C2E2 took over Chi-town this past weekend, and among the many announcements made in and around the pop-culture convention came this one:

That’s right, Robbi Rodriguez of team Spider-Gwen is retiring from comics. Spider-Gwen was one of the bestselling titles of last year, and the character — an alternate universe version of Gwen Stacy who was bitten by the irradiated spider instead of Peter Parker — has proved a crossover success for both male and female comic readers.

Beat staffer Lindsey Morris, reporting for Newsarama, got some exclusive comments on the departure from Rodriguez who also discussed his green-lit pitch for Gwenom, a story line that sees Gwen donning the alien symbiote and becoming Venom:

“Rodriguez stated that Gwenom will be his last storyline for his comics career, and that any future work he happens to do will be ‘just for fun.’ The arc is set to last about a year, so once Spider-Women wraps up, the clock will begin ticking.”

So the character that launched a thousand cosplays, and more recently lots of tie-in merch, will continue to be drawn by Rodriguez through the Gwenom story arc. No word yet on the book’s future after that time.

In closing, Rodriguez had this to say:

“We had a good run, dawg.”



h/t Lindsey Morris, Newsarama