The creative partners at Milestone took no salary we were to be paid for our comic book work.
I created the Static Shock Universe; the model for that creation was my Family.
The real focus of that universe wasn't Static; his sister Sharon Hawkins was. The book Icon, Milestone's Black Superman, was really about his sidekick, Rocket. That's a genius idea from Dwayne McDuffie, so I followed suit. The driving force behind the Static Universe was my mother, Jean. She was a remarkable woman, but her life was anything but easy. She was a victim of abuse from many sources but never complained. Her mother, Lenore, my grandmother, and her daughter, Sharon, my sister, both died horrible deaths. That pain weighed on her, although she sought to conceal it. I wanted to ease some of her pain, even if just a little. To that end, our family became the Hawkins family. Jean, Robert, and Sharon were the names of my mom, dad, and sister. Hawkins was my cousin's last name.
Initially, Alan Hawkins was Static's alter ego's name. Dwayne changed it to Vigil after the civil rights pioneer. My mother told me, seeing her daughter live on in Static was the greatest gift she ever received from me. The day after saying that, she passed away.
When John Paul Leon came into my Mentor Program, it wasn't long before I decided his style was better suited for Static than my frequent photo referenced technique. I mentioned I was only to be paid for writing and drawing Static.
I was, except DC Comics never paid me for the entire time I was at Milestone. They refused to honor my contract.
My wife overheard a conversation where I was told that if I was so hard up for money, take the book back from John, I refused. She started screaming in Spanish. I told her we were only a couple of months behind; the way she shouted, you would have thought I spent the mortgage money on crack and the sheriff was at the door. But I understood why it upset her so; what I couldn't understand was Spanish.
"ÓMO TE ATREVES, CÓMO ATREVERTE, A QUITARTE EL SUEÑO DE ALGUIEN!"
I found out later;
she was furious but at the person on the phone. "How dare you take away someone's dream" she wasn't talking about my dream but about John Paul's dream to draw comics. Josephine had a bond with John. They were both Cuban Americans, both kind and respectful, and both about Family. I gave John my Family to take care of when I gave him Static to draw. Because of him and Robert Washington, Static is loved by millions all over the world. Yeah, the TV show was the medium but no John Paul Leon, no Robert Washington, no TV Show.