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, and
Critical Space. 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 despite intending to kill
Joe Quesada over his conceived role in the cancellation of
Gotham Central.
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