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Yesterday, G. Willow Wilson won the Second Annual Dwayne McDuffie Awards for Diversity in Comics for her work with artist Adrian Alphona on Ms. Marvel.  The ceremony was held at Long Beach Comic Expo and began with a speech by Khary Payton (Teen Titans), host of the awards and long time collaborator with the late Dwayne McDuffie (Static Shock).  He recounted […]

Although it’s in Playboy, it’s SFW and a must read: former Milestone managing editor Matt Wayne on his friend, the late great Dwayne McDuffie:

“I’m 22 and I haven’t done anything with my life!”

That was my friend Dwayne, speaking to me in his dorm room in February 1984. Nine years after he got his name in the papers by attending the University of Michigan at age 13 (but only for a year — turns out, even genius kids need to be around their peers). Seven years after the Detroit News named him one of its All State high-school basketball players. A year after a crisis of conscience turned him away from his undergraduate research into the properties of thermocouples — he learned his work had been applied to missile guidance systems — which started his writing career in earnest. And three years before he became the first African-American to create a Marvel comic.

 
There was only one Dwayne, but his memory lives on with the Dwayne McDuffie Award being presented this weekend at the Lonb Beach Comics Expo. I’m extremely proud to have been associated with this first award, and thrilled with the final list of nominees. We have a long way to go to live in the world that Dwayne may have dreamed of, but that doesn’t mean we should give up.

Today is the next to last day of Black History Month. I don’t always mark it with content here at the Beat because I think there should be 12 months a year of black history and women’s history and queer history and Asian history and every kind of history. Confining any minority to their own month is ultimately counter productive. I don’t always succeed but at the Beat I try to create an atmosphere that invites diversity….and NOT just women writing about women or writers of color writing about those issues. I think that’s confining too.

That said, there were some good BHM pieces, and here’s one: Reggie Hudlin, Jamar Nicholass Jerry Craft and Brandon Thomas talking about comics with Danica Davidson. More to come.

While diversity in comics has made strides in the Big Two in the past couple of years, Denys Cowan still wants to see a greater shift in comics:

“We’ve never just done black characters just to do black characters,” Cowan said. “It’s always come from a specific point of view, which is what made our books work. What we also didn’t do, which is the trend now, is [to] have characters that are, not blackface, but they’re the black versions of the already established white characters — as if it gives legitimacy to these black characters in some kind of way — [that] these characters are legitimate because now there’s a black Captain America.”

That’s why Cowan is one of the men instrumental in bringing back a new incarnation of Milestone Media. Milestone Media 2.0 co-founders Reginald Hudlin, Denys Cowan, and Derek Dingle are at the helm once again for a new version of the Milestone publishing imprint. The Washington Post broke the news, and made mention of the late Dwayne McDuffie’s influence on the Milestone line.

The original Milestone company debuted in 1997 under McDuffie and the rest of the co-founders. Returning to the imprint are characters new and old. Milestone also created Static Shock, a hero that has a live-action deal with Warner Bros.. If all goes as planned, it was noted that we can expect more news at the upcoming 2015 San Diego Comic-Con as Milestone spreads towards multiple publishers and media companies. Deals making the new imprint possible have been in development for two years.

Graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang appeared at the Library of Congress’ 14th annual National Book Festival. During his time in Washington D.C., Yang delivered a presentation called “Asian-Americans in Comics” and gave a speech at the gala.

With his gala talk, Yang focused on the literary community’s ongoing conversation about diversity. Yang shared stories about Dwayne McDuffie, an African-American legend in comics, and encouraged all writers to add to the world’s collection of diversity literature.

The Nerds of Color blog has posted the entirety of Yang’s speech. Here’s an excerpt from the moving piece:

“We have to allow ourselves the freedom to make mistakes, including cultural mistakes, in our first drafts. I believe it’s okay to get cultural details wrong in your first draft. It’s okay if stereotypes emerge. It just means that your experience is limited, that you’re human.”

Yang advised that as long as authors do their homework and make sure to address all errors in the final draft, it’s okay to write about a culture outside of your own. He emphasized that fear should be viewed as motivation to work hard and not a blockade. What do you think?

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.