Literature / Film & TV
Dwayne McDuffie
1962–2011 · comics writer, television writer and producer
Detroit-born co-founder of Milestone Media and creator of Static, who brought Black superheroes into the mainstream in comics and on TV's Static Shock and Justice League Unlimited.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
Burbank, California
aged 49- Birth name
- Dwayne Glenn McDuffie
- Detroit years
- 1962–1980s
- Field
- Literature, Film & TV
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
McDuffie was born and raised in Detroit and graduated in 1980 from the Roeper School, a school for gifted children in Bloomfield Hills. At the University of Michigan he earned a bachelor's degree in English and a master's in physics before moving to New York, where he worked at Marvel Comics. Frustrated by the lack and stereotyping of Black characters, in 1993 he co-founded Milestone Media, a minority-owned publisher whose heroes, Icon, Rocket, Hardware and above all the teenage Static, were set in the fictional city of Dakota. Static became the animated series Static Shock, and McDuffie went on to write and produce Justice League Unlimited and Ben 10. He died in 2011, a day after his 49th birthday. The Ann Arbor Comic Arts Festival presents the Dwayne McDuffie Award for Kids' Comics in his honor.
Highlights
- Co-founded Milestone Media (1993)
- Created or co-created Static, Icon, Rocket and Hardware
- Writer-producer of Static Shock and Justice League Unlimited
- Graduate of the Roeper School (1980) and the University of Michigan
- Dwayne McDuffie Award for Kids' Comics named for him