Keep Calm...read this one...

So I’ve just started reading a book called Queen and Country which, if I’m honest, I probably should have gotten to awhile ago but it’s no less relevant now than it was when it first came out ten years ago. Following the lives of three “minders” in the British Intelligence service, Queen and Country centres not so much on the characters involved but on their circumstances and the political motivations and concerns surrounding the job that they do. Sounds boring hmm? Actually, it manages to be quite compelling.

Let’s start by letting you know that the author Greg Rucka has won several Eisner awards (think Pulitzers but for comics) not only for this very book but for a fairly major Batman storyline and is the author of many popular turns in the main books for many mainstream comics characters. Add that to the fact that with Queen and Country he’s making his main characters non-Americans so that he can criticize American interests overseas without the book being decried as anti-American (they’re British, what else would they say?). At a time when it was incredibly unfashionable to speak out against the American political machine that was driving Bush to the top, Greg Rucka and his team were making their voices heard; to a select few, but just the same...

With a comfortable blend of humour and tension and steeped in verifiable world news and historical influences, the book keeping me guessing, and interested. The characters are engaging and one feels could almost be real as they traipse through the various life and death situations they’re faced with, all the while bitterly reminding themselves that they’re doing it, “for Queen and Country.”

The one drawback to reading something like this in a trade (i.e. the collection that you can walk into the bookstore and purchase) is that since there are several VERY different artists who worked on this book, the changes are quite jarring. While they do a good job of facilitating the change (i.e. they put a roster into the book whenever the artist changes to make it clear who’s who) I was insulted by the change in main character Tara Chace’s appearance from awkward, almost boyish Tin Tin styled heroine (see the image above) to busty comic vixen who’s co-workers are immediately trying to get into her pants (yes that's the same character on the right side of the adjacent frame). Artist Leandro Fernández goes too far in my estimation when he sends Tara into the office in a blazer that’s cut down to her navel and no bra, nor undershirt to speak of. It’s one thing to draw her as a busty comics character, I’ve been reading comics long enough to know that’s a given but the juxtaposition between the two styles is jarring.

All that said, the series is certainly worth checking out and definitely is a well plotted, well thought out piece of story, with compelling characters and interesting viewpoints on the world. Ten years removed it’s an arresting view of the world as it was through the eyes of a few on the fringes. But then I suppose, that’s what being a comic reader’s all about, yes?