Interview: Josh Trujillo Chats Jaime Reyes & his Current Blue Beetle Run

Buckle up, Blue Beetle fans! Get ready to dive into the creative mind behind Jaime Reyes’ current ongoing series, none other than writer Josh Trujillo! From crafting superhero books to penning historical graphic novels, Trujillo's a storyteller with a diverse range. As a vocal advocate for LGBTQ+ and Latino representation in the industry, Trujillo has made waves with groundbreaking characters and stories. After previously helming the Blue Beetle: Graduation Day 6-issue mini, he continues bringing his unique voice and passion to the pages of the current ongoing series Blue Beetle, taking Jaime Reyes on new adventures that promise to be both thrilling and thought-provoking, while paying homage to the decades of Blue Beetle lore that’s come before him. So, join me as I chat with Josh, exploring his vision for the young hero and what makes Blue Beetle such a fascinating character in the DC Universe!

Also, if you’re headed to Emerald City Comic Con this weekend, be sure to catch Josh on the “Reclaiming Queer History Through Comics” panel on March 3rd!

Derby Comics: Awesome to chat with yo, hi Josh! First I just want to say thank you for taking the time to chat with me.

Josh Trujillo: Of course

Derby Comics: The current ongoing Blue Beetle series wasn’t your first time with the franchise. Can you talk a little bit more about how you first got involved with Jaime and Blue Beetle? 

Trujillo: Yeah, this has been a long time in the making. I started with DC contacting me maybe six years ago with interest for me writing for Blue Beetle. However, it took a long time from then, obviously to Graduation Day and in between that we had a lot of close calls. Then finally we had this round-robin competition that kind of pitted creative teams against each other and the winner got a miniseries.  

We didn't win, but we generated enough interest that when DC did decide it was time to freshen up Blue Beetle, I was the one they chose. So I've been writing Jaime for about 3 years now with the same creative team: Adrián Gutiérrez on art, Wil Quintana on colors, Lucas Gattoni on letters, and our editor Andrew Marino. So we've we've really been through it these past three years. 

Derby Comics: It seems so rare to see a creative team stick together for that long. What’s it been like to be able to work with the same creative team for that long and how does it impact your own creative tendencies or thought processes knowing who you’re going to be working with? 

Trujillo: Yeah, it's been such a gift for DC to let us work together as long as we have. You know, everyone knows that creative teams switch around a lot based off of deadlines or other projects. So there's a real commitment to kind of keep our Blue Beetle run kind of self-contained in terms of who's involved with the book. 

I think we see a long tail to it. We hope that this is the kind of thing that will be collected, capped as a coherent run almost like a Bendis/Bagley Ultimate Spiderman. Or, you know Stan and Jack or one of those Keith Giffen, J. M. Dematteis, & Kevin Maguire runs. So I think there's a lot of power to keeping teams together longer. And for us, that's really, I think, our secret weapon.

I keep in touch with Adrián [Guitérrez] every day going back and forth on some of the creative decisions he makes. I talk to Wil [Quintana] and I talked to Lucas [Gattoni] a lot about logo design and graphic design elements and it honestly, it creates a shorthand and that makes it easier to tell these stories. I like to write to an artist’s strength as much as possible, and when you get a feel for what they're really capable of and what their interests are, it really amplifies what we're doing.

Adrian has a manga-influenced style in some ways and I try to write towards that sensibility because I grew up on anime and manga as well. So it's like, how do I write the best story that he could draw? And so that's always like the ongoing challenge and we get the chance to keep one-upping ourselves because we've been doing it for so long. 

Derby Comics: That's awesome. I've kind of become an Adrián stan. In my review of the first issue, I wrote that the visual identity feels a lot like it is street art coming to life. How would you describe the approaching world-building for your run? Specifically Palmera City, which you helped establish, and how audiences who might be coming to Blue Beetle comics for the first time might react? 

Trujillo: You know, Palmera City is a new city in the DC Universe and we really wanted to kind of establish its own identity and make sure it felt distinct from Metropolis or Central City or Gotham. That was really important to us and that means not just visually, in terms of Adrián’s style which is very kinetic, very dynamic, but also in terms of the town itself. It's a more diverse town, we’re putting those characters to the forefront and we have a lot of tension between the high-tech sector and the more culturally-distinct part of town 

We really wanted Palmera to stand out in the DC Universe from Gotham or Metropolis or what have you. And you know, that means giving us our unique flavor. Not just in terms of who lives in the city, but also the visuals of it. We've been building out Palmera City issue by issue. I'm always trying to take you to new locales and get a feeling that it's a vibrant, living place that hopefully exists long after we're gone. Palmera City is kind of the invention of the screenwriters and Angel Manuel Soto, who directed Blue Beetle, but we've really given it our own spin, and so it's nice to kind of build off of what came before.

Derby Comics: That’s awesome. Speaking of what came before, and you mentioned his name previously, can you talk a little bit about how the next issue [Blue Beetle #7], which will be a Keith Giffen tribute issue, came together?

Trujillo: We were plotting out the the arc to follow after our “Scarab War” arc concluded and, unfortunately, we got word that Keith Giffen had passed. He was one of the co-creators of Jaime Reyes. He's done other important things for the DC Universe: Lobo, Ambush Bug, Justice League International, Legion of superheroes. It felt appropriate to kind of honor him.

You know, the Blue Beetle book is very much about family and I think that extends to the creators who've been involved with the book. If you're reading Blue Beetle, all the street names and all the locations are named after former, fellow creators of Blue Beetle, whether it be Dan Garrett or Ted Kord or Jaime. And so with Keith, we knew we had to do something special, so we got the idea of doing a special issue dedicated to his memory, but also dedicated to the characters and the places and the concepts that he had such a big imprint on. 

So it's kind of a guest star explosion and we touch on continuities that technically don't exist anymore. DC was very gracious to let us play with the whole toy box and I think we got a lot of unexpected surprises from that. So I hope we make Keith proud. At the very least, I know he'd read it and say “that was weird.”

Derby Comics: That might be the highest compliment that you could could get from Keith <laughs>. 

Trujillo: Yeah, I think so too, honestly. 

Derby Comics: In terms of this issue, there are some pretty big names who are guest starring on art. Can you talk a little bit more about what it was like working with a new, much larger team? Especially one with names that carry such gravitas.

Trujillo: It was intimidating to work with these talents We have Natasha Bustos, we have Howard Porter, we have Scott Kolins, and we have the incredible, the legendary Cully Hamner, also a co-creator of Jaime Reyes. So it's a full house and everyone's trying to do right by Keith. You know I write to Adrián’s strengths in terms of his kinetic style and his expressions and all that, but I wanted to capture some of the things that made Keith's comics so unique. 

And he was very versatile. You know, you look at these classic Kevin McGuire facial expressions from Justice League International or you look at the 9-panel grid that really defined the Legion of Superheroes “Five Years Later” arc and so I'm trying to write kind of to those eras. It's our own little Eras Tour and everyone has some fun to play with, so hopefully it feels cohesive because we're all trying to tell a central story. It really has a through line that pays off the past six issues and we'll set ourselves up for the next six. 

Derby Comics: Is there anything you can share with readers on what might be coming down the pike for Jaime or what might be in the next arc? 

Trujillo: Without spoiling too much, you know Jaime and Khaji, his scarab, have a huge moment at the end of our “Scarab War” arc. That kind of sets the stage for everything to follow. We touch on that directly in Issue #7, and the fallout continues in #8 and beyond. But in terms of the plot, Victoria Kord makes her big play and we have to figure out if she's doing it for the right reasons or not. She's always a big question mark hanging over the series. 

We're going to get into some of that too. We have a lot of action. We're going to be spotlighting characters like Nitida, our Green Beetle, and Victoria Kord. And even Brenda has a starring moment in this storyline as well. But it really centers around Jaime and his personal journey and how he continues to protect Palmera City.

Derby Comics: Very cool. So I listened to your conversation on a recent podcast about going real deep into the DC archives and all of the old hits that you use for influence. Can readers expect any further deep dives into old Blue Beetle lore that you might have planned? 

Trujillo: <laughs> I have too much fun going through the back issues and the book, really Blue Beetle, at its core is about legacy and family. And so for me it only feels natural that we build-off and pay-off some of the stories from the greats that came before us, not just Keith Giffen, obviously, but everyone. So for this I can say we see a villain from Ted Kord’s days that hasn't been seen in 20 years, maybe a little bit longer, and we see a brand new villain who kind of builds off of a different storyline as well. But my rule is generally for everyone I pulled from the old DC who's-who catalog, I have to make someone new. So that's kind of what we're doing here. I gotta throw some new toys in the toy box. 

Derby Comics: What you did with the Blood Scarab [tying a new character to an old Blue Beetle villain] was just so smart and so accessible to readers who are kind of new to the Blue Beetle universe.

Trujillo: It's a big goal of mine to make the book accessible to new readers, but also let it be a window to the the greater DC Universe. A lot of people came from loving the character in the movie that came out last year to Graduation Day and now to the ongoing. So maybe this is their only DC comic, maybe this is their first DC comic. Making sure that we're accessible is super important. Even the Keith Giffen issue. It has a lot of Easter eggs for the long time fans, but it's it's a self-contained story that I think anyone can kind of pick up and get a feel for what we've been doing these past 12 issues. 

Derby Comics: Are there any characters that would be on your wish list to include in a future blue beetle arc slash? Is that characters name Bunker? 

Trujillo: Oh God, I love Bunker! As you know, I'm deeply obsessed with Miguel, and hopefully we'll see more, a lot more, Bunker in the future. I know his next appearance. I'm not writing it, but it's something big coming up and he's always welcome in Palmera City. It's just about finding the right story.

As for other characters, there are too many. I know Adrián's favorite character, Green Arrow, so I'm always squinting and trying to make sense for that team-up. And then beyond that, there's a lot of Young Justice characters I'd like to bring into the fold. My personal favorite is Rocket. I really want to find a way to get Rocket into the book, but we have a huge cast and I want to make sure that everyone stays fed before we keep bringing in guest stars. It's a big temptation to just make it a guest star-of-the-week book, but we want to pay-off some of these longer storylines. We're telling the other the new Beetles, as well as characters like Fadeaway or Gimmix, or Oo’Li, our new alien girl from The Horizon. 

Derby Comics: Switching gears slightly, but tying into our talk about honoring history, how does writing a superhero comic differ from writing an biographical graphic novel like your recent work in Washington’s Gay General [which retells the life of Baron von Steuben]?

Trujillo: It's a definite challenge because whether you're writing a character that's been around more or less for 50 years, like the Blue Beetle legacy, or you're writing for someone who was actually alive hundreds of years ago, there's an incredible amount of research. And also there's an incredible amount of pressure, I guess, internal pressure to get it right. And so it's a real honor to take on these characters and to do something meaningful with them. And so for Blue Beetle, I want to make him feel vibrant and relative in the center of the [DC] Universe.

And then beyond that I really want people to see von Steuben with fresh eyes. Von Steuben was a gay general who served under George Washington, but calling him gay is kind of a a question mark, because that definition didn't exist then. So we're looking at his life through a queer lens for really the first time and exploring what it would mean to be a queer person in that era. And that's come with a lot of challenges and a lot of opportunities I'll say in terms of telling his story. So they're very different, but I kind of approached them [both stories] with the same amount of seriousness.

Derby Comics: Are there any similarities. or anything you took from writing von Steuben's story to how you writer characters who you're either creating or in charge of how people remember them?

Trujillo: That's a great question. You know, von Steuben was such a compelling character in his own right. I feel like personality traits and bits and pieces of him will always come up and filter into my other work. But beyond that, I think I learned a level of care and appreciation for writing characters in general because I had a responsibility to do right by this person who actually lived, and I think that level of care is something that I take with me, whether I'm developing a new character like Oo’Li or Gimmix or Fadeade or whether I'm picking up a character that's, you know, beloved by a lot of other fans like Starfire, for example. So I think it kind of made me recommit to the important work that I'm doing and realize how meaningful comics can be to readers. 

Derby Comics: With just a short time left, these are a bit more rapid fire, but is there a question that you've never been asked that you are dying to answer? 

Trujillo: So we resurrected Gimmix in Issue #6 of Graduation Day and Gimmix is a Grant Morrison character who was famously killed off in her first appearance and there were a lot of questions as to why I brought her back. And you know, some of it is when you get to tell a story with action figures, sometimes you get to play with your favorite action figures and I think she's a compelling character and has a unique point of view in the DC Universe.

I love someone who wants to be the femme fatale and wants to be the superhero that can't quite get there. And I think that's an interesting juxtaposition because she's a woman of a certain age compared to Jaime, who's at the beginning of this heroic journey and still has all this potential. She's [Gimmix] someone who's potential maybe washed past her but now she's getting a second chance. And so I love her and I love her bag of tricks and I really hope it's a meaningful contribution to the weird variety of characters we have in the DC Universe. 

Derby Comics: What's the most recent non-Blue Beetle comic that you’ve read? 

Trujillo: I just read a book from Fantagraphics called Hobo Mom by Max de Radiguès and Charles Forsman. It's about a single dad and his teenage daughter. The mom comes back after abandoning them for many years. It's super slice of life and the art style is really warm and kind of just inviting and I love when people are able to tell stories and comics that maybe aren't told very often. Blue Beetle are very action-packed books, but it has a lot of heart to it. I try to cling to that as much as possible and I really admire creators who just do what they want to do and just tell personal stories that means so much to them. 

Derby Comics: That’s awesome. Last question, where can fans look forward to seeing you in the near future? 

Trujillo: I'll be at Awesome Con in March. I'll be at WonderCon in Anaheim at the end of March and then I'll be hopefully at C2E2, don't quote me on that yet. I'll be doing conventions throughout the year. You can always find me at Flame Con in New York in the Fall and you can find me online at losthiskeysman on every social platform because someone took Josh Trujillo <laughs>, and then you can find me at www.joshtrujillo.com.

Derby Comics: Amazing! Thanks again for taking the time to speak with me and I’ll see you at Awesome Con!

Note: This interview was edited for brevity and typos.