greg rucka

Kansas City's Planet Comicon has steadily grown into what may be the biggest comics and pop culture convention in the Midwest. After spending several years in the Overland Park Convention Center, a mid-sized facility in a suburb of Kansas City, last year Planet Comicon moved to Bartle Hall, a much bigger facility in the heart of downtown. This year, the convention doubled in floorspace, drew cospl

It's no secret that Greg Rucka's last experience writing for Marvel left the award-winning writer frustrated. But time passes and fences are mended, and as we've seen so often in the past, it's never too late for a creator to return. Sometimes all it takes is the right project. So while it may not be a surprise, it is certainly welcome news that Rucka will be returning to Marvel to write an ongoin

Start wrapping up your week with today's links.

Following the well-received launch of Lazarus, Greg Rucka is continuing his focus on creator-owned comics, as today Dark Horse announced Veil, a five issue miniseries written by Rucka and illustrated by Toni Fejzula. The series marks the award-winning writer's first creator-owned collaboration with Dark Horse.

It looks like fans excited by the prospect of a high-production-value film adaptation of writer Greg Rucka and artist Marco Checchetto's recent run on The Punisher will have to wait for something officially sanctioned by Marvel. The publisher has issued a cease-and-desist order against filmmaker Mike Pecci for his planned film, The Dead Can't Be Distracted, which he says could have been the pilot

Greg Rucka's Eisner Award Winning Queen and Country comic is one step closer to getting a cinematic adaptation at 20th Century Fox. According to The Hollywood Reporter, actress Ellen Page (X-Men: The Last Stand, Super, Inception) is in negotiations to star as British Special Operations Section operative Tara Chace in what could become a series of espionage films.

  With apologies to Batman, The Question is my favorite DC character. Originally created by Steve Ditko for Charlton Comics, the Question, a.k.a Vic Sage, started off as a determined investigative journalist by day and a ruthless crime fighter by night, his roots lying in the same philosophy of Objectivism that Ditko himself is an ardent supporter of. In the 1980s, DC Comics acquired the rights t

While Scott Snyder's work on Batman has made him immensely popular among readers, the title that he first made his name on, and possibly the one most important to him, is American Vampire, his creator-owned series for Vertigo. Written by Snyder and illustrated by co-creator Rafael Albuquerque, American Vampire is the tale of Pearl, an aspiring actress turned into an ageless vampire in the 1920s. T

Sometimes a writer and an artist bring out the best in each other. Greg Rucka would probably tell you how fortunate he's been to work with several especially fantastic artists throughout his career: JH Williams III, Yoshitaka Amano, and Steve Lieber, just to name a few. Likewise, Michael Lark has been paired with some excellent writers like Ed Brubaker and Dean Motter. But Rucka and Lark may be at their best when working together, as they did on the neo-classic Gotham Central, so it was no surprise that last year's announcement of Lazarus, their new series from Image Comics, was met with significant praise from readers, critics, and other creators alike. Like Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples' Saga, Lazarus was the kind of comic book that seemed destined to be critically lauded even before anyone read it. Image Comics, knowing what it had on its hands, marketed the book at every opportunity, releasing artwork well in advance as well as a short story set in the Lazarus universe. But all the early praise did give me some pause. I love what both creators have accomplished together, but sometimes reality can't live up to the hype, even when everything looks good on paper (so-to-speak). But I can confirm Lazarus #1 is a success. Let's take a look at why.

I'm a simple man with simple tastes. I'm also a critic, and that means that I obsess over my simple tastes in an attempt to both quantify them and convince myself that they aren't simple. But at the same time... they are simple, and that's a wonderful thing...