Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, dc, john rozum, milestone, static shock, xombi

John Rozum Talks Milestone, Static, The New 52 And Xombi (UPDATE)

Published Fri, 13 Sep 2013 15:00:43 -0500

Last updated Sat, 14 Sep 2013 03:29:18 -0500

Michael Davis, co-founder of Milestone has added a statement to the original article below. He writes;

I take a scorched earth approach to any misinformation about Milestone the company, universe, characters or creators and HISTORY. John's a smart guy he starts with. 'I don't know for sure' rather or not what says turns out to be true or not he gets a pass. John speaks from a place of love,love for Milestone and what he help build. He's not just putting out random shit that's floating in the air at DC or Milestone that's not who he is. Everything he says is a well written informed assumption but that's all it is.

As much as I love John and his work he is not the guy to ask-what's going on with Milestone? He's a part of the Milestone family and can certainly speak to his Milestone projects but unless Derek Dingle signs off on a statement regarding Milestone it's all just speculation.

Original article:

John Rozum answers the question... what's going on with Milestone, the publishing company/imprint that used to have a line through DC Comics, got further into bed with DC, then saw promises and expectations dashed – with Static Shock in the New 52 encountering all manner of problems before cancellation?

I don't know for certain, but I'm guessing, and hoping, that DC has let the publishing rights lapse back to Milestone. I'll see if I can find out for sure. I don't know that any of this was a factor with Young Justice. They could have just stopped using the characters. I suspect it's simply that CN is really only behind their own shows which is why Gumball, Adventure Time, Regular Show, and others seem to be on 24 hours a day.

When I was allegedly writing Static Shock, it was made very clear to me that just because I had hardware in the comic didn't mean I was going to be allowed to start bringing in all the other Milestone characters, which is something I very much wanted to do. I don't think DC was ever really interested in the Milestone characters beyond Static. Sales aside, they cancelled Xombi before the first issue was available for ordering.

Citing legal issues means they are passing the buck. They are pretending that there's nothing they'd rather do than include Static in a team book, but Milestone is being difficult. If DC really wanted to make Static, or any of the other Milestone characters part of any team, they had plenty of time to do that before the license to publish these characters ran out.

What I hope will happen is that Milestone will license the characters out to a different publisher, one that not only actually wants to use the characters, but actually adores and respects them. Then maybe people will see the Static Shock series that should have been part of the New 52. DC has never really been supportive of Milestone, even when Milestone was publishing regularly.

I'm sorry not to be able to give you a better, or more positive response, as you say, anyone in the know at DC isn't going to tell me anything, and the people who now are in charge of the Milestone property have their own full time jobs to concern them. I'll try and find out something though, because I would certainly like to write some of those characters again, even if it's somewhere else.

As to writing Xombi again, he stated;

If other publishers could pick up the Milestone license, that does in fact mean that I could do Xombi elsewhere. Would I be interested? Absolutely. I'd love to possibly finish the story I started way back when, and last time we discussed it, Frazer [Irving] wanted to go forward on it as well. I can think of at least one publisher that would jump on this if it was a possibility.

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