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INTRO Hi. I’m Mimi Chan. Welcome to Culture Chat. Thanks for joining the conversation.
SIFU MIMI CHAN: It’s the first new episode of 2021. Naturally I’m kicking off the season with the one and only Greg Rucka. Despite the chaos in the United States, we were able to find some bright spots to discuss, like the upcoming inauguration, hope for the senate, impeachment, and Ted Lasso. Greg shares his process for writing through the mixture of emotions and upcoming projects, such as Lazarus, Black Magick and The Old Guard. After the holiday break, it was great to chat with Greg again and I look forward to our future conversations, which will be a little bit more sporadic due to scheduling, however, stay tuned for more of the Mimi and Greg Show this year. For those who don’t already know, Greg Rucka is a New York Times best-selling author of hundreds of comics and nearly two dozen novels. He is also the writer for the hit film The Old Guard, starring Charlize Theron. I’m loving these conversations and hoping you are too. If you are, please rate my podcast on your platform of choice and share it with others. If you would like to support with a donation to help keep this podcast going, you can become a Patreon of the show by visiting my website or patreon.com/sifumimichan. For comments or suggestions, e-mail me at mimi@culturechatpodcast.com or reach out on social media @sifumimichan. Now on with the show.
GREG RUCKA: Hello!
MIMI CHAN: Hello hello! Happy New Year, Greg!
RUCKA: Happy New Year, Mimi. We hope.
MIMI CHAN: Oh, not sure how new it feels.
RUCKA: We hope.
RUCKA: It’s relatively new.
MIMI CHAN: Yes.
RUCKA: I guess. Today is the 14th, so I guess that was a good, what, that was about a three to four week break, was it?
MIMI CHAN: Yes, yes.
RUCKA: Yeah.
MIMI CHAN: It was a major, major hiatus break for us being that we were on this, like, gung ho, non-stop action every week thing in quarantine. It was no joke, so.
RUCKA: Yeah.
MIMI CHAN: It’s an impressive portfolio we’ve got now. Like you said one episode: “You know, this would be an interesting study for someone to look back and hear all the current events.”
RUCKA: Yeah, they would be like—exactly. We didn’t do it—
MIMI CHAN: “And how we just couldn’t even keep up.”
RUCKA: Yeah. We didn’t do it for ourselves. We did it for some unnamed student who will be studying early 21st century politics and digital media.
MIMI CHAN: Absolutely. And you know, we are that way. We’re very selfless. It’s always for others.
RUCKA: Exactly. We’re always—we’re givers.
MIMI CHAN: We’re givers.
RUCKA: We’re giving.
MIMI CHAN: It’s just our nature.
RUCKA: Yeah.
MIMI CHAN: Well, picking up from where we left off. Of course it was like, okay, we’re going into this whole new year with some hope. Obviously we’re hoping we can get to the inauguration. I mean, we’re still six days out, but being that—
RUCKA: Oh, it will happen.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
RUCKA: It’s going to happen. I mean, this is the thing. The plane is already in the air. It’s just a question of how ugly and bumpy the flight’s going to be. But it’s not gonna be stopped.
MIMI CHAN: Right, right, right.
RUCKA: You know, the absolute worst case scenario, right, still doesn’t mean that Biden is not president.
MIMI CHAN: Right, yes, this is true, which is my—what the hope that I hold onto on occasion. No matter what, come one twenty, this machine gets reset, in a sense. And then we got the senate.
RUCKA: Well—
MIMI CHAN: Which is huge!
RUCKA: It resets or it doesn’t.
MIMI CHAN: Cause’ you didn’t think that was going to happen.
RUCKA: No, I actually didn’t.
MIMI CHAN: Yes, and that was…
RUCKA: And again, I can’t remember if it’s my friend Eric Trautman or my friend Gareth who says—who called them The Gang Who Couldn’t Coup Straight. They just…it’s amazing to me, just from the level of sheer…you know how, like when you watch Bond movies, like the early Bond movies and—
MIMI CHAN: Like the Connery early Bond movies?
RUCKA: Yeah. And you get to the beginning of act three and the villain proceeds to tell James exactly what they were planning to do.
MIMI CHAN: Right.
RUCKA: It is the cliche of the “and this is our evil plan” and you sit there going “You’re a moron! I mean, you were brilliant up until this moment in your evil fictional way and now you’re just—your arrogance is such…” And on one level, I mean, you have to look at this through a very specific black humor lens. But on one level, it is remarkable, it is staggering, that the gerrymandering, the illegal activity, the billions of illegal dollars that were poured into these things, the gross voter suppression, the dirty tricks, the outright lies, and they still couldn’t win that election. I mean…they had and have tried to do everything they can to illegally manipulate the outcome of the vote and they still couldn’t do it to such an extent it was not even close enough to trigger a recount.
MIMI CHAN: Right. I was shocked, I’m gonna say. I prepared myself for the worst—
RUCKA: Yeah, talk about—
MIMI CHAN: And I was shocked.
RUCKA: Talk about them shooting themselves. You know, that wasn’t just “let’s put a bullet in the foot.” It’s like “you know what, I can recover from that. Let me put one in the shin and one in my knee and get my other leg too while I’m at it.” I mean, quite literally. They—as much as I—and I am very grateful for the incredible efforts of everybody who campaigned and who donated and who were boots on the ground and to the African American population that made that election what it was.
MIMI CHAN: Yes, absolutely.
RUCKA: All of that being equal, it still was like, “wow, the Republicans literally—they lost that election.”
MIMI CHAN: Yeah, yeah, I mean…
RUCKA: Yeah, the Democrats didn’t win it. The Republican’s lost it. And lost it significantly. You know, so.
MIMI CHAN: I dunno. I hope that’s foreshadowing then. That their entire, you know, evil towers will all crumble. But I still like to look at the hopeful side. Like you said, the people that came out.
RUCKA: Yeah.
MIMI CHAN: I mean, Stacey Abrams…
RUCKA: Well, so this is the thing you take from it, right. This is the hope you take from it. Which is—given how stacked that deck was, for it to be in this political environment, a decisive win, effectively, that is a remarkable sign. And I do think, you know, look, you can see it already. The Republican party is now beginning to fracture. Whether or not it will fracture in a meaningful way remains to be seen. But, what was the count yesterday? Ten.
MIMI CHAN: Ten.
RUCKA: Republicans in the house we’re like, “Yeah, impeach the son of a bitch.” Now that’s unheard of, given the rule of the Republicans going back to the 90’s. Thou Shall Not Break the Party. And there’s so many things we can talk about coming out of that. We can talk about the balkanization of the country, we can talk about how the difference between the rhetoric and the political truth are stark. We can talk about all sorts of things coming out of this. There are things to take encouragement from. But—you know, the sad truth is, I think for a lot of us, we would have really liked to be able to quote go back to the way it was before things were crazy. And we can’t. And if we do, not only are we going to find ourselves in this situation again. It’s going to be worse.
MIMI CHAN: Exactly.
RUCKA: The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. It has never been, I think, more true.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah. And that’s the point. We’re at a point in this country’s history where we constantly have brushed under the rug the parts of history we don’t want to learn from and talk about.
RUCKA: Yeah.
MIMI CHAN: And this is exactly what you’re saying. One of those times where no, let’s look at it and acknowledge it. Know that this is happening. I mean, obviously, we’re gonna—we can not talk about the insurrection at the capital. But like, I was just listening to Dan Carlin’s Common Sense and I love to listen to people that can put things way better than I can, but everything you just said makes complete sense. And it’s like—
RUCKA: Yeah.
MIMI CHAN: Never has a president ever been like “you are not my people.”
RUCKA: Yeah.
MIMI CHAN: People have said “that’s not my president”. People can—the democracy, the people, have a choice. But the president is supposed to embrace all of his people, right.
RUCKA: Well, the president is the president of the country—
MIMI CHAN: —of the United States, yeah, but we’re not a United States right now, are we.
RUCKA: You can’t decide on being president of only people who like me.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
RUCKA: But of course—and it’s interesting watching—you know, I take great delight in every word coming out of the White House that Trump is ranting and raving. Look, there’s just—this is where we are. You can not, after what happened at the Capital, look at what the Republicans have… and what Trump himself have promoted and no longer be—you have to have an opinion on it.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
RUCKA: And the vast majority of American’s, finally, were like “well, that’s too much. That wasn’t cool.”
MIMI CHAN: Yeah, I was wondering when enough is enough would be a thing.
RUCKA: Apparently we found a line. Apparently the line was armed people breaking into the Capital to try to disrupt a legal proceeding. And I love these fucking morons now being like “what did I do.”
MIMI CHAN: Yeah, they’re the victims.
RUCKA: You committed an act of terror, you shit head.
MIMI CHAN: They’re crying that they can’t get on a plane.
RUCKA: What do you mean I’m on a no fly list.
MIMI CHAN: Yes!
RUCKA: Oh boo-fucking-hoo. Maybe you should have thought that through.
MIMI CHAN: You have video of yourself doing it, posting yourself doing it. Like now they’re the victims.
RUCKA: It’s remarkable to me that they’ve actually achieved the level of treason and sedition and not realized it.
MIMI CHAN: Right. That’s how brainwashed they are. They’re doing this for the country.
RUCKA: Well, look at Ted Cruz.
MIMI CHAN: Oh god. I can’t stand him.
RUCKA: I hope to God he’s had a moment where he’s like “oh shit” because this is—this is why James Comey can go fuck himself. “Oh, we shouldn’t pursue this.” Screw you.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
RUCKA: There is no argument to be—none whatsoever—to be made. To, well, now we have to reconcile. And the way I would put that is “really?” That’s how we get where we are today. Over and over again, letting this stuff pass. I was talking to Jen yesterday about it and she pointed out that Ford, after Nixon, saying “well, we just want to move past this.”
MIMI CHAN: Yes.
RUCKA: No. That—that plants the seeds. The question as to whether or not Biden should be seen to be involved in it or actively involved in it is a separate one. But every one of these people has to be investigated. Everything—I mean, if I had the power, I would turn to Merrick Garland and I would say “no, you go after every last mother fucking one of them.”
MIMI CHAN: Absolutely.
RUCKA: “Wherever it takes you. Whoever it implicates. I don’t care about party. This has to be cut out. This is Cancer and it’s got to be treated.”
MIMI CHAN: [indistinguishable]
RUCKA: This isn’t simply sedition. There are now things coming out that are genuinely treasonous.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
RUCKA: Panic buttons being removed from offices.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah! Tours being given to people to show them around.
RUCKA: That was—
MIMI CHAN: How did they know where to go and got there so easily.
RUCKA: Yeah.
MIMI CHAN: It wasn’t just a riot that went— [indistinguishable]
RUCKA: No. They got let in.
MIMI CHAN: Yes. It was a plan.
RUCKA: They got let in.
MIMI CHAN: It was a plan.
RUCKA: And it’s a plan that clearly goes all the way to the White House. So this belief that, well, we just need to move past it. We absolutely do need to move past it. What people like Comey are saying is “just forget about it.” Fuck that noise. The way you move past this—you don’t ignore it when your kid has broken a vase. You want to move past it. You say “you are now going to be punished in some way for playing baseball inside the house after being expressly told not to.”
MIMI CHAN: And responsibility for it.
RUCKA: Exactly.
MIMI CHAN: There are consequences to your actions.
RUCKA: There are consequences. And if this is not pursued, then the ultimate legacy of the Trump administration will be everything that Trump has embodied, which is the law does not matter. That will be the end conclusion. And—I mean, obviously, there is an obvious problem with letting that stand.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
RUCKA: So.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah. I think we’re in a very fragile state. We have a choice here to set a precedent. It’s already been too much. He’s already gotten away with too much. When is enough going to be enough. I was so frustrated with the Republicans because on one hand right after they were al…
RUCKA: Really? I’m shocked.
MIMI CHAN: And then it’s just like, five days later they’ve already forgotten. “Well, he didn’t say exactly to go and do these things.”
RUCKA: Yeah. It’s—
MIMI CHAN: “It wasn’t verbatim.” And…Gosh. I just.
RUCKA: Oh, this is—
MIMI CHAN: Why do I keep hoping that they’re actually good, decent human beings.
RUCKA: Yeah, I dunno.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
RUCKA: I really don’t know. I mean, what’s her name saying “On the 20th, I’m going to introduce Articles of Impeachment on Biden.” And it’s like, really? I mean, really? Good luck with that little piece of political theatre. That’s playing to the base. I’m going to the capital with a gun. There was a Garry Trudeau series on Amazon a couple years ago called Alpha House or something. It was a sitcom with three senators all sharing the same town house.
MIMI CHAN: Oh god.
RUCKA: Which is apparently not actually unrealistic. When they are in session. And it was a comedy and in the second or third season, there is a—at that point—Tea Party Republican who has been elected, who is played by the woman who played Donna Moss on The West Wing, which makes it even funnier. And there’s a gag where one of the main characters, the John Goodman character, is at work at the Capital, and she is leading a tour of her constituents and literally pulls out her gun. And Capital security is like “holy shit!” and they hit the alarms and he’s walking through the hall when everything starts blurring and he sees it and literally walks up and takes the gun from her. But the gag there is so crazy about her right to bear arms that she brought a gun, literally—
MIMI CHAN: Yes.
RUCKA: —into this zone. And that was Trudeau’s satire. And we now have, what, a couple days ago, one of them did.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
RUCKA: I mean—
MIMI CHAN: That’s the problem. I used to watch—I watched Veep til’ the end. And Julia Louis-Dreyfus was “so when we started this show, we thought we could be funny and be just outrageous but then it started coming true and it was just sad.”
RUCKA: You can’t—
MIMI CHAN: No more The Onion, there’s no more.
RUCKA: I haven’t—yeah. We have killed satire. We’ve literally killed satire. You can not…
MIMI CHAN: You can’t write this stuff.
RUCKA: Black Mirror did their year in review on Netflix.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah, I didn’t see it but I saw the Netflix trailer.
RUCKA: It’s kinda hard to watch.
MIMI CHAN: I can’t.
RUCKA: It’s really sharp. But literally the satire in it is not satire. Like, they have a tech multi-billionaire and one of the first gags with that character is Greta speaking at Davos about climate change and the gag there is, “I found this incredibly moving and I called my people immediately and that’s where I’m talking to you from my underground, hollowed out mountain in New Zealand. And preparing to live in outer space.” That’s not satire. It isn’t.
MIMI CHAN: I know.
RUCKA: Satire requires it to be a lie at some point. To have extrapolated fiction to an absurd conclusion.
MIMI CHAN: Oh man.
RUCKA: When people are doing that, it’s not satire. It’s a documentary.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah, exactly. It’s a documentary.
RUCKA: Black Mirror is one of those shows where Oscar loves them. They make me feel too dark and uncomfortable.
RUCKA: They hit too close.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah, I don’t like it. I don’t like it. I respect the work they’re doing in terms of being a show but I can not watch them. And it’s always bizarre when they do something and you go “oh wait, China just did that. They’re ranking people and giving them points socially.”
RUCKA: On the basis of their social media scores.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah. And there’s things happening and I don’t like when Black Mirror is becoming documentary. That’s scary to me.
RUCKA: We had that in Lazarus. That’s one of the—that was in Lazarus. I’m not sure it ever went to print. But we hit that on for just—how the Li family rules as part of the methodology. Because it’s all computer monitored. Like, exceptionally computer monitored. I mean, we did that three, four years ago now.
MIMI CHAN: Well, we’ve talked about you writing documentaries.
RUCKA: Yeah, no. This is the problem. I don’t know where I’m going now. This is part of the reason why Lazarus, I think, maybe in a subconscious response, is part of the reason why the last couple issues and where we are now, are sort of shifting far more into a tighter focus on these people and the situation, than the world. Though that was arguably always the goal. The series was to set everything and then being able to tell the story. But yeah, at a certain point, it’s just like “I’m out of—I can’t make anything else up. You guys took all my stuff.”
MIMI CHAN: Yeah, you’re like “what am I supposed to do now.”
RUCKA: Yeah. I mean, quite literally—
MIMI CHAN: “You stormed the capital.”
RUCKA: “You stole all of my shit.” I had a moment a couple days ago. I was coming down the stairs to my office and I realized, literally realized. Holy Shit. The timeline in Lazarus, like literally, the real world and the events that lead to the Dissolution War are remarkably similar. I mean, like, change the punctuation and the spelling of a couple things similar.
MIMI CHAN: Right, yeah, so chop this name with this one.
RUCKA: Yeah.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah, yeah.
RUCKA: Yeah, that’s. That’s actually not a great place to be. Let me tell ya.
MIMI CHAN: Well, agreed. I don’t envy the position you’re in. Because there’s so much writing on—
RUCKA: Well, mostly it’s I’m not proud of it. I don’t wanna do this anymore. I’ve done enough.
MIMI CHAN: Right. But the thing is, regardless of what’s happening in the real world and where your Lazarus world and the characters are headed, it’s still, no matter what at the end of the day, you’re the storyteller and you’re able to tell the story even if it’s a similar story and even if there’s similar realities and even if that’s what you planned, I don’t think it will come off as “oh, Greg is just taking this from current events.” Like, you’re still going to tell it in your way.
RUCKA: I dunno. You read Lazarus in twenty years and you’re not going to know when it was written.
MIMI CHAN: Right, right.
RUCKA: If you read Lazarus in twenty years—
MIMI CHAN: “Oh, this was all after all these—”
RUCKA: Yeah, you’ll say “well, this series began in 2021.” And I’ll say “no, it didn’t. It began in 2013.”
MIMI CHAN: And I’ll say “listen to our audio podcast files. You’ll know.”
RUCKA: “We have proof!”
MIMI CHAN: “We have proof!” But one of your most popular episodes, speaking of what we have discussed, is how you use your anger to write. And so I ask you now because I think it’s—
RUCKA: My fury!
MIMI CHAN: Your fury. But also because of all of the events that are happening and because of the content of a lot of what you do write. And as you sit down over these next several weeks, cause we just discussed your plan that you’re going to be really focusing on all of these projects. But how do you or how will you use your anger, sadness, hope, all of it, to, you know, create in these next several weeks to come. Because you have deadlines, you’ve got work that’s going to get done.
RUCKA: Well, it’s weird. The stuff I’m working on right now…the things I am working on right now aren’t going to so overly reflect. One of them—well. I’ve got a character in one of these things that will quite literally be able to say “look out the window and tell me what you see.” And in that sort of scream and shout about it. And there are a couple of things that are finally starting to move now that are in their own way, parody. I’m working on something right now that the co-creator and I, or the co-creators, I should say, and I, have been referring to as pulp. It’s very pulpy. We’re fans of pulps and one of the things I want for this and we’re all sort of agreed, is that feeling you got when you were thirteen or fourteen and you found an issue of heavy metal. That sense of I’m looking at something a little naughty, a little transgressive. I’m doing something I shouldn’t be doing. Not—it’s a weird moment. I dunno if listeners are going to be—either they’re going to get it or I’m not making any sense. It’s not the same as finding porn. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about that sense that you had when you were a kid, and I think this is a fairly universal experience, and you picked up the thing that was a little scary looking. There was something about it that was both—it was lurid. It was just a bit dangerous. And you were afraid to be caught reading it. Not because somebody would be—not because you were gonna get hit.
MIMI CHAN: Or in trouble. Right.
RUCKA: Right, but maybe because somebody would see that you were reading it. Or know that there were naked people on this page or what not. And that, in its way, pulp goes to satire in an interesting way.
MIMI CHAN: Okay.
RUCKA: They’re not actually that far apart. And there is some satire developing in this as a result. Though it’s fairly broad in that sense. I’ve got things that I want to work on this year and, you know, of them, yeah, there are a couple of them that are pretty much born out of incandescent anger. There was a thing that I wrote—we weren’t even two months into quarantine and I wrote the first script of it. And had the artist and we were talking and literally sent the script to Matt Fraction, just saying “I wrote this one. Let me know what you think. And this is the concept.” And Matt came back and he said—he gave me a great note, which was basically “This is your fourth issue, not your first.” And I was like “aw shit, he’s right. I need to write three, basically done in one’s.” And started to sit down and write them and immediately ran into the real world. Stuff that was happening, literally in the news at that moment. And I was like “I can’t do this right now. I can’t.” You know, I have a friend who is a comic book artist and who is really talented. Has a real, real problem drawing violence now and when you work in mainstream superhero comics, that’s a problem.
MIMI CHAN: Absolutely.
RUCKA: And the reason why is because they were out and about when they were getting off Met’s transit and arrived at a shooting at the station and they’re haunted by that. They are unable to put up the fiction barrier between the realities of violence and the fiction of violence.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
RUCKA: And it’s interesting working on The Old Guard, for instance, because violence is part and parcel of The Old Guard. That is their selling point. Their selling point is we do violence and you can do violence to us and we’re going to be okay. And the difference between—one of the big differences between the movie and the comics and particularly the first comic series, is the first comic series is silly.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah. It’s fun and light.
RUCKA: Because for all of the gross violence, Leo’s style is just cartoony enough that when Joe’s eye is hanging out by it’s optic nerve, you don’t want to throw up.
MIMI CHAN: Right, right.
RUCKA: Right. You look at that and go “aaaaaa gahhhh” and then in the next panel it’s back and you’re fine.
MIMI CHAN: Right, oh, he’ll be okay.
RUCKA: If you saw that on screen—Marwan Kenzari wearing a prosthetic that has his eye hanging down to about his elbow.
MIMI CHAN: Not the same, not the same.
RUCKA: No, the audience would be like “oh god, I’m going to puke.”
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
RUCKA: Or it’s going to be—even Deadpool, the second Deadpool went so far into that violence gag of the first movie that it was problematic. I thought in the second, they needed to dial it back a little bit. It was a little too much.
MIMI CHAN: Okay.
RUCKA: Greg went on a tangent. What a shock! But yeah, I mean, the thing with any writer is you never actually know what it is you’re writing about or what’s influencing you until after the fact. I know what I think I’m writing about. We’ll see when it’s set and done. If that is in fact what I am writing about. So. But, I will say that I am writing. Which is nice. Because I hadn’t been finding that easy to do for quite a while. And I guess the rubber finally hit the road. You don’t get to dick around anymore. It’s time to get to work. It’s been productive so far. It’s been good.
MIMI CHAN: That’s awesome. Well, it’s great for me and the rest of the listeners. But, do you find that—
RUCKA: Again you say that. Wait until you read it. You may go “this is not for me.” I have—there’s a contingent of Renee Montoya fans who we have tried to steer towards Lazarus and they’re like “I can’t get past that first issue.” And it’s like “okay”. That’s not their fault, you know what I mean. If it’s not for you, it’s not for you. I’m not gonna to tell you it must be.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah, that’s true, true. But you write enough and you have enough projects going on. I know for a fact there’s going to be a lot for me, personally. And I have a lot of testaments to that as well. Everyone is anxiously waiting for all of your work. I think a question that comes to mind for me is that do you find it easier to “okay, I gotta pick up. Forever is doing this, or I’m in Black Magick and this is where I’m at.” Is it easier to pick up from something that’s already established or is it easier to sometimes just go “you know what, I have this thing I’ve been thinking about and let me just—”
RUCKA: It goes back and forth, actually. Like where I am in Lazarus. And Lazarus is—and I’m sure people have noticed—far behind schedule right now.
MIMI CHAN: Yes, I’ve noticed.
RUCKA: And there are a lot of reasons for this.
MIMI CHAN: Of course.
RUCKA: Not in the least which being COVID outbreaks amongst the creative team and things like that. I mean, we’ve had all sorts of—and the difficulty and I’m not gonna spin this. It’s been really hard to work.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
RUCKA: Given the state of the world. It’s very hard to look at your silly comic book and go “this is relevant” when black American’s are being executed willy nilly and when politicians are urging gun owning constituents to shoot people. You kinda go “I’m not sure this matters right now.”
MIMI CHAN: I can see that it’s hard to find the motivation. Which is why I said “gosh, how do you—”
RUCKA: On some of these things there are so many moving pieces that it is actually harder to be like—Lazarus is always, always challenging to write. And the issue I am writing right now is kicking my ass. We’re at a point in the series where so many things are starting to come to a head and there are things I wanna do and trying to make it all work…there’s a sequence in this issue that I really, really want to do and I am running out of pages to do it in. And it maybe has to be in this issue, but maybe I’m gonna get to a point where it’s gonna have to wait for the next one. Black Magick is currently on hold cause Nick is having to do other stuff and we had finished the first arc of the second act. So now we have to do the back half of that and I’m gonna have to resume that probably in the next three, four weeks.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
RUCKA: I have to start writing The Old Guard: Fade Away and that is actually really proving to be challenging because we have now reached a point where movie continuity and comic continuity are very different things and I have blurred them accidentally at a couple of points. There were mistakes I made in the writing of Force Multiplied because of things we were doing in the movie that Alejandro had to point out “that’s not our continuity” and I was like……“damn, I should know that”. Leandro has put together a timeline. A detailed timeline of everything about the characters. And I’m just like “thank god”.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
RUCKA: Because now I need to go in and print it out so I know—
MIMI CHAN: I can see how that would be crazy though. Because it’s the exact same people, slightly different parallel—
RUCKA: And I’ve already screwed it up to an extent. So. And the problem with throwing down dates with these characters. And now we’ve got the—
MIMI CHAN: The anthologies.
RUCKA: Coming. So now we’re trying to figure out where everybody is during these different points in time. Could Andy have been with Achilles in Australia in the 1820’s and then be in the US during the Civil War. How difficult is the travel, you know what I mean.
MIMI CHAN: Things you have to think about that no one else gets to see. But it’s such a process, absolutely.
RUCKA: Right.
MIMI CHAN: I love hearing about that.
RUCKA: But then, it’s interesting because one of the things that happens and I find this happens whenever I’m working on a screenplay. I will watch certain movies that I think do things really, really well and I am again watching Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation.
MIMI CHAN: Okay.
RUCKA: Because I think Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation is hands down the best Mission Impossible movie.
MIMI CHAN: Okay, remind me which one—is it the most recent—no, it’s not the most recent one.
RUCKA: No. It’s the one before Fallout. It’s the one with Sean Harris. It’s the one that introduces Rebecca Furgeson. It’s the one that begins with Cruise hanging off from the plane.
MIMI CHAN: Okay, yes, yes, okay.
RUCKA: One of the things that I love about that movie, just from a craft point of view, and this is the thing, that McQuarrie as the writer and director, has a wonderful sense of what the audience needs and what the audience doesn’t. And if you watch that movie, there are so many points where you go “wait a minute, how did they get that? Where did that come from? I’m supposed to accept that solution? This doesn’t make any sense.” There are multiple moments where you should stop and go “what the hell”. But you don’t. You accept it and you roll on. And you just roll and it’s great and the character stuff is fun and the sequences are exciting. And the thing that I love about that movie more than anything else is that just as a piece of craftsmanship, there are few better in recent memory than that movie, in my opinion.
MIMI CHAN: Wow, that’s high praise coming from Greg Rucka.
RUCKA: I think it’s masterful. McQuarrie is—
MIMI CHAN: Now I have to go and rewatch it. I always enjoy them. I know what I’m going to get. I know exactly what they’re going to be. But I can’t [indistinguishable]
RUCKA: When you watch it, when you watch it, when you watch it, think about the fact that for everything else that is being talked about in the movie and what they think is going inside someone, Ethan has a very clear and simple throughline and it’s never articulated. But, if you remember the movie, it starts when he is in the listening booth.
MIMI CHAN: Is it like a record store?
RUCKA: Yeah, in the record store. And he watches the Sean Harris character murder the other agent in front of him.
MIMI CHAN: Right.
RUCKA: That whole movie, in my opinion, like all other plots, thematically, it’s about Ethan getting justice for her. And it is a clear throughline. And it serves its characters very well. And so I watch it and like I say, there’s an element of magical realism to the world that we accept. We accept that even disavowed, Ethan has access to all of the incredible equipment he’s going to need. Even disavowed. Or like Benji, and I love this, Jen and I were talking about this last night. Benji is tricked into arriving in Vienna to go to the opera, he thinks he’s won, but Ethan is actually using him for this thing and then you get the opera set piece which is a gorgeous, beautifully done set piece.
MIMI CHAN: Right, yes.
RUCKA: And then they leave. And Benji has the car. Now, Benji has had no time to find the car, get a car. No where on the screen does Ethen say to him “by the way, there’s a BMW parked around there”. But he pulls up in the sequence and literally goes “get in!” and they get in and they’re off. And you don’t ask where the fuck did Benji got the car because you don’t need it.
MIMI CHAN: Movie magic.
RUCKA: Right and in the back of your head when you ask the question, you’re like “well, he boosted it. He found it. He’s the tech guy.” It doesn’t matter.
MIMI CHAN: It’s okay. Yeah.
RUCKA: And I bring that up by way of saying I appreciate our timeline, and I appreciate us wanting to be clear about it, but there’s a magical realism about our characters who can’t die. I mean, it’s sort of incumbent in that concept, that there is—we can play a little fast and loose in some places, guys, it’s alright. It’s not a betrayal and not every question—and this is the other thing—not every question needs to be answered. Not every question is relevant. And it’s interesting because there are studio executives who will obsess about little details.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
RUCKA: “Well, this doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand this. This doesn’t make sense” and you’ll be like “this doesn’t matter.”
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
RUCKA: This need to justify and explain everything is like—give your audience a little credit. It’s okay. They don’t have to know everything.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah, I have very limited experience but the experience I have with the whole studio exec thing is that they just have the need or maybe they’ll find out they’re not relevant if they don’t put in their note. And it’s frustrating sometimes.
RUCKA: I have encountered some people who very clearly are giving notes to justify their paycheck.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
RUCKA: And I have had the pleasure of working with people who like giving notes that absolutely only make things better.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah. And I’m sure that’s there, for sure.
RUCKA: I mean, Don Grainger from Skydance, he’ll never hear this, so I can say this. I mean, he’ll never hear it. The man has never given me a bad note. Never given me a bad note. And I hate him for that.
MIMI CHAN: But that’s refreshing. It’s like “well, thank you” because in the end it makes you look better.
RUCKA: Yeah! Especially when you’re making a movie.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah!
RUCKA: This is collaborative work.
MIMI CHAN: Absolutely.
RUCKA: I’m not looking to have—I don’t believe in author authority. And I don’t direct, so. But I’m not looking to be like “so this is mine”. If you’ve got an idea, let’s do it. And that’s how we work on everything. And it might be why I find novels so difficult these days. Because there’s no opportunity for that. If I’m writing a novel, it’s all me.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
RUCKA: It’s all me. And it’s tiring. And lonely.
MIMI CHAN: How does it work when you see people co-authors? Is that only non-fiction it happens in? I’m trying to think.
RUCKA: No. And it works differently for different people. But I think a lot of teams tend to pass material back and forth or will work out things together and that is—you figure out the workflow based on the individual. I’m working on a thing right now where I’m co-writing it. And we deviate on the scenes and pass them back and forth and one of the things I have to do is read the scenes they send me and give my notes on it.
MIMI CHAN: I always find that process fascinating because I’m very much “okay, I’ll do my part and get it done”. I have trust issues with people not getting their stuff done, but that might just be from college where no one got their stuff done, so I then had to take, you know.
RUCKA: Sure.
MIMI CHAN: I always find it fascinating when people are able to operate in such a cohesive way. Which is why I love comic creators.
RUCKA: But you hit the word. The word is entirely trust. If you do not trust—you have to trust. Because if you are not trusting, then you’re going to second guess the motivations behind notes and so on. I know my co-creator on this project and they told me yesterday “my comments are in line on the scene that you sent. I have some notes.” I know none of those notes are motivated from a place of “I want to make Greg look bad.”
MIMI CHAN: Yeah, yeah.
RUCKA: Or “I’m trying to make me look good.” Those notes are there because they want to tell it as best they can.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
RUCKA: This is one of the reasons why working with someone like Michael is always a joy. I sent him a script and he will call me on anything he thinks doesn’t work and he’ll do it without hesitation. He’ll be like “this is crap. This isn’t good. This doesn’t make sense” and it’s like “okay.”
MIMI CHAN: I love your Michael impression.
RUCKA: The thing I love about Michael—one of the things I love about Michael is he has what, I believe it was Hemingway who called it the built-in shock bullshit detector. He’s got no patience or time for it. None.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
RUCKA: Just, none. And it’s, oh my god, so refreshing. Because I never worry that there’s an ulterior motive to what he’s saying.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah. He’s very clear.
RUCKA: Yeah, I don’t have to worry that—this is about the work and making it as good as possible and “Greg, you did not fulfill your part of the bargain.”
MIMI CHAN: In case you don’t know, Michael Lark is who we’re talking about.
RUCKA: I love him for many reasons and that’s one of them.
MIMI CHAN: I’ll never forget the first time we met Michael Lark. He was like “oh, you’re going to go to the panel where Greg is. I want you to raise your hand and ask why is Michael Lark such a great collaborator.” I was like “okay!” He was trying to plant in the audience. And I immediately—I could see why you guys worked so well together. It was so clear. So so clear.
RUCKA: Yeah. He and I—
MIMI CHAN: He really is magic. Lazarus is just magical.
RUCKA: He and I mesh well because we are not at all the same person. And that’s part of it. We are very different people. We are very aligned in many places. There are places where there is no daylight between us. But we are very very different people with very very different interests and hobbies. And I actually think it is those differences that have helped us as much as they have. And I think Michael has a very healthy regard for what the work is. He sees the craft and he takes it very seriously but he is also willing to acknowledge it as work and it’s not the only thing that defines him. And for a lot of us, that’s hard. Especially in comics.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah. It’s been fascinating to get to know a lot more creators and you see that—I understand much more why a lot of times once you find, kind of, the people you enjoy working with, why you continuously work with them. Because there’s that trust, like you said. And it must be very well earned and you had to put a lot of time to do so but it’s so nice to be able to be in a point in your career where you get to choose who you work with.
RUCKA: Both Michael and I are now in our 50’s. So I feel we came by it honestly. We put in the years and put in the hours.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah, it’s awesome. Speaking of Lazarus. I’ve always been the number one advocate. Just as a reminder, I am here for you guys. However I can facilitate Lazarus being on schedule, you just let me know. I am a at your service.
RUCKA: We’re shooting for the next issue in March.
MIMI CHAN: Yes.
RUCKA: Once that is out, we will be doing everything we can to get those back on schedule. I wish there was—yeah. Look, we’ve had this problem from the start. And we were able to hit those four of the quarterlies—
MIMI CHAN: Yeah, the quarterlies.
RUCKA: —as promised. But getting issue 4 and issue 5 in… the first was all the COVID stuff happened and we went into lockdown and that just blew things up. And we’re still trying to steady on the basis of that.
MIMI CHAN: Of course. Of course. No, I mean, I think it’s actually been quite remarkable that we’ve had content to kind of hold us over and what not.
RUCKA: Yeah.
MIMI CHAN: I encourage everyone on re-reads anyway, so.
RUCKA: There you go. Take your footnotes.
MIMI CHAN: Study your canon. I want to spend the last couple minutes not talking about Wonder Woman: 84 but instead Ted Lasso!
RUCKA: Yes! You watched Ted Lasso.
MIMI CHAN: Oh my goodness. So it is been on the list of things to watch for so long because you talk about it so much. Oscar and I just devoured it. It was just exactly what we needed, at the exact time. And immediately—Oscar kind of analogizes everything that’s coaching and teaching and he‘s like “it’s like a master class in coaching after episode one.”
RUCKA: Yeah.
MIMI CHAN: He said “this is the type of show that makes you want to be a better person.”
RUCKA: Yeah.
MIMI CHAN: And I thought “wow, that’s quite a lot to say about a comedy tv show.”
RUCKA: Yeah, it is a remarkable happy accident.
MIMI CHAN: Yes.
RUCKA: Because Apple as a studio, and there’s stuff written about this, is so concerned about…and look at their projects and what they’re picking. They are desperate to not offend anybody. They are desperate to not offend anybody because they don’t want to be cut out of a market. Which is going to hurt them horribly in the long run.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
RUCKA: But Ted Lasso is this perfect package at a perfect time. It literally is the right show, right place, right time.
MIMI CHAN: Yes.
RUCKA: It is so well done. And it’s smart. And it’s smart with its characters and how it treats its characters. As I think I said to you, there are really only two women who reoccur. They’re two regulars. And the rest is a bunch of guys.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah, the soccer team.
RUCKA: But what they do with those two characters have just vibrant, terrific story and are treated with such respect by the writers. Which is not to say kid gloves. They’re just—it’s fantastic. They avoid so many of the obvious traps and there isn’t anybody I know who has seen the show and not gone “I liked it or I was really enjoying it” and then you get the Everton game when they go to Liverpool and that’s the episode where almost everyone is like “oh my god, this is remarkable. This is something special.” And it is. I think it’s—
MIMI CHAN: Yeah!
RUCHA: It literally is something special.
MIMI CHAN: It is something special.
RUCKA: It’s a show that is special
MIMI CHAN: Yeah. I mean, so much of it resonated for us as coaches and teachers but also, just, even the fact he would bring her that biscuit—
RUCKA: —every morning.
MIMI CHAN: And she would be like “where did you get this!” He was baking them!
RUCKA: Yeah!
MIMI CHAN: I was just like “oh my god”.
RUCKA: They do little things.
MIMI CHAN: Like those little touches.
RUCKA: The peanut butter jar. I love Trent Crimm from The Independent. I love that it is also such a show about responsibility and people taking responsibility.
MIMI CHAN: Yes. Yeah. Leadership.
RUCKA: Yeah. And that Ted is not without his flaws.
MIMI CHAN: Yes, absolutely.
RUCKA: There’s that great scene where Beard is calling him out in the pub and it’s a really important moment in the series. And like I said, as a soccer fan; the in jokes. There are just a couple throwaways in there that had me falling over.
MIMI CHAN: I’m sure.
RUCKA: And they’re literally just for fans of soccer and so on. If you know what they’re referring to.
MIMI CHAN: It’s super brilliant because they’re able to take this character which you initially, in the first couple minutes, you’re like “oh, this guy is just going to be a silly, goofy, okay, it’s one of those” but it’s just the connectivity to the character but also the sense of responsibility they put on him. And when he had his moment on the dart board it was so satisfying to me.
RUCKA: And the speech. And the speech that he gives.
MIMI CHAN: He would have asked about me.
RUCKA: If you were curious, you would have learned. Like I said, the premise of the show—and if you look at its origins, its origins were a bunch of bumper things for NBC Sports when they started showing the Premier League regularly. That’s where the Ted Lasso gag came from. “He’s an American football coach. He’s coaching Tottenham Spurs” and you and you can find them on Youtube and they’re funny and you see they recycle a couple of the jokes.
MIMI CHAN: Okay.
RUCKA: But that gag only works in that thing. So when they say “we’re doing a Ted Lasso series” you’re like “that’s not gonna work” because all that is is an ugly American.
MIMI CHAN: Yes.
RUCKA: And their decision—they answered to the media questions and they were writing room questions. These are craft questions. And the first was: to make this work, Ted can not be unworthy of this job. He shouldn’t have gotten it is the premise.
MIMI CHAN: Right.
RUCKA: But why is he actually the right person. We have to answer that and that can’t be—and that answer means he can’t be an ugly American. This is not about mocking the sport. And it’s not about making fun of Ted. So that’s one. And then the second question they had to answer, was how the hell did he get this job.
MIMI CHAN: Right.
RUCKA: And in answering that question you get everything from Rebecca.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah, yeah.
RUCKA: Then the treatment of Rebecca becomes, like I said, that’s the engine, and that doesn’t work if you do not empathize with Rebecca. If you’re not with her. And that’s one of the reasons the Keeley/Rebecca stuff is so great.
MIMI CHAN: Yes. So great. So great. But they do a great job of making you empathize with each character at some point. Cause at first you’re like “I hate that guy! There’s nothing good about him.” And then you’re like “oh, he’s pretty much abused all the time.”
RUCKA: Yeah, exactly.
MIMI CHAN: And you go like “ohhh okay”. That’s missing in so many shows now and movies. There’s no connectivity with the character. You just don’t even care—if they died in a plane, it wouldn’t even matter.
RUCKA: It goes back to—they respected. They respected all of their characters. They let them have their moments of humanity. Except for really one. And you shouldn’t like Rupert. Now I am curious that come second season—
MIMI CHAN: Yeah, you never know.
RUCKA: —we’re going to learn a little something about Rupert.
MIMI CHAN: Right.
RUCKA: But right now—you can run over Rupert with a speed baller and I’d be like “keep going!”
MIMI CHAN: There has to be a villain.
RUCKA: Exactly. It’s like, I’m not sure I need to understand Rupert.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah. No. We’re good.
RUCKA: Yeah.
MIMI CHAN: But thank you so much for that recommendation.
RUCKA: I am so glad you guys enjoyed it.
MIMI CHAN: And if you haven’t noticed by now, please, please watch it.
RUCKA: You can get the free seven day Apple+ preview—
MIMI CHAN: Yeah, exactly. It’s worth it.
RUCKA: Yeah, literally all you need it is for a day and you can binge watch this thing and then cancel it.
MIMI CHAN: Yes, it’s so good.
RUCKA: It really is worthwhile.
MIMI CHAN: Absolutely. Alright, that’s a happy note for us to end on.
RUCKA: There you go. That’s a good way to go. And yeah, look, check in with me again in another two—let’s give it two/three weeks.
MIMI CHAN: Okay.
RUCKA: And we can then do another. But like I said, I’m on bunker writing duty.
MIMI CHAN: You need to write. Write, write, write. That’s what we are all waiting for. So no problem. Alright, well as always, thank you so much, Greg. Great to talk to you.
RUCKA: Great to talk to you, Mimi. Give my best to everybody.
MIMI CHAN: Will do.
OUTRO: That’s all for today’s episode. Thanks for listening to Culture Chat and I hope you enjoyed the conversation. Please subscribe and rate my podcast. Feel free to leave me suggestions or send an email to mimi@culturechatpodcast.com or follow me on social media @sifumimichan on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.
