Hail and Farewell: Sturges on Blue Beetle's End

As announced by DC Executive Editor Dan DiDio in Wednesday's 20 Answers/1 Question interview here on Newsarama, the Blue Beetle ongoing series is coming to an end. Newsarama talked to Sturges about the cancellation, and during the conversation, the writer announced that one of the title's characters will die along with the series in Blue Beetle #36.

NRAMA: But this has got to be a disappointment for you, isn't it?

MS: It is. You know, it was a thing where, just when I thought I was getting into my groove, I found out it was time to start wrapping it up. So I felt like I never really had a chance to mature into the book and make it my own.

NRAMA: Do you know what's going to happen with Jaime?

MS: He's in Teen Titans and will be in that book for the foreseeable future. He's a character that DC cares about. Obviously, he's important to Warner and DC, since he's one of the characters in the new Batman: Brave and the Bold animated series. So people can still get their Jaime fix there as well as in Teen Titans. Jaime's definitely not going anywhere. It's just that this title apparently didn't work out for the long term.

NRAMA: Before this interview, I looked up recent online reviews and comments about the Blue Beetle comic, and they were enthusiastically positive lately. Why do you think there's such a disconnect between reviews and sales?

MS: Well, there are two kinds of comic book readers. There are the kind that spend a lot of time on the internet and write reviews, and I think those people like a different kind of book than your average comic book buyer. Comic book buyers want big characters and big events, and we didn't have those things in Blue Beetle. It was a special book; it was a different book that focused on character interaction and humor. And maybe that's just not what the larger market is after.

Read the whole interview here!