out “how far” DC is willing to push boundaries with its content.
“We’re very proud of this set of characters and books, but wait until you see what the second wave will be,” Hudlin said.
Joining the panel after the lineup announcement: Robert Kirkman. The Walking Dead creator discussed his upcoming AMC documentary series, Heroes and Villains: The History of Comic Books, which will include an episode titled “The Color of Comics” — focusing on the historical lack of diversity in the comics industry, and Milestone’s role in that starting to turn around.
Kirkman cued up a lengthy clip from the episode, which included interviews with Denys Cowan, Paul Levitz, Jenette Kahn, Arvell Jones, Milestone co-founder Michael Davis, Christopher Priest and archival interview footage of the late Dwayne McDuffie.
“My only inclination was to create comics that were more contemporary,” McDuffie said in the interview clip. “He was a brilliant writer,” Priest said of McDuffie. “Not just a brilliant writer, but a brilliant person.”
In the clip, Cowan discussed pitching Milestone to Davis, and said that he had always wanted to see superheroes that looked like themselves, and “The only way we will see it is to do it.” Davis’ initial reaction was to tell him he was crazy.
After the clip, Hudlin — prompted by the appearance of Priest in the documentary preview — said, “Of course Christopher Priest will be working on us in the Milestone books.
Cowan closed the panel by saying it’s no secret that times are tough currently, and it’s a, “Time for heroes. And we intend to show as many of them as we possibly can.”
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