by Joe Koch
Dateline February 26, 2011: DWAYNE McDUFFIE, comic book writer, passed away last Monday from complications of emergency heart surgery. He was just 49 years old. He joined Marvel back in the 1980’s. Read DAMAGE CONTROL (all 3 series), check his credits throughout the decade and it will be obvious how he was able to sell DC on Milestone Media. Milestone’s mandate was to create comics which featured minority superheroes. McDuffie honored, expanded and transcended the mandate. He created STATIC – one of the indisputably great comic titles/ characters of the 90s. For thirty years, comics had been trying to create another Peter Parker. McDuffie’s Virgil Hawkins showed that this required a writer with imagination and a commitment to character not an imitator with a cliche and a formula.
There is more. Great cartoons, more comics. We hope to follow up.
-Joe
