The Status of Milestone

Milestone Comics logo

From Dwayne McDuffie, in case you were wondering about the status of Milestone (link no longer available):

Milestone Media is still in business but not currently publishing comic books. Milestone Media owns Static as well as all of the other characters originally appearing in Milestone’s “Dakota Universe” comics. Milestone also owns all copyrights to those stories and characters, as clearly indicated in the indicia in every issue, with the exception of the TV stories created for the Static Shock TV show, which are owned by Warner Feature Animation (in much the same way that Sony Pictures owns the copyright to the Spider-Man movies, even though Marvel Characters owns the copyright to Spider-Man generally).

Milestone Media is wholly owned by myself and Derek Dingle (currently Executive Editor of Black Enterprise Magazine). DC Comics does not now own, nor has it ever owned, any portion of Milestone. Neither does Warner Bros. or any other corporate entity. This has always been the case. The only former shareholders in Milestone are Denys Cowan, now VP of Animation at BET, and Michael Davis, creator of the upcoming “Guardian” line of religious comics. Both of them sold their stock back to the company in order to do other, competing projects.

Milestone has so far produced over 250 comic books, a body of work I believe to be unmatched by any other black-owned comic book company (although if Fred Perry owns the company he publishes through, he might well have published more).

Milestone was the first, or among the first, to hire dozens of artists, writers, and business side people, most of whom have gone on to successful careers, both in comics and in other fields.

Milestone has been nominated and/or won awards for comics, children’s publishing, education, and community service.

Milestone is a small, independent company, owned by two black men and no one else. Milestone owns Static. Anyone who tells you differently simply doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Here’s hoping that Milestone does return to publishing comics, because I really miss some of their characters and titles.



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