In May, Dark Horse is releasing Miller's latest series -- 300 -- a five-part story detailing the awesome fight between a small band of vicious Spartans against a Persian army of tens of thousand during the Persian-Greco war. I had the pleasure of interviewing Miller recently, and was happy to discover that this cultural icon -- who managed to withstand the test of keeping my interest that every other name from that time in my life (Erik Estrada, Shaun Cassidy, and Peter Frampton, to name a few) had long since lost -- is not only impressively articulate and intelligent, he's also a really nice guy.
Shawna Ervin-Gore: I've heard a version of this from Diana (Schutz -- Miller's editor), but I want to hear it from you: What made you want to do this story?
Frank Miller: For all that I loathe Hollywood, there was a movie made in 1962 called the 300 Spartans. I was about perhaps six years old when it came out, and my parents took me and my brother to see it, and I was utterly astonished by the power of the story, the pure heroism involved. And that lead to a lifelong fascination with ancient Greek history and particularly with the legend of the Spartans, which is harder to get information about than the better known Athenians.
The Spartans were an unusual people. They were not from the same part of the world as the rest of the Greeks -- they were Dorian whereas most of the Greeks were Ionian in history. Their culture was older and in some ways more mysterious. They were deeply religious people, but they are in a way the other piece of what made the glory days of Greece. I mean, Athens clearly was a vision of democracy and philosophy and art that was liberated from the strictures of the Egyptians and Persia, but what Sparta introduced was the rule of law over man. There was a great leader named Lycurgus who came to power in Sparta and introduced the notion that no man was above the law, including the king.
Ervin-Gore: Particularly religious law?
Miller: Obviously I've gone to extremes in my presentation of religious law [in 300], but then this isn't a historical text; this is an adventure yarn.
Ervin-Gore: Since 300 won't be seen for a while yet, can you describe for the readers the elements involved in the story you're telling?
Miller: Well, if you picture a time when the world was ruled by mystics and savages, when the basic components of the world we understand today didn't even exist -- they didn't understand logic, they didn't understand democracy, and they didn't consider any human being to be an individual or free. There were only masters and slaves. It was an endless dark age, and out of this Greece was beginning to emerge as a place where different thought was beginning to happen. There certainly were slaves, and plenty of them in Greece. It certainly was nothing compared to the modern democracy that we enjoy, but it was the first place those ideas took hold -- where there could be public debate, and where a king was less than a god.
But it was a fragile thing. It was a tiny country, and just as things were beginning to flower, the Persian empire staged first one invasion then another in order to destroy Greece. The second invasion was lead by King Xerxes who put together the largest army in history. It was 100 nations, all of Asia, much of Africa, mobilized just to sweep over Greece, eradicate it, and turn it into just another slave state. Greece was the gateway to Europe; after that then Italy, Sicily, and the rest would've fallen. But Greece had a couple of advantages, one of which was that they tend to be crabby, argumentative people who don't like to be bossed around -- to this day! The other is that they have some of the most fearsome land and sea that exists in the world.
Ervin-Gore: Have you been?
Miller: I visited Greece for three weeks to study this story, and I couldn't have understood it properly had I not seen the cliffs and that angry sea and actually sailed on it.
Ervin-Gore: It's so deceptively beautiful, and so treacherous.
Miller: Which is why the Greeks were the world's best sea-farers (the Athenians, anyway). However, one group of people who never took to the sea was the Spartans. They had the best land in Greece -- the best farmland-- and they defended it fiercely. But they were land lubbers; they weren't the navigators the Athenians were.
They also developed a warrior culture unlike any ever seen in the history of the world. They were the only professional soldiers of the time. Every other Greek, the Athenians and the rest, were citizens who would take up arms when they were called. That is, a man would buy his own shield (or make it), and helmet, and when the call came, he'd simply grab his stuff from his own home and march out to battle. The Spartans, on the other hand, were raised to be soldiers.
Ervin-Gore: How accurate are your depictions of the brutal Spartan childhood?
Miller: That's pretty much documented. They're very harsh people. They certainly disposed of any disfigured or frail young, and also they lived in a much more communal fashion than we're used to. Even though they would marry, the men lived in barracks -- the soldiers lived with other soldiers at all times.
And here's an interesting side note -- the women were trained just as the men in all fields of combat, and they participated in athletic events, much to the horror of the rest of Greece. And the women were in many ways the last line of defense, because this was a society that in many ways was dedicated entirely to defense.
Ervin-Gore: It seems that most fictionalized accounts of any story similar to this tend to over look the interesting particulars of the event and head straight into the big, bloody battle. Your story is so full of political innuendo -- is this the part you're most interested in?
Miller: I feel the battle means nothing unless you know how they got there and why. What I tried to get across here is that what is being defended is much larger than the fate of one country. It could be argued that without what ended up to be only 300 Spartans, we couldn't even be having this conversation, because all our notions of free speech, of democratic freedom, would have been erased by a tyrant.
Ervin-Gore: And what is it about the Spartans that has been so compelling to you? What makes them such good material for a story?
Miller: It's important to keep in mind that Spartans did two things that warriors at that time didn't do: they wore capes, and they had very long hair. Both of these things gave the enemy something to grab, You have to be an extremely good soldier to go into battle giving somebody a rope to grab you by. The red cape obviously made them scarier to look at, and the long hair made them seem immensely confident.
Ervin-Gore: And how much more intimidating to fight against people who are so defiant of common rules of battle.
Miller: These were the toughest guys who ever lived. But you were asking what the appeal is to me personally. I guess we live in such a muddled, gray time that to read a story where people are quite literally ready to lay down their lives to back principle (and certainly there were matters of territory and all that, but there was more principle involved), is just incredible. These Spartans could've been rich men had they surrendered, and instead they make such a stand that to me there's something refreshing about that.
Ervin-Gore: And how did six-year old Frank Miller see the Spartans for the very first time?
Miller: Up until then I saw heroes as people who generally had an awful lot of power over the situation. Superboy, or Superman or any of them -- even though they might run in to Kryptonite from time to time, you're not going to worry about them surviving the next issue.
This was, to my young eyes, a shocking story of people willing to die or their beliefs, rather than simply being on the right side of things and having all the weapons. And at that age it was a deeply moving story to see. And also, the helmets looked great, and those red capes looked gorgeous. I loved the big battle scenes, and you know, that's what being a guy is! (laughs) It's like dinosaurs; you gotta love that stuff!
Ervin-Gore: What are you doing differently this time around, artistically speaking?
Miller: Well, the first, most overwhelming factor is that I'm working with Lynn Varley, and in color. It effects not only the final product, but my whole approach to it. Because when Lynn and I collaborate, we work as co-artists, and a great deal is left up to her. Where as in Sin City, to pick an example, I wouldn't be as likely to leave a great open mass for a sky.
Ervin-Gore: So did you have her in mind when you started the project?
Miller: I didn't know how I could do it without her. I knew it had to be a color story. It wouldn't work without the atmosphere, and without those red capes. And I also couldn't imagine anyone else working on it, so I did the logical thing -- I begged.
Ervin-Gore: And like you were saying about leaving the "open mass" of sky -- are you making room for her?
Miller: I always do, and I learn more each time we work together. To break it down very simply, I go off and do my part, and then we discuss things. It usually amount to her asking "What time of day is it, here?" But she always comes back with something that utterly surprises me. I've long since learned to stop suggesting things, because whenever I suggest something, she'll take it in, she'll think about it, then she'll come back with something totally different and much better than what I'd suggested.
We will consult on certain aspects of character design, and she'll mention things that will either inhibit her or give her better opportunities. But as close as our collaboration is in its final effect, I can't lay claim to anything she does.
Ervin-Gore: So you both decided to use the `blackline' method this time as opposed to the `blueline' you used with Elektra Lives Again?
Miller: We both very much wanted to do this. It's a much more integrated way to approach it, because what happens is with Lynn working directly on my black line, what we produce ultimately is an original piece rather than two originals that are put together artificially. There's a lot of production problems with that [the blue line process] -- the resolution can be bad, and with blue line she has to deal with that damned acetate, which she has to lay down as she's working. It takes the patience of a saint. I couldn't ever do it.
Ervin-Gore: And the results are so beautiful. She's able to just sweep color across the black lines.
Miller: Which is amazing! There's a scene toward the end of the second issue, which is during a rain storm, and because that's how we were working, she was able to bring white pencil streaking across the black. It just pulls the color into the black perfectly.
Ervin-Gore: I just saw the originals this morning for the first time. I thought the color copies looked good, but when I saw the original product, it literally blew my mind.
Miller: Yeah, those color copies are nice, but it's nothing compared to the way the book's going to look.