Out Next Week

The Milestone Compendium Four, a nearly 1300 page collection of material published by Milestone Media in the 1990s, and roughly a third of that was written by me, including the second half of my original run of Xombi (the first half is contained in Milestone Compendium One) as well as the remaining issues of Kobalt, and the arc of Hardware that I did with Eric Battle. With the exception of a couple more issues of material, this Compendium concludes the work I did for Milestone back during its original incarnation. This volume hits stores on June 17, 2025. 

Here's some additional information pulled from Amazon: 

Static, Hardware, Blood Syndicate, and more. Read the original stories of the characters that became Milestone icons in this massive compendium.

The iconic Milestone line that helped define the 90’s are now collected in a beautiful compendium. These brilliant and daring writers and artists brought their own experiences into comics that changed the game forever. Milestone ushered in a culturally diverse mix of superheroes, set in the fictional setting of Dakota, and ushered in the comics that inspired the hit TV series Static Shock. Read the original stories from the Milestone Universe today.

Collects: Blood Syndicate #28-32; Hardware #29-38; Icon #28-37; Static #26-31; Xombi #12-21; Shadow Cabinet #14-17; My Name is Holocaust #1-5; The Long, Hot Summer #1-3.

Milestone Compendium Volume Four

 

The Milestone Compendium Volume Four will be released on June 17, 2025, rather than in February as the previous volumes had been. This issue contains the remaining ten issues of Xombi that I wrote,  with art by J.J. Birch and color by Noelle Giddings and lettering by Agnes Pinaha. It also includes my short run of Hardware with art by Eric Battle and Angel Gabriele, color by Julia Laquement, and lettering by Steve Dutro. 

You can preorder it through your local comic book retailer or independent bookstore.

There's also a link below*: 

https://www.amazon.com/Milestone-Compendium-Four-Dwayne-McDuffie/dp/1799500268

*A portion of sales via this link will go back to me. 

The Milestone Compendium - Volume 3 Now Available

The third huge volume collecting all of the Milestone Media comics from the 1990s is now available. Among the varied chronological contents are issues 1-14 of Kobalt,a series I created and wrote, with art by Arvell Jones, Eric Battle, Jamal Igle,and others. You can order the Milestone Compendium Book 3 through Amazon, and a percentage of that sale will come back to me, by clicking here: Milestone Compendium Book 3 .

Milestone Compendium Book 1 which contains Xombi 0-11, also written by me and drawn by Denys Cowan and J..J. Birch is also available here: 

Milestone Compendium Book 1

From the Archives 17

I haven't done one of these in nine years, so I figured it may be time for another run. Having recently moved, hads given me reason to tuck into some boxes that have been stored away and inaccessible. I came across this house ad for the original run of Xombi from Milestone Media that ran in the other titles back in 1994.

Bloody Disgusting Names Xombi In Their Must Read List

The horror media culture site Bloody Disgusting has included Xombi on their binge-worthy reading list of dark titles published by DC Comics. You can see what other titles are on the list, and find links to begin reading them here.

io9 Looks Back On Xombi

Evan Narcisse at io9 takes a look back at both incarnations of Xombi, and the world building and sense of humor that I infused them with. He also properly credits the rest of the teams for their outstanding contributions. You can read the article here.

The 10 Best Asian American Superheroes

Pop Mythology has posted a list of the Top 10 Asian American superheroes. I'm happy with where David Kim ranked on that list. Check it out here.

Multiversity Comics looks back on Xombi from 2011. You can order a copy of the graphic novel via the link below.

Milestone 2.0

A number of people have emailed me asking about the new, forthcoming incarnation of Milestone Media. The fact that among the announcements was that there would be a new Xombi series has led to the question of whether, or not, I'll be writing it.

I sure hope so. To be honest though, I don['t really know more than you do at this point. Everyone involved with the new Milestone is well aware that I want to keep writing Zombi, and Denys Cowan assures me I'll be a part of the new company, but right now it's still wait and see. I'm not sure how far along in the planning process everything is, and I imagine they'll want to relaunch other characters first.

To read more about the announcement and the plans so far take a look at this article by Hannibal Tabu at Comic Book Resources

Recondite Pictures Interview

Scott Amundson, writer of the ongoing Survivorman comic book series interviewed me for Recondite Pictures. I talk about various aspects of writing comic books. You can read the interview here.

Questions Pertaining to Me and My Characters

Now to answer the last of this month's questions before venturing into the new year. 

Ben Z said...

If you could be any one of your characters, who would you be?

What character of yours would you most like to be able to meet in real life?

Until you asked this, Ben, I'd never given it any thought. I try to make my characters appealing in some way, and of course all of them are really me, or some aspect of myself, but that's not really what you're asking. So, I've given this question some thought. 

I'm guessing most people would expect me to pick David Kim. Immortality with a perfect memory have their appeal, and David's a nice enough and really smart guy, but the rest of his life is a bit of a mess and, knowing what is planned for him, only gets messier. So, I think I'll pass. There's also something about the idea of never getting old while everyone you know ages and dies around you -- forever, that does not hold any real appeal. 

I'd have to say that out of all my characters the one I'd probably most want to be would be Julia Kadmon, but then I'd probably rather be married to Julia Kadmon, which means I'd have to pick Adam Kadmon. He's good looking, never has to worry about money, lives in a great house, is a master magician and paranormal investigator in a world where that stuff is real, and has an amazing wife, so I'd pick being him (even though Julia is much cooler than he is). 

As far as which of my characters I'd want to meet, it would, again, probably be the Kadmon's because of all the stories they'd have to tell about what they've done. It would also be a tad safer than meeting Magellan.

I would want to meet him though because meeting a genuine monster would be really cool, and the world would be a more interesting place with them in it.

Gift Suggestions

If you are looking for some holiday gift suggestions, I have a number of things available right now.

Bottleneck Gallery is having a sale on art. They still have a few pieces I did, which would be perfect for the movie/pop culture fan on your list. Art prices are 30% off through December 31st, 2013.

Gallery 1988 is also having a 30% off sale on most art through December 31, 2013. There are still a few of my pieces available here from Disney's The Black Hole and The Edgar Wright Show.

For some inexpensive art featuring animated cartoon characters both classic and modern, check out my own store by clicking the button to the right. Free shipping on all orders over $50.00 through January 31st, 2014. There are lots of Adventure Time characters at very affordable prices as well as characters from The Flintstones, Looney Tunes and Hanna Barbera shows.

Be sure to check out my other store for all of the books and DVDs I've written, or contributed to. There are lots of graphic novels for both adults and kids, and plenty of kids superhero DVDs to look at. I think everything there is available for less than $20.00

31 Days of Halloween - Day 31

Monster: The Wendigo

Appearance: "Light of the Wicked" Xombi Hanukkah Special #1. 1996. Unpublished.

"Be Prepared" The X-Files #25 and #26, January & February 1997. 

Guy Davis: Artist, Noelle Giddings: Painted Color, Agnes Pinaha: Letterer, Dwayne McDuffie & Jacqueline Ching: Editors

Gordon Purcell: Penciller, Josef Rubinstein: Inker, John Workman: Letterer, Lisa Slykerman: Color Design, Digital Chameleos: Color Rendering, Jim Salicrup & Dwight Jon Zimmerman: Editors, Miran Kim: Cover Artist

The wendigo, windigo, witigo, or other various spellings, was something of a giant cannibal spirit in the folklore of the Algonquin tribes along the northeastern United States and Canada. There are various descriptions and forms it can take, but it's often said to appear as a skeletal, emaciated person with gray skin and deep set eyes, somewhat like a resurrected corpse, whose appetite could never be sated, and whose diet was human beings. The wendigo could also be transformed from a human being who had eaten human flesh, making the creature a cautionary tale against cannibalism. I could spend a lot of time describing all of the varying attributes, but the real purpose here is to discuss how the wendigo became part of my own stories. 

The wendigo has long been one of my favorite monsters of folklore. I don't remember when I first encountered it, but I've been fascinated with it ever since. 

In the Xombi Hanukkah Special, the characters David Kim and Rabbi Sinnowitz are trapped in a car after crashing off the road during a blizzard (if David Kim looks a bit fat compared to what you are used to it's because the nanites in his body did that to him to insulate him against the cold) on their way to Midnight, Massachusetts. 

Guy Davis decided to depict the wendigos as something like a monstrous cross between a bear and a human. As you can see, they are intelligent, capable of speech, wear moccasins and belt pouches which they've crafted themselves. We even see them providing medicinal plants and speaking Ojibway. Like the monsters in Midnight, Mass., I wanted the wendigos to be depicted as a people with their own culture and not simply mindless monsters. Of course, for all of their ability to reason and discuss, they are predators and people are their food of choice, which makes David Kim and rabbi Sinnowitz menu items and not friends, so the sense of the wendigoes being a constant threat is there from even before their first appearance and you never forget for a moment that they are indeed monsters. 

The X-Files also featured a wendigo. Because of the structural needs of telling an X-Files story there was a supernatural possibility for what was going on as well as a rational real world explanation. The story here centers on a Boy Scout troop winter camping. One of the scout masters is attacked by some kind of creature and may be preying on the boys in his troop as well as park rangers and so on. 

The wendigo which appears in this story (perhaps as an illusion, perhaps real) was given a more animal like appearance. It was humanoid with animal-like features including an elongated snout, claws and fur as well as a wild mane of hair. This would have been the kind of wendigo that is a spirit creature that is capable of transforming a human being into a cannibal. 

31 Days of Halloween - Day 30

Monster: Carnivore Clouds

Appearance: "Silent Cathedrals - Part 4: Revelations" Xombi vol.1 no. 4. September, 1994. 

J. J. Birch: Artist, Noelle C. Giddings: Painted Color, Agnes Pinaha: Letterer, Dwayne McDuffie: Editor

Everything you need to know about the carnivore clouds can be found in the page above. It was never my intention to give them literal mouths. That was something J. J. Birch did on his own, and I suppose it gave the clouds more personality, or at least something to look at to distinguish them from regular clouds. I saw them more as a corrosive cloud shape that would engulf its prey and digest them, and because they are intangible, the bones of their meals would just drop out of them, like a grisly rain. 

And, yes, they can be stopped with Mr. Bubble. 

31 Days of Halloween - Day 27

Monster: Maranatha

Appearance: "The Ninth Stronghold - Part Two: The Green House" Xombi vol. 2 no. 2, June 2011.  "The Ninth Stronghold - Part Three: Exit Strategies" Xombi vol. 2 no. 3, July 2011. 

Frazer Irving: Artist, Dave Sharpe: Letterer, Rickey Purdin: Assistant Editor, Harvey Richards: Associate Editor, Rachel Gluckstern: Editor.

Maranatha means "The Lord will come" or "Our Lord cometh" in the role of punisher or avenger. There are some traditions who call the angel who appears to guide Michael as Maranatha. It was also this angel, Maranatha who is said to have introduced the sword to the Israelites. 

The idea of making Maranatha a physical manifestation of God's wrath appears in my earliest notebooks for Xombi, but he'd not been assigned a story. He seemed like the perfect secret weapon to be hidden away inside the body of James Church, the story's Jekyll/Hyde character. 

For Maranatha's appearance I went and looked at some Assyrian lion sculptures for inspiration, because I wanted something ancient, and something that people of ancient times would view as a personification of strength and anger. I didn't want him to be a literal living statue so I decided to give him a flesh and blood body with a head and mane made of stone. This merging of elements also gives him a supernatural origin since he is alive with a head made of material that should not be alive. 

I also decided that to give him an even older look that rather than go with a modern lion's body that I would give Maranatha the body of a sabretooth tiger and bulked up the size into something powerful and intimidating without getting into gigantism.

Frazer Irving gave Maranatha the oven inferno with his mouth, and the glowing mane growing out from his stone one. I think he turned out to be a pretty impressive creature and personification of God's wrath. He also fit really well into the story's themes of displaced people and objects either trying to find their place in the world, or to get home. After centuries of imprisonment, he's diminished and unleashed in a modern world that he doesn't understand, nor command the same awe and fear he once did.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 22

Monster: The Bogeymen Dread

Appearance: "Hidden Cities - Chapter Five: Elsewhere" Xombi vol. 1 #21

J.J. Birch: Artist, Noelle C. Giddings: Painted Color, Agnes Pinaha: Letterer Jacqueline Ching: Editor, Dwayne McDuffie: Editor in Chief

Terrible, parasitic entities, the bogeymen dread feast on hope and optimism, gorging themselves so much that those they feed on are left with only the most bottomless despair which drives them to suicide.

Formerly imprisoned within the Prison of Din in the parallel world of Elsewhere, the bogeymen dread manage to escape their prison and their world and into ours, where David Kim lures them into a trap within the halls of Ellis Island in an attempt to recapture them.

These were the last foes to appear in the original run of Xombi, and when I say appear, I mean that they don't other than as shadows of their reaching arms passing over the scenery. The cover actually depicts far more of them than anything shown within the story itself. I thought they would be a much stronger force if they were only suggested and never seen, their terrible deeds depicted solely through the plight of their victims.

As with all of the "villains" of Xombi, the bogeymen dread didn't have any unrealistic, or impractical grandiose plans such as world takeover. Their only desire was their own survival, which could only happen at the expense of others, so were they really villains at all?

31 Days of Halloween - Day 12

Monster: The Dental Phantoms

Appearance: Xombi V.2 #6 "The Ninth Stronghold Part 6 - Resurrection" October 2011

Frazer Irving: Artist, Dave Sharpe: Letterer, Rickey Purdin: Assistant Editor, Harvey Richards: Associate Editor, Rachel Gluckstern: Editor

When I first laid eyes on one of the things shown in the above photograph, I new immediately that I had to use that as some sort of monster somewhere. How could I not? Look at this thing.

Obviously it's based on a human head, but featureless, except for the very real looking human teeth. It also has no eyes. Even more perfect was its name: a dental phantom. 

Dental phantoms are used by dentistry students to practice working on teeth, which in the top example from the 1930s are actual human teeth. Modern dental phantoms are not nearly so disturbing to behold.

The dental phantoms languished in my notebook for some time before I found a home for them. They became bodyguards/major domos in Xombi #6. Their clothing came naturally. In their comic book appearance I don't really reveal much more about them other than to suggest they are clock work humanoid automatons. They speak through a stream of ticker tape which feeds out of their mouth like a tongue, and they nasty razor sharp fingers. Even though they have no apparent sensory organs, they have no problem locating things. 

I'm sure that this won't be the last time I use them. I do know one other thing. Someday, I must own a real one. 

31 Days of Halloween - Day 5

Monsters: The Sisterhood of Blood Mummies

Appearance: Xombi V.2 #6 "The Ninth Stronghold Part 6 - Resurrection" October 2011

Frazer Irving: Artist, Dave Sharpe: Letterer, Rickey Purdin: Assistant Editor, Harvey Richards: Associate Editor, Rachel Gluckstern: Editor

The Sisterhood of the Blood Mummies was something I created for Xombi back during its original run in the mid-1990s, but never used. They weren't designated for a specific storyline, but were merely concocted as malicious assassins that could be placed in a story where they fit and served a purpose. Finally, in 2011, that time had come, and while their appearance was brief, they made an impact. Technically they appeared on the last page of issue #5, but issue #6 is where we learned what they were.

Above are my somewhat refined sketches from my original notes that I provided Frazer irving with. Below is his elegantly nightmarish take on the blood mummies, with explanatory text that was more or less transcribed from my original notes from nearly two decades prior. It's essentially everything you need to know about them.

One thing I didn't really notice until this series was completed is that I tend to create a lot of monsters that don't have eyes. I don't know if this has anything to do with the impact Alien (1979) had on me, but I think monsters without eyes are much more disturbing, since there's less way to read them, and that they still seem to have no problem finding you and avoiding obstacles to do so. 

31 Days of Halloween - Day 2

Monster: Kinderesen

Appearance: "The Nature of the Beast" Xombi vo1. 1 #13, June 1995./ "False Future" Xombi vol1. #15, August 1995. /"Descent" Xombi vol. 1 #16, September 1995. 

J.J. Birch: Artist, Agnes Pinaha: Letterer, Noelle C. Giddings: Painted Color, Dwayne McDuffie: Editor/ J.J. Birch: Artist, Micheline Hess, J. Scott J. & David Montoya: Painted Color, Agnes Pinaha: Letterer, Dwayne McDuffie & J.C. Ching: Editors/ J.J. Birch: Artist, Noelle C. Giddings: Painted Color, Agnes Pinaha: Letterer, J.C. Ching & Dwayne McDuffie: Editors. 

The Kinderessen were monsters that were an amalgamation of monsters, spirits, and demons from a number of cultures but here presented as being all one and the same despite their distribution across the globe. They are monsters which feed on children primarily. The Yoruba people, mispelled as "Yokuba" on the cover and within, referred to both the spirit who took the lives of children as well as the spirits of the deceased children themselves as Abiku. 

In Xombi, the Kinderessen was something to be feared, though women would also take their unwanted children to leave for the kinderessen to deal with. If you wanted to keep the kinderessen away from your children the best way was to hide their sent at home by cooking foods with strong aromas. 

Their form made amorphous by the black, light absorbing, fur allowed these large creatures to hide easily by blending into shadows. Looking at them now, they really anticipate the look of the aliens in Attack the Block. They are incredibly strong, but are not immortal and with luck and perseverance can be killed with ordinary weapons. 

Great Graphic Novels for Teens 2013

Xombi has been selected by YALSA, the Young Adult Library Services Association ( a division of the American Library Association) as on of the great graphic novels for teens for 2013. According to the website these graphic novels, "recommended for ages 12-18, meet the criteria of both good quality literature and appealing reading for teens."

To see the complete list, visit the YALSA website.