parakkum

Greg Rucka had a substantial line this year, which was really heartwarming -- it's great to see such a fanbase for a writer. I wonder if the lack of artists at the DC table today helped prevent people being siphoned away from him, or if his increased involvement in mainstream DC this past year is to blame.

I respect Greg a great deal as a writer, and I was particularly impressed with the way he integrated his background research into his latest novel, Private Wars. I asked him a number of questions about his writing process.

Q. When you're brought in on a DC title -- for example, the upcoming Supergirl run -- how much do you typically know about the title? Is there a briefing?

A. They definitely don't require prior knowledge of the character in question. "If you hired people based on their in-depth knowledge of the Batman mythos, you'd get really crappy stories." When he was brought in on Batman, he knew the animated series, Year One and Dark Knight.

"Editors are part facilitators..." When you know what kind of character you need, but don't know one by name, you go ask your editor. The editors know the backstory and the world, and will help you avoid mistakes as well as providing you with instances to fit some class you're trying to fill.

Q. Your work -- for example, Private Wars -- represents a huge body of research. How much time did Private Wars represent?

A. "I can't quantify it in man hours." But a lot. His research process typically involves a lot of internet research, a lot of books and online article resource. He also ends up asking a lot of people questions.

Q. How do you organize the research to make it accessible?

A. He uses maps a lot (and there will be inaccuracies -- "Someone from Tashkent is going to come to me and say, 'You can't do that'"). Plot-central research has been done during the plotting phase, but the other research is done as needed along the way. For example, if there's a dinner with a bunch of DPMs, you think, "Where would that happen?" Parkfront property is likely to be the expensive stuff, then you read about the park and learn that "a huge earthquake leveled Tashkent!" Then you incorporate that into the story -- it will be added into the story at other places in less detail, and discussed in more detail during the walk through the park.

Q. How does this work with your writing flow? Do you always break for the research, or do you sometimes "tag" things and fill them in later?

A. If he hits something like that, he'll do a quick internet search and look at his books, but if it requires more extensive research, he'll pass it and move on, going back to it later. "I literally type XXXXX at the end of the sentence and just keep writing."

While I was speaking with him, people came up to have DC and Queen and Country material signed. When I told him that I thought Private Wars was good, he said, "Kinda bleak, hunh?" I replied, "I guess Smoker isn't bleak," and he insisted his stuff isn't all depressing.

When I first heard about Gotham Central, it seemed like a sort of "dream team" book for me, almost as if I'd been given the choice of who to place on the creative team. With Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka as co-writers and the talented Michael Lark covering the pencils, it was three of my favorite creators all in one place.

Of course, if they were doing some random DC hero I'd never heard of, I don't know if that would be enough to keep me reading. I'm not a big reader of super hero comics in general, and my understanding of DC comics in particular is filtered heavily through the WB animated Batman, Superman, and Justice League series. As a consequence, I was really pleased to see that Gotham Central was slated to be a police procedural set in, well, Gotham. I'm a big fan of the larger comics companies spreading into a broader range of mainstream genres, and even a title that is nominally set in the DC universe has a lot of room to have its own identity.

Gotham Central tells the story of Gotham's Major Crimes Unit, a sort of "homicide, kidnapping, and other bad stuff" unit that is distinct in Gotham's police force by dint of being largely noncorrupt (this is one of the major problem areas you already hit in portraying police in Gotham -- in some Batman titles, they are nearly universally corrupt, and in other conceptions, they are entirely ethical -- I think GC hits a nice middle ground here). Their stories do dip heavily into the realm of supervillains and how a police force interacts with a super-vigilante on their turf, so it's not strict police procedural by any means, but at the same time, the series has a nice, real-world verisimilitude going on, and I end up buying into the protagonists' responses to what's going on around them. The characterization and storytelling are both quite strong, which is what I've come to expect from both Brubaker and Rucka.

At the same time, GC suffers from being placed in Batman's world. In particular, the series faces the same problem that Batman and other super-titles face in general -- the good guys are forced to be truly stupid from time to time. This isn't Dark Knight where supervillains and novel and no one's dealt with the Joker before. When a cop in GC decides to roll up his sleeves and "teach the Joker a lesson" I instantly checked out of the story. Of course the Joker is going to overpower him. Of course the Joker is going to grab the cop's gun and kill a lot of people. It's the unwelcome heroic parallel to easily-escaped supervillain death traps. The other major related issue is being stuck with "big events." Stupid Gotham earthquake storyline? Check. Stupid "final night" storyline? Check. And so forth. I just try to read around these things (and for the most part, that works well enough).

On the whole, I recommend the five available Gotham Central volumes. They are:

Volume 1: In the Line of Duty
Volume 2: Half a Life
Volume 3: Unresolved Targets
Volume 4: The Quick and the Dead
Volume 5: Dead Robin