We sat on this post longer than any of our previous obit posts. It’s as if by not posting Dwayne McDuffie’s death we’d somehow keep it from being true. That was a silly thought and a mistake. All we’ve done is think about it in the weeks since.
McDuffie is the man responsible for igniting a new found love of the DCU. His stories on the animated series JUSTICE LEAGUE and JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED mixed Marvel’s soul and attention to real world mechanics with DC’s sentiment and inherent iconic nature.
McDuffie was about creating characters. The color of a person’s skin is a part of their life but it is not the end all and be all of said person. That’s the feeling we got from all of McDuffie’s characters.
McDuffie was a talented storyteller, well loved amongst his fans and peers and uncompromising. That is an almost impossible mix. In Dwayne McDuffie it became possible.
We shared a small correspondence with McDuffie many years ago. It’s doubtful he would have remembered it. Even then, years ago, he was a pretty big deal in comics. The fact that he took the time to respond to a “nobody” from Alabama spoke volumes to us about his character and made us realize one doesn’t have to give up being a nice guy to do well in writing.
Below is all the remembrance links we ran across in February.
Below the cut are a few choice moments that highlight his career in our eyes.
- Official Site: Dwayne McDuffie
- Wikipedia: Dwayne McDuffie
- Newsarama: Dwayne McDuffie, DC Comics & Animation Writer Dead
- iFanboy: Writer Dwayne McDuffie Has Died
- Beaucoup Kevin: On Dwayne McDuffie
- i09: R.I.P. Dwayne McDuffie, the man who helped save superheroes from irrelevance
- Comics Alliance: Missing Dwayne McDuffie
- CBR: Milestone Creator Dwayne McDuffie has Died
- Comixology: Some digital comics written by McDuffie
- Word Balloon January 2007 Interview: Dwayne McDuffie, Justified
- The Beat: RIP: Dwayne McDuffie
- The Beat: Why we needed Dwayne McDuffie
- Bleeding Cool: Dwayne McDuffie And The Parakeet
The Memo: Teenage Ninja Negro Thrashers
McDuffie went on to work as an editor at Marvel until going freelance in 1990. During that time he wrote the memo reproduced above and posted all over the place yesterday. As well it should be. Comics isn’t an industry that handles racial issues very well, and it certainly wasn’t doing it in 1989, when the memo was written. And in the memo is everything that made McDuffie great — instead of getting angry or accusing, he calmly and humorously showed up well-meaning silliness for what it was. Silliness. Someone HAD to say these things. Someone still does.
Dwayne McDuffie on the realities of the Black writer in the comic book industry
The Parakeet
Posted below are bookends to McDuffie’s metaphor regarding a caged parakeet. For the full commentary defining the context of these pages visit Bleeding Cool.
Hardware #1
Milestone Forever
“Hereafter”
Here is a JUSTICE LEAGUE two part episode wherein Superman is killed. We learn the Batman does not handle loss very well and that 10,000 years alone can redeem even the most determined villain.
