| Greg Rucka | |
 Greg at a Comic Book Convention during a meet-and-greet in 2004 |
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| Birth name | Gregory Rucka |
| Born | November 29 1969 San Francisco, California |
| Nationality |
 |
| Area(s) | Writer |
| Notable works | Batman Gotham Central Queen & Country |
Gregory Rucka (born November 29, 1969) is an American writer of novels and comic books. He is married to fellow comic writer Jen Van Meter. Currently, comics he is writing for DC include Checkmate and the Crime Bible miniseries, a 52 spin-off.
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Biography
Rucka was born in San Francisco, California and raised on the Central Coast of California, in what is commonly referred to as "Steinbeck Country." He began his writing career in earnest at the age of 10 by winning a county-wide short-story contest, and hasn't let up since. He graduated from Vassar College with an A.B. in English, and from the University of Southern California's Master of Professional Writing Program with an M.P.W. His writing career began with his Atticus Kodiak series. Kodiak is a bodyguard whose jobs are rarely as uncomplicated as they at first appear. The series to date consists of: Keeper, Finder, Smoker, Shooting at Midnight, Critical Space and Patriot Acts. These works garnered Rucka much critical acclaim and comparisons to the elite writers of crime/suspense fiction. The "Atticus" novels are notable for their realism and attention to detail, which are partly a product of Rucka's fight training and experience as an EMT. He has also written three non-Atticus books: Fistful of Rain, A Gentleman's Game and Private Wars; the latter two are tie-ins to his comic book series Queen and Country. In the 1990s, Rucka would hop onto the comic scene with his highly praised Whiteout, published through Oni Press. Whiteout focuses on a murder in an Antarctic base. It was followed by a sequel, Whiteout: Melt. Rucka would begin a pattern with this book: writing strong, independent woman characters. Queen and Country, dealing with British spies, is his longest and most personal work (also published by Oni). The majority of Rucka's work today is for DC Comics, where he is the current writer of Checkmate and was an instrumental co-writer on the weekly series 52. Gotham Central - the series Rucka co-created with fellow scribe Ed Brubaker - was recently concluded by Rucka alone after Brubaker left DC to work exclusively with Marvel. (Both Rucka and Brubaker had previously dealt with Batman and his supporting cast in Detective Comics, which Rucka wrote on a regular basis following the events of No Man's Land; he also penned the novelization of the aforementioned year-long arc.) Rucka is commonly considered to be one of the "Big Five" writers at DC Comics, along with Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Mark Waid and Judd Winick. He also had long runs on the Adventures of Superman and Wonder Woman. On the DC comic 52, Johns, Morrison and Waid were his co-writers. He has also done work for Marvel Comics - including runs on Wolverine, Elektra and the mini-series Ultimate Daredevil and Elektra - and for Image Comics. The first volume of his series Queen and Country concluded in July of 2007 with issue #32. Greg has stated that another volume will resume sometime in 2009. Rucka's work, particularly in comics, has attracted critical and fan acclaim, and also won several awards, including Eisner Awards for the "Half a Life" storyline in Gotham Central (which also won a Harvey Award), Whiteout: Melt and Queen and Country. He was also featured in the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation comic book miniseries "Dying in the Gutters" as the accidental killer of a comics gossip columnist while Aintending to kill Joe Quesada over his perceived role in the ending of Gotham Central.
Bibliography
Novels
- Atticus Kodiak Series
- Queen & Country Series: A Gentleman's Game and Private Wars
- Perfect Dark: Initial Vector
- Perfect Dark: Second Front
- Fistful of Rain
- No Man's Land (Batman story arc)
Comic books
Marvel
- Wolverine vol. 3 #1-19
- Black Widow "Break Down" #1-3, "Pale Little Spider" #1-3
- Elektra vol. 2 #7-22
- Spider-Man Quality of Life #1-4
- Ultimate Daredevil and Elektra #1-4
- Elektra/Wolverine: The Redeemer, a novella with illustrations by Yoshitaka Amano #1-3
DC
- Batman #565, 568, 572-574, 587
- #1-6
- #1-9
- Detective Comics #732, 735, 739-753, 755-775, 783 (Batman: Death and the Maidens backup story only in 783)
- Adventures of Superman #626 (backup story), 627-638, 640-648
- The OMAC Project #1-6 and Infinite Crisis Special
- Wonder Woman (vol. 2) #195-226
- (graphic novel, 1992)
- Gotham Central most issues, usually with co-writer Ed Brubaker
- Checkmate #1-Present
- 52 (Year-long weekly series starting May 2006, co-written with Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison and Mark Waid)
Oni Press
- Oni Press Color Special 2001 (6 page Queen and Country story)
- Oni Press Summer Vacation Supercolor Fun Special (pages 37-42)
- Queen and Country #1-32
- Queen and Country: Declassified vol. 1 #1-3
- Queen and Country: Declassified vol. 2 #1-3
- Whiteout #1-4
- Whiteout: Melt #1-4
Image
- Felon #1-4
Audio Interviews
- Interview with Around Comics - Oct 2006
- Interview on Wordballoon podcast (Part 1 0f 2) April 2007.
- Interview on Wordballoon podcast (Part 2 of 2) April 2007.
References
- Greg Rucka official site
- Greg Rucka at ComicBookDB.com
- Interview at CBR
- Greg's Blog
- Wonder Woman Panel Highlights - Dragon*Con 2003
- Interview at Sequential Tart
| Preceded by Chuck Dixon |
Detective Comics writer 2000–2002 |
Succeeded by Ed Brubaker |
| Preceded by Jeph Loeb |
Supergirl writer 2006 |
Succeeded by Joe Kelly |
| Preceded by Frank Tieri |
Wolverine writer 2003–2004 |
Succeeded by Mark Millar |
| Preceded by Walt Simonson |
Wonder Woman writer 2003–2006 |
Succeeded by Allan Heinberg |
