Greg Rucka is the
author of four suspense novels about bodyguard Atticus Kodiak
and his company of friends, all published by Bantam Books, a
division of Random House. The books are Keeper nominated
for a Shamus Award in 
1997
for Best First PI Novel), Finder, and Smoker. His fourth, Shooting
at Midnight, was published in October of 1999. In December
1998, Greg signed a six-figure agreement with Bantam for two
more books in the series. He has begun work on the fifth Atticus
Kodiak book, tentatively titled Critical Space; the sixth
will be published in the fall of 2001. Rucka's novels have just
been optioned for development as a television series and/or feature
length motion picture.
In 1999, Greg made a strong debut showing in the
world of comic books, beginning with his original mini-series
WHITEOUT, published by Oni Press. WHITEOUT was
nominated for three Eisner Awards-the comic industry's highestaccolade-an
unheard of achievement for a first work in the medium. Since
the publication of WHITEOUT, Greg has become a prolific
contributing writer at DC Comics. In a recent news feature in
Entertainment Weekly magazine, DC Comics' majordomo Dennis O'Neill
singled out Greg Rucka as a writer to help take the Batman franchise
into the new millennium. Accordingly, Greg has just been named
Head Writer on DC's
namesake title, Detective
Comics, the original Batman book. Further, he has just completed
another 120,000-word novel entitled Batman: No Man's Land for
Pocket Books, to be published in hardcover in January of 2000.
In addition to his work in the publishing industry, Rucka is
responsible for the television concept 24/Seven, an original
ensemble-cast detective show in the vein of The Practice, created
with the assistance of a writing partner, Alexander Gombach.
That property is under option at Trilogy Entertainment. Currently,
Rucka is also in preliminary negotiations with Warner Brother's
Animation to pen an episode of the animated show Batman Beyond.
He and his wife, Jennifer, reside in Portland, Oregon.
Page One
"Tell us about your writing background
before KEEPER (the beginning of the Kodiak series) and
how have you grown as a novelist? Who have been your literary
influences and why?"
Greg
"I started writing fairly young...
I think before I was nine, just scrawling out meager short-stories
that got me praise from the 
parents. Throughout high school
it was just something I did to pass the time--normally instead
of taking notes during various different classes, and at that
point the writing started to evolve rather rapidly into attempts
at long-form fiction and even screenwriting. That continued into
college, where I was lucky enough to work with some outstanding
professors, and that's REALLY when I started taking the work
seriously and when I decided it was something I could do for
the rest of my life.
Literary influences are across the board--Mark
Twain, Ernest Hemingway, and Stephen Crane all had strong effects
on me during college, and before that I was a pop-fiction junkie--William
Gibson, Ann Rice, Robert B. Parker and the like.
The PI influence really came to bear with Raymond
Chandler
... though I was reading PI
"genre" novels long before then. In fact, the first
mystery I can remember reading was "Murder on the Yellow
Brick Road" by Stuart Kaminsky... I couldn't have been older
than 11 at the time, which, if you know the book, says something
about my choice of reading material."
Page One
"Your most recent novel is SHOOTING
AT MIDNIGHT -- How did this book come about and why a break
in the Kodiak books? Will SHOOTING be the beginning to
a new series?"
Greg
"There were several
things that brought the book about. First, I wanted to step
away from Atticus as my POV voice for a little while, wanted
to try something different. That really ties into the second
reason, which was that, after SMOKER, I felt that I'd
completed a fairly clear character arc with Atticus, and that
it was time to move onto Bridgett, see if I couldn't work out
some of the things that were going on with her.But the biggest
reason is really that, to be fair to Bridgett, she needed her
own book, a chance to tell her own secrets. I've always seen
the series as about bother Atticus and Bridgett, and
after all that had gone between the two of them in the previous
three novels, it was really time to let Bridgett step up to the
plate and take a couple of swings.
As for beginning a new series, I have other novels
that would center on Bridgett in mind, but the world in which
my characters live is one that I'm generally interested in exploring...
rather than calling the books "novels of Atticus Kodiak"
as the copy often does, I like to think of them as stories in
the WORLD of Atticus Kodiak. That way I've got the freedom to
try different things."
Page One
"Bridgett Logan
is the star of Midnight -- How was it different telling
an entire story from a female perspective? Get any help from
your wife?"
Greg
"VERY different, because the first
and most important task in the writing was to make Bridgett's
voice as believable and honest as possible. It was very important
to me that the book always remember there was a huge gender issue
going on; I didn't want the reader to ever for a moment forget
that the world to men and the world to women are perceived differently.
To that end, I had a couple of people who, in essence, monitored
the writing for... well, I guess I'd call it "base-line
honesty." Just to make certain that I wasn't presuming or
missing fundamentals. Jennifer--my bride--was one of these people,
the key one, in fact, and she was an incredible help to me."
Page One
"Do you have a favorite Kodiak novel
and why?
Where did Atticus Kodiak originate?"
Greg
"I'm not certain I
have a favorite, though I can tell you that the one I like LEAST
is ALWAYS the one I just finished.
I don't know why that is,
but that's the case. Atticus originated from my desire to create
a character with a slightly different take on the PI genre, and
he went through a lot of evolution before I ever started writing
about him. I took his first name from Harper Lee's TO KILL
A MOCKINGBIRD (which I love) because I wanted the connection
with the character of Atticus Finch, who is truly a noble and
compassionate and caring man--an all-around great guy. Kodiak
I got off a tin of chewing tobacco, and I just liked the way
it sounded...."
Page One
"The Kodiak books are in first person
and your new book Midnight is in first person -- What
is it you like about this style? Was there the slightest chance
of doing Midnight in another writing style?"
Greg
"First person, to me, is a more honest
narrative voice. It allows for the conceit of the fiction--rather
than a God-voice that implies someone all-knowing and all-seeing
wrote the story. First-person is intimate, yet can be objective.
And it allows for immediate characterization--which words are
chosen speak volumes about the character of the narrator.
It's funny, because I've been writing in first-person
so much the last few years, that when I sat down to write this
Batman novel a 
couple months back (BATMAN:
NO MAN'S LAND)--which HAD to be in third person, or else
it wasn't going to work--
I had an awful time getting started... the voice
just seemed so FALSE to me, it took quite a while to warm to
it."
Page One
"Your setting for
the Atticus books continues to be in New York City??? --
How do you do this while living all the way across the country?
Have you at one time lived or spent time in the Big Apple? Any
chance Atticus may move west in future books?"
Greg
"I did my under-graduate work at Vassar
College, in Poughkeepsie, New York. It's about two hours from
the city by train, so I was down there a lot. These days I get
back between three and four times a year, and those trips double
as research. I'll wander around with a camera and a tape recorder,
generally sucking down every detail I can. And then I send my
New York
friends out to do leg work. I ended up living in the city for
about three months between my junior and senior year, so that
helps, too.
Moving Atticus, though... I've toyed with it, but
frankly, I don't think it'll work. Part of the nature of a PSA's
work is travel, so he's not really hobbled by being in one city--for
the new book, I actually have him moving about a bit."
Page One
"Robert Parker,
Raymond Chandler, Dash Hammett and Mickey Spillane ---- How
have you carried on the magic from the masters of the hardboiled
mystery/suspense/PI fiction but at the same time carved your
own name in the tree? Do you think writers should show respect
to their contemps? Why or why not?"
Greg
"Wow, magic! That's a fairly daunting
question when you put it like that. Influence is a strange thing.
I think every writer is effected by everything they read, and
moreso by those things they read that they like. I love Chandler,
so that's an obvious influence in what I write--the beginning
of SMOKER, for example, is pretty much a direct homage
(and one that's often done, I might add) to the beginning of
Chandler's THE BIG SLEEP. I try to work with a respect
for The Tradition, that there are certain things--certain recurring
themes or moments--that appear in the PI genre, and that these
moments can always be reinterpretted and restaged. The difference
in generation plays a huge factor--my sensibilities are fairly
unique to me, as they are to all individuals, so every time I
sit down to write, what I scribble is filtered through those
perceptions. Placing that alongside those that have come before,
and those that are working alongside, tends to be enough.
As for showing respect to one's contemporaries--well,
certainly. I'm working at a time when the field is rich with
some excellent writers, doing some very inventive things."
Page One
"SHOOTING AT MIDNIGHT was originally
titled CHASING THE DRAGON. Why the title change?"
Greg
"The title change was a result of discussions
with Bantam about how they wanted to promote the book. There
is a hope that SHOOTING will bring in new readers, and
the high muckety-mucks at Bantam didn't want to alienate any
potential readers with the title. As it was explained to me,
CHASING THE DRAGON sounded like "it's about heroin
or Chinese gangs." I actually fought the name-change for
quite a while... the book had always been called CHASING
in my mind, even before I began it. But when my agent and I presented
a list of alternatives, SHOOTING AT MIDNIGHT seemed the
best alternate, simply because of the subtlety of the title...
there are so many possible interpretations."
Page One
"I've heard you're working on a Batman
novel as well as other illustrated novels (WHITEOUT) --
Tell us a little how all of this came about and do you have to
put on a different writer hat for these projects? Why or why
not?"
Greg
"I've been a comics fan for years,
and have been attending the San Diego Comic Con annually for
almost seven years running now, basically bothering industry
people and trying to work my way in. Two years ago, some people
at DC Comics introduced me to the then start-up company of ONI
Press, and things 
clicked, and that lead to
WHITEOUT. A year after that, I was visiting DC's offices
in New York, and I had lunch with Denny O'Neil (who is a comics
legend and the group editor of the Batman titles) and he offered
me a chance to write, which I leapt at. Since then,I've been
lucky enough to get more and more work from DC. As for the writing,
it is a different process, most notably because of the need to
wed image and text as seamlessly as possible. That's a huge change--like
going from a novel to a screenplay in many ways, except that
comics can never show ACTIONS, they can only show MOMENTS OF
ACTION. That requires a different sort of awareness. The other
big difference is one of space... for Batman, by way of example,
the issues are 22 pages long and that's almost universally final.
To execute a story well, therefore, that space has to be used
as efficiently and deftly as possible... it's almost like playing
a game of chess."
Page One
"Riddle me this
Rucka? Who do you think made the best BATMAN on the screen?
And Why?? Anyone you would have cast? And who is your favorite
Batman villian and why?"
Greg
"I don't think there's been a good
Batman on the screen. I think Keaton did a passable Bruce Wayne,
but I hated his Batman. I was actually talking last night to
someone who pointed out that since the TV show ANGEL premiered,
they've been playing the "he's Batman"
card pretty frequently, and honestly,
I think Boreanz could do a good young Bruce/Batman. But it's
a very hard part, I think--it's honestly three different characters,
and all have to be believable. There's Bats, there's Bruce, and
then there's the man who is trying to balance both.As for favorite
villain, it's Two-Face, but again, not in the movies.Two-Face,
to me, is the perfect Batman foil--his origin is defined, in
part, by his friendship with Bruce/Batman. The pathos in that
is overwhelming, to me. And it allows some wonderful complexity
to Two-Face that I think is lacking in someone like Joker."
Page One
"If you were not a professional writer,
what do you think you would be doing for a living?"
Greg
"I'd probably be teaching... if I'd
been called to it, I think I'd have gone the route of the academic,
tried to land myself a job teaching at a university somewhere.
As it is, I'm very fortunate to be doing what I do now."
Page One
"What advice would you like to pass
along to future novelists?"
Greg
"Discipline is the MOST important
skill, and the only one that can be absolutely controlled. Talent
can be honed, but I don't think it can be created...discipline
can be generated from nothing, and that's the key, because a
writer writes--as the saying goes--and the more a writer
writes, the better the writing. It's cliche, but it's true. Commitment
to the art and discipline are the greatest tools a novelist has.
"Page One
"After reading a Greg Rucka novel,
what would you hope readers would say?"
Greg
"Where's the next one?" or, alternately..."..."
(thoughtful silence as reader ponders
novel...)
