There is a recurring character in The Simpsons, a B-list actor who shows up in industrial and educational films with some variation of this greeting: “Hello. I’m Troy McClure. You may remember me from such films as Andre the Giant, We Hardly Knew Ye and Firecrackers: The Silent Killer.” He’s ubiquitous in pop culture.
Writer Greg Rucka is kind of like that – minus the B actor part. Even if you don’t immediately recall him by name, you may know him by his popular work in such comic books as Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight and The Adventures of Superman. Or such serial novels as Atticus Kodiak and Queen & Country. Or such films as Whiteout. Or such video games as “Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow.” Or such webcomics as Lady Sabre and the Pirates of the Ineffable Aether… well, you may not know him from that so much.
But in addition to taking the wheel at franchises like Marvel’s The Punisher and DC’s Batwoman, he’s created his own comics and characters, like the series Black Magick for Image Comicsand Stumptown published by Oni Press.
Rucka, now 47, lives in Portland, Oregon – “The weather is conducive to writing,” he says – but his career started when he lived in Corral de Tierra, close to the setting of Steinbeck’s novellaThe Red Pony, when he won a countywide short story contest at 10 years old.
These days he’s writing Wonder Woman comics, teaming up with artist Nicola Scott.
His style injects adrenaline from his hard-boiled crime thriller novels, and he mashes up real-world scenarios in with comics fantasy.
In one of his Wonder Woman storylines from 2006, in addition to a superhero who wears her emblematic bustier and boots, she is an ambassador who navigates laws and ethics. After she’s forced to kill a villain to save innocent people like Bruce Wayne and Lois Lane, she surrenders herself to the International Criminal Court in the Hague, dressed in royal Amazonian armor and hounded by news reporters asking if she’ll be kicked out of the Justice League.
In this the 75th anniversary of Wonder Woman, within the pages of the ambitious DC Universe Rebirth, Rucka has supported the development that the iconic superhero is queer because she comes from Themyscira, an Amazonian island populated entirely by women.
“It’s supposed to be paradise,” he told Comicosity.com in September. “You’re supposed to be able – in a context where one can live happily, and part of what an individual needs for that happiness is to have a partner – to have a fulfilling, romantic and sexual relationship. And the only options are women.”
In the male-centered comic book world he’s carved a niche as a writer of strong female characters. In his comics debut, a 1998 murder mystery titled Whiteout set in the harsh otherworld of Antarctica, his protagonist is a no-nonsense deputy U.S. marshal named Carrie Stetko who, in addition to navigating the deadly terrain to track a murderer, has to contend with misogyny and sexism.
Make no mistake: Rucka is not shy about gunplay and gore. But he also promotes a progressive perspective at a time when there is still contention about the role and representation of women in comics, and, although the president of DC Comics is a woman, Diane Nelson, the next president of the United States is Donald Trump.
But Whiteout was not even the first time Rucka’s revealed a feminist streak in his writing. In a 2012 Gizmodo article, he says it started back with that short story contest he competed in when he was 10. In it, Santa Claus is killed and it’s up to Mrs. Claus to rally the elves, run the operation, and keep Christmas going.
On his way to becoming a comic book writer who’s been nominated for and won Eisner Awards (the Oscars of comics), the Harvey Award, and a GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) Media Award, Rucka has worked as a house painter, emergency medical technician, security guard, “restaurant industry triple-threat” of busboy, dishwasher and waiter, beta tester and fight choreographer. That diversity of real-world experience shows up in his imaginary creations.
Hartnell College is ground zero this weekend, Dec. 16-18, for a real-world convening focused on such imagination in the Salinas Valley Comic Con. It promises to be a haven for young people and grown-ups donning costumes as if it were Halloween again, freaks and geeks (in the best sense of the terms) mind-melding over the logistics of superpowers, creative people fraternizing over the power of pen and ink (see story, p. 24).
Rucka won’t be there – he says smaller comic shows like this are important venues for new talent, and that deadlines got to him before an invite did – but he says he’ll be there in spirit. The Weekly caught up to him by phone as he was driving down the scenic Interstate 5 from Portland to Eugene, where he was going to lecture about Wonder Woman in a politics and comics class at the University of Oregon.
Weekly: Describe your early involvement in comics in Monterey County.
Rucka: I met a bunch of comic fans in high school [at York]. I spent many-a-week at various comic book stores with these guys. That’s how you come into it. You find people to share it. When I was younger, standing in checkout in Nob Hill in Salinas, I remember pleading with my mom to buy me a reprint digests of Archie comics or old Marvel comics – cheap-ass versions. Every so often she would relent and I would go home with The Incredible Hulk and read it over and over again. Or I would end up at the Steinbeck Library for a couple hours.
You worked at Adventure Comics [now Current Comics]?
Yeah. Out on Cannery Row. My brother worked at the one in Salinas.
What were your favorite titles then?
I came in on Marvel Comics. The Uncanny X-Men. From that I branched out. I discovered comics in a really remarkable time of Art Spiegelman’s Maus, Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, The Longbow Hunters by Mike Grell. I was really fortunate the industry was changing. The form was elevating as I was watching.
When did you get involved?
I think it was a natural outgrowth of my interests and affection for the medium. It really wasn’t until college that I sat down and tried to make an actual comic. I can’t draw. Unless I have a collaborator, all I have is a script.
How have comics changed from when you were younger?
I think they’re infinitely more sophisticated on every single possible level. From storytelling to art to coloring to how they’re lettered, even printed. All the way to how the audience receives them and what they expect of them.
What does the audience expect?
Comics readers have, for a long time, reaped cultural scorn. But your average comic reader is better educated, more widely read, and a more discerning consumer of art than your average person. Their expectations are pretty high. They want to be entertained, challenged, and want to see – no matter if you’re writing Superman or your own character that doesn’t have a movie – a story that grabs them.
How do you deliver all that again and again?
I don’t do it again and again. I think every so often I get it right. I write first and foremost from the point of view of the characters I’m writing about. Especially when I’m privileged with a character like Wonder Woman. She has 75 years of history behind her.
Do you have a philosophy that informs how you approach comic book writing?
This is going to sound potentially precious: The first order of business is to entertain, but anything I create is art. It’s subject to the requirements of art. I can be writing about Wonder Woman or a barista at Starbucks, but at the end of the day, both stories need to have some relevance and resonance to the world around us. I take responsibility in that very seriously.
What have been some of your favorite comic book titles to write for?
I do a book called Lazarus, which I created with Michael Lark, that I’m incredibly proud of. It’s been out about three years now. It’s entirely our own creation. We’re free to make the story exactly what we want it to be. It’s an incredible privilege to write Wonder Woman, Superman, Han Solo. But at the end of the day those characters are owned by monolithic corporations that have a simple agenda: “Make us more money. And don’t break the toy while you do it.” You’re always bound by their rules. That’s something you acknowledge when you enter into the relationship. When you get to be the owner of your own creation, that comes with all the freedoms and potential pitfalls you would expect.
What are the Eisner Awards like?
[Laughs.] It’s a long night in a ballroom in a hotel at the San Diego Comic Con. You get a bunch of comics pros all in the same room and they celebrate the legacy of [cartoonist] Will Eisner. And hopefully acknowledge those works that helped to improve our medium over the previous year. It’s silly and it’s serious and sometimes it’s very somber, because we always remember those we’ve lost.
When you take on writing for an iconic comic character, how do you sort out their history, their baggage and fans’ expectations?
For some it’s more challenging than others. Batman is not terribly challenging to get into the head of. A lot of people have done it so very well. Someone like Diana [Wonder Woman], it’s a little more challenging because she’s a more morphable character.
How?
Wonder Woman is political. That politics is inherently feminist. A feminist vision 75 years ago is not feminism in 2016. A great deal about her remains constant at her core. But how it’s demonstrated has to change as our language for it has changed. That’s both a blessing and a curse with the character because when it’s done wrong, she is rendered irrelevant. And when it’s done right she becomes arguably the most relevant pop culture character out there. This election didn’t result in a vacuum. We’re already addressing political changes through her. The purpose of the story is to entertain. Nobody wants to read a polemic. Nobody wants to be lectured to. The art comes in creating conflict for these characters to face that in some shape or form reflect or echo the societal battles we’re fighting.
What are you working on next?
We’ve got a lot more Wonder Woman coming. We’re about halfway through our first year on this current run. I’ve got a new book coming out in March from Image [Comics] called The Old Guard. I’m really excited about that because it’s a lot of fun. I tend to write fairly serious work. Lazarus is a pretty dark book about a pretty bleak future… I’m driving along one of those big stretches of open field on I-5 right now… Old Guard is pretty much a bunch of pulp fiction fun.