Queen & Country is far and away my favorite work by Greg Rucka in comics, but to be honest, I remain a bigger fan of his prose than his comic-book work in general. So the Queen & Country Scriptbook is right up my alley, being a chance to see Rucka's prose combined with the characters and settings that are my personal favorite of his comic-book creations. There are some who have no interest in reading the script format, and those are about the only people who I can see not loving this collection, which is a beautifully put-together "behind the scenes" for the first Queen & Country arc, focusing largely on Rucka's annotated script but with cover reprints, sketches and other production details as well.
Probably the coolest thing about this Scriptbook, aside from being able to actually get a look at Rucka's scripts, is that he has taken the time to go through them for another pass and make comments on what he was thinking when he wrote them. The results are sometimes funny and always revealing about Rucka's thought process and writing process. His notes often indicate what kind of research he did for the script, or include little facts that are implied in the story but not really spelled out because Queen & Country tends to be a book that requires you to read between the lines. Some of the notes address criticisms (*ahem*) like the use of foreign language or the "cartoony" art of Steve Rolston in a tone that sits somewhere between amused and defensive. Taken altogether, these occasional notations on the script make for an insight into the writing behind the book that is almost worth the price of admission all by itself.
That is, of course, if the scripts themselves weren't the main draw. Queen & Country is a book that has featured revolving artists from the outset, and the continuity is provided in terms of the writer's vision, and it's interesting to see that vision untempered by artistic interpretation. Rucka's scripts benefit from the embellishments on the art, which he himself admits in the notes praising Steve Rolston, but he also paints pretty vivid pictures with just words, and the four issues of Queen & Country represented in script form here are just as compelling to read as they were in comic form. Beyond examining the creative process, which is what scriptbooks are really good for, this book is just an entertaining read. Reading in this format also highlights Rucka's dialogue, which is more distinctive and stronger than I generally remember when it blends in with the rest of the storytelling in his comics.
Of course, this is a scriptbook, but that doesn't mean that the artistic component of the series is ignored. I was one of the critics who thought Rolston was "too cartoony" when I first reviewed this book, but I've since come to realize my mistake. Everything from layouts to finished pages are sprinkled throughout the scriptbook for comparison with the script, and it's a lot easier to see what Rolston brought to the party in this format as well. For one thing, the design of the Ops Room is given essentially two pages, and it's clear how important that piece is to the series and how much credit Rolston deserves for "building" that set. There's also a fun page of the various sketches of "nude Tara" that shows off Rolston's talent for drawing the nekkid girls and is kind of a funny little extra. To be honest, I would have loved to have seen more script-to-page comparisons, because that is a fascinating look into the process of creating the book.
I'm kind of unusual in terms of comics fans in that you say "scriptbook" and I'm already all set to buy the thing, because I'm kind of interested in reading how these things start out, and the various scripts I have read by various creators are always interesting to me. I know that not everyone is a fan of the script format, but the Queen & Country Scriptbook has a lot to offer for fans of different stripes. Those hoping to break into the industry could do worse than to emulate the meticulous research and detail-oriented writing style that Rucka lays out in this book, for example, and any fan of Rucka's novels should be equally fascinated by his way with words in the Queen & Country scripts. Augie DeBlieck called this the new gold standard for script collections, and I'd be hard-pressed to disagree.
