A week ago I found out that Robert L. Washington III had passed away on June 6th at the age of 47.
the writer as depicted on his Milestone Media trading card
Comic-Book Resources has a notice at its news blog Robot 6 that includes a reproduction of Washington's last piece of work, a one-page strip for Hero Comics 2012. It's a first-person piece, illustrated by Chris Ivy, in which the writer shares some of the struggles that prompted him to seek help from The Hero Initiative — a non-profit organization, mentioned on this blog before, which provides financial assistance to creators in dire need of it.
Unlike the few people who've been the subjects of memorials here and the several more whose passings I'd hoped to note — the comic-book industry lost a number of outright giants last year — Washington was neither a legend with a storied career, a creator who produced beloved works from my childhood, nor someone that I knew. But he wrote the hell out of a series called Static, which launched in 1993 from Milestone Media in association with DC Comics — later adapted into the Kids' WB animated series Static Shock. And he died way too damned young after some tough times.
