Apparently there has been some confusion from DC. Let’s try and break this down as simple as possible:
First, DC delayed the new Static series to instead put out a Static Shock Special, described as, “A special one-shot paying homage to Dwayne McDuffie and the world of Milestone Media, with tribute material from Milestone co-founder Denys Cowan and other Milestone alumni.”
Then comic artist Tommy Lee Edwards tweeted, “DC is planning a Dwayne McDuffie ‘tribute’ book, but has no plans to donate profits to the poor guy’s surviving family or any charity,” elaborating at CBR that he had been asked by DC to participate but he and one other Milestone alumni had declined because they weren’t comfortable with this being a “for profit” endeavor on DC’s behalf.
Finally, DC released the following statement at several news sites, elaborating on the issue:
Before Dwayne McDuffie’s tragic death, an editorial decision was made to reschedule the planned, ongoing STATIC SHOCK series for later this year.
When we heard of Dwayne’s unexpected passing, we decided it was appropriate to have an oversized STATIC SHOCK comic book this spring, with the ongoing series still starting later this year as planned.
This June, Felicia Henderson, Denys Cowan, Prentis Rollings, Eric Battle, John Rozum, Matt Wayne, John Paul Leon and others will contribute to a STATIC SHOCK Special, with a cover by JH Williams III.
This Special is our way of acknowledging the industry’s loss. It is not a tribute comic intended to raise proceeds for charity.
We regret if there was any confusion regarding our intentions caused by the solicitation of this project.
Which is essentially just a pitch for the upcoming book, and doesn’t seem to really be paying much tribute to McDuffie or his family – which is sad, but I suppose that’s the nature of the beast to some extent. Either way, I think we can all agree that this probably could have been handled a tad better.
