comickal: greg rucka interview

[iainpj]

I love Greg Rucka. Really quite a lot. (No, no, not in THAT way.)

The Question | Vic Sage | Renee Montoya » interviews » Conversation with Greg Rucka (pt. 4 of 5):

EN: Do you remember what the initial reaction was, both from editorial and the readership, on Montoya’s forced coming out?

GR: Yeah. [In editorial] there was almost none. They only cared that the story was done well. There was no resistance at all to revealing that Montoya was a lesbian. Or to showing Montoya kissing Daria. I’m sure, in large part, it was because we were doing it in a book that was selling, charitably, 25K an issue, and we were outing a character that was barely on Burbank’s radar, if at all. But there was no difficulty in getting any of those issues approved.

The readership response was…mixed. Seemed mostly that the people who didn’t like it were people who weren’t actually reading the book. And there was a tempest in a teacup about whether or not it was appropriate to have a queer character in a “kids book.’ My feeling was, and still is, that 1) calling Central a kid’s book was disingenuous, 2) that kids who did read Central wouldn’t care, 3) and that comics needed to be representative of our world where and when they could, to the best of their ability.

[...] The fact is, lesbianism is considered more commercially palatable. Having gay male couples seen “coupling” is a much harder sell. I’m not sure it’s something I would argue with, frankly.

If the underlying question, however, is “would you have written Ron Montoya in the same situation dealing with the same things and responding in the same manner?” the answer is yes. Would I have “gotten away” with showing it? I don’t know. Let’s remember, I didn’t get away with showing Montoya in bed with Zalika.

Flip side — there are multiple points in Central where we see Montoya with Daria, and it’s clear the two of them are in a committed partnership, with all that entails. But in the main, yes, lesbianism is considered more “acceptable,” and the reasons for that have been debated and discussed over and over again.

EN: Is there any “solution” you can foresee? Or will this just be a matter of society’s perceptions changing over time? (That may be a stupid question. Feel free to call me out if I ask stupid questions.)

GR: No, it’s not a stupid question at all. Look, I think comics need to be more representative across the board. I think we need to see more ethnicity, more diversity, more cultural differences. The way we do that is by forging ahead, and taking the small victories where we can. There are people who think this “agenda” is a bad thing. I don’t. Literature is supposed to reflect our world, even if it’s literature that deals with men from Krypton or small furry blue creatures from Alpha Centauri....

[...] EN: Speaking of diversity, and getting back to Gotham Central, the officers of the MCU are widely diverse — lesbians, Hispanics, African Americans…psychics. And from what we see of other departments in the book, this seems to be the exception rather than the rule — almost as if they’d fled or been ostracized from other departments and wound up with the MCU. Was this a conscious effort on the part of you and your collaborators?

GR: It was very conscious on Ed’s and my part to make the MCU as diverse as possible. It was never intended to make the MCU specifically an exception, but remember that when we’re writing a book with “regular characters,” they’re the ones who get design sheets. When you write a story where you need to throw in two or three officers at the scene, unless you’re very clear in the script, you’ll end up with whatever the penciller or editor or colorist ultimately decides. These days, I try to make sure that any “crowd” description I write has something to the effect of, “please make the crowd ethnically diverse.”

EN: I noticed that in your scripts.

GR: Again, it’s just me trying to make sure the books are more representative of the real world....

I wish he had more time to deal with Queen and Country. (I think the gay guy over there may even still be alive, although it's no particular knock if he isn't. Minders Three and Four kind of die a lot.) And I kind of wish he'd been able to do Streets of Gotham, although I can understand why there wasn't as much of a need with Renee becoming the Question. There really isn't a huge amount of difference between her being a private investigator and her being The Question -- except, of course, she'd theoretically get paid as a PI. (...how does she manage to survive as The Question, anyway?) Without her, you'd have to build new viewpoint characters -- you couldn't really use the GCPD people without making it a retread of Gotham Central.

Also, the purely writerly parts, about how he approached different novels, are really fascinating.