by Jamie Coville Comic and animation writer Dwayne McDuffie passed away on February 21st, 2011. His birthday was the 20th, he had just turned 49. He died of complications after heart surgery. Dwayne is known for a number of works. Many people were first introduced to his writing with Damage Control, a much beloved Marvel mini series or series of mini series due to the title's popularity. Other titles by him I enjoyed were Deathlok and a couple of Captain Marvel (Monica) one shots. He would do other work, most of it at Marvel until co-founding Milestone Comics. The comics market crashed in the mid 90s taking Milestone with it. Dwayne would pop up on my radar again through his work in animation. Particularly with the Justice League cartoon and Static Shock. While I never really knew Dwayne in the flesh, I did follow him on message boards and it always seemed to bother him that he could never get any licensing for Static Shock despite it being among the highest rated cartoons on at the time. I suspect he had a lot to say on that subject, but said very little about it online. It's a shame we won't hear his stories and some of the real reasons. I suspect part of it was due to racism, another part was due to politics of his owning Static Shock. He was working in both fields during the past few years, writing Fantastic Four, Beyond and JLA for comics and he was also working on the extremely popular Ben 10 cartoon and did the adaptation of the All Star Superman animated movie that was just released. Speaking as a fan, Dwayne's death has hit me a little harder than most. We traded e-mails about the interviews I had done in regards to the creation of Lobo, the first black character with their own ongoing title. Dwayne really liked the Lobo comics and wanted to know more about the character's creation. Dwayne was also writing columns for various comic book websites and jokingly talked about his curse, as any website he wrote columns for would soon shut down. I actually told him we'd be happy to have him write for CollectorTimes and unlike those other sites, this one wasn't going away anytime soon. Dwayne politely declined. I also recall Dwayne talking about how nobody ever covered the Black Panel at San Diego, so when I finally made it to San Diego I made sure to cover it just so that somebody would. During a previous version of his message board Dwayne held a contest in regards to re-designing his webpage. I had entered it with a quick re-work and won by default as I was the only person to actually enter. I told Dwayne he did not need to send me the prize, but he insisted and I got the 2nd Season of Justice League Unlimited. I assumed as head editor/writer of the show I'd be getting one of his comp copies but surprisingly he actually bought one from Amazon and had it mailed to me. I'm really happy to have this as I think it's the greatest season of superhero cartooning ever done. I did meet Dwayne in person once, during San Diego 2009. I covered his Q&A panel with his fans. He was awarded an Inkpot Award just prior to it and was stunned that he had gotten one. I didn't really get a chance to talk to him other than to chase him down and make sure I got his permission to put the panel online. And I do mean chase, after the panel he got swarmed with people all wanting to talk to him for various reasons. Dwayne had to leave immediately for a meeting of some sort and myself and a lot of other people followed him towards whatever that meeting was. I pretty much jogged for 5 minutes trying to keep up with him (Dwayne was very tall and was walking quickly) waiting patiently while other people got done with him. I asked him about the panel and he was fine with it going online as he felt he didn't own it. I was actually a bit surprised to hear him talk in person as Dwayne was known for having strong opinions, but in person I found him to be soft spoken and careful about what he said. It's so disappointing that Dwayne died so early. He was a nice, intelligent man who was offering a lot and still had much more to give. He was also more than nice with his fans, often putting up with unfair (and sometimes racially tinged) criticism without reacting badly in return. Based on what I've seen of him online and in person, I've no doubt he was a kind person and well liked by his friends. I had always hoped to see him again and talk to him more. I give my condolences to his wife and his friends.

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