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Posts tagged as “icon”

African-American Comics Company Milestone Media Reteams with DC to Revive Its Black Superheroes

By goodblacknews on November 10, 2015

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s… Icon!comic movies7

Or is it Hardware rocketing through the skies, or Static Shock surfing on his big, floating garbage lid?

These three Black superheroes soon will return to a comic book store near you. If all goes well, cartoons, television appearances, movies and toys will follow.

That is the message that Milestone Media and DC Comics has been leaking out, by dribs and drabs, all year long.

hardware-comicIndustry professionals Denys Cowan, Derek Dingle, Dwayne McDuffie and Michael Davis planned Milestone in the early 1990s as an independent, African American-owned and controlled comic book. It launched instead as an imprint of one of the “big two” publishers, with a special arrangement between Milestone and DC. It was hailed as a pioneering event in the comic book world.

Milestone would have total creative control over its comics, retain the copyright to all of its characters and have the final say on merchandising and licensing deals, according to the deal. Marvel and DC, the Coke and Pepsi of the comics industry, had dabbled in creator-owned projects before. But a deal of that size and scope was unprecedented.

The arrangement was “very unique in that it allowed Milestone access to a complete system of distribution and promotion while still maintaining a great deal of independent control over the content of the books,” Jeffrey A. Brown, Bowling Green University professor and author of BlackSuperheroes, Milestone Comics, and Their Fans, said to Urban News Service.

maxresdefaultThe agreement “proved beneficial to both DC and Milestone,” Brown said. It “facilitated the Static Shock animated series,” which ran for 52 epi
sodes on the WB Network from 2000 to 2004. It also “kept the characters alive with occasional appearances in the DC Universe after Milestone closed down.”

Milestone’s comic book line launched in 1993 and went on hiatus in 1997 after giving readers hundreds of individual issues. Why did it shut down? “The various titles published by Milestone had a very dedicated fan following but the glut of new publishers over-saturated the market,” Brown said.

Despite rapid expansion, the American public’s interest in comics waned in the late 90’s, partly due to fascination with the still relatively new internet. Dozens of comic book companies and thousands of comic-specialty retailers went bust.

Now, thanks to television, social media and stronger story lines, comics are in another growth phase. The number of shops has risen and other distribution channels have emerged and improved. You can buy individual issues at comic book stores, digital comics for your tablet — via Amazon or ComiXology — and graphic novels are now seen as a legitimate genre of literature.

Redskins 22-Year-Old Quarterback Robert Griffin a Team Leader and Icon

By goodblacknews on November 4, 2012
Robert Griffin III has become an icon in the NFL, setting the tone for the season as the star quarterback of the Washington Redskins.

Poised on the field, charming in public, and an admirable style of leadership all mark the presence of Robert Griffin, but his impact also touches down in a special place in African American history. At the tender young age of 22, the Washington Redskins quarterback has become a locker room leader, naturally. He’s quickly becoming an icon, becoming the chosen one – for everyone, as one Washington Post writer, Dave Sheinin, puts it.

“I think he can be that guy,” Redskins veteran linebacker London Fletcher said of the superstar. “He’s what this franchise and this community have been looking for, for over 20 years — a superstar quarterback. But he’s more than that. He has the persona, the charisma, the talent. There’s another dimension he brings.

“He’s someone who can relate to anyone,” Fletcher goes on to say. “You see everyone’s falling in love with him. But for African Americans, it’s an even different connection. In a lot of cities it might not mean as much. But this is Washington, D.C. It means a lot.”

“My parents raised me to not ever look at race or color,” Griffin said recently, “so it doesn’t have a big part in my self-identity. [But] I think it has played a big part in how other people view me, just going back to when I was a kid, to even now, doing the things that I’ve been able to do. As an African American, I think other people view that in a different way than I do.”

article by Brittney M. Walker via eurweb.com