DC Comics, Milestone Media, and WarnerMedia, in collaboration with the financial services company Ally, announced the first “class” of creators in the Milestone Initiative Talent Development Program, which was announced last year during the DC Fandome event (see “DC Announces New Milestone ‘Blood Syndicate’ Series”).
The program, which is part of DC’s Next Generation DC talent development program, is designed to offer intensive instruction as well as opportunities to a group of Black and other minority storytellers. The participants will take virtual technical course through the Kubert School and attend an in-person seminar in the DC offices in Burbank. The technical course is designed to help them hone their storytelling skills and understand the creative procesVPs from initial idea to final publication. Creators will learn how to create content for a wide variety of readers, the ins and outs of the comics industry, and financial and business practices from a group of instructors that will include DC Publisher and CCO Jim Lee, VP and Editor-in-Chief Marie Javins, and Editor Chris Conroy, and Milestone creators Reggie Hudlin and Denys Cowan, among others. DC plans to put both creative and marketing muscle behind the program.
The participants in this year’s event are
- Andrea Rosales, Portland OR
- Ashley Allen, Orono MN
- Atagun Ilhan, Syracuse NY
- Charles Stewart III, Washington D.C.
- Cheryl Lynn Eaton, New York NY
- Daimon Hampton, Chicago IL
- Dorado Quick, Inglewood CA
- Greg Burnham, Norcross GA
- Gregory Maldonado, Bronx NY
- Jarod Pratt, Detroit MI
- Jarred Luján, Del Rio TX
- Jerome Rhett, Charleston SC
- Jordan Clark, Baltimore MD
- Julio Anta, Miami FL
- Kameron White, Houston TX
- Lucas Silveira, Indianapolis IA
- Marcus Smith, Chicago IL
- Miguel Hernández, Cleveland OH
- Morgan Hampton, Chicago IL
- Nathaniel Cayanan, Corona CA
- Petterson Oliveira, Naples FL
- Tiah Ankum, Atlanta GA
- Yasmín Flores Montañez, Toa Alta PR
- Zipporah Smith, Los Angeles CA
WarnerMedia, DC, and Ally have also launched a yearlong marketing campaign to spotlight the experiences of underrepresented creators and encourage allyship. The first event was “SuperFan,” a video in which Cowan speaks with Feon Cooper and Kareem Burton, co-owners of Black Star Collectibles, in Carson, California, the first Black-owned pop culture collectibles store, about how Milestone inspired them to start their business at a time (the 1990s) when the comics scene was much less diverse than it is now.
Source: ICv2
