SE: Shall we just jump right in?
FM: Sure.
SE: Well, I'd like to start by talking about your new Sin City project, Hell and Back. How long have you been at work on it?
FM: It only seems like decades. With all the Sin City stories, they tend to percolate for years before they're actually ready. I always have several in mind, and I never know which is going to be the next one I'll pull together. So I would say, in terms of working, if you consider thinking in the shower, several years. But in terms of actual, hands-on work, it's been more like a year.
SE: You've said numerous times that this is a romance. What's your inspiration for wanting to set a love story in Sin City?
FM: Well, all the Sin City stories are in one way or another a romance.
SE: The whole notion of Sin City itself is pretty romanticized.
FM: They're love stories, although often one of the people involved is dead (laughs).
SE: True.
FM: This time I wanted to do something that was much more purely romantic. I think part of it was that I had just finished 300, and coming off a story of such moral import, I wanted to do something that featured the purest hero yet in Sin City. It's a boy-meets-girl story, in a way.
SE: It's also a mystery. Because four issues into it, I still don't really know what's going on . . .
FM: Well, I hope you will by issue six. It does make sense, I promise. This isn't The X-Files. It has a punch line.
SE: And I've noticed the series--especially the first issue--is really expositional. You're laying it out really clear, you're dropping all the clues, but like I said, I can't quite see where it's going yet, and I like that. It's got me hooked. It's kind of like a whodunit.
FM: And the X-Files reference I just made was intentional. There is a vast conspiracy at work, and when you see the fifth issue, that becomes more clear. It's even more vast than you think. But it does feature an indomitable hero.
SE: And speaking of him--in your mind, are the characters in this book very different than other characters you've created? It seems like Wallace is about the best guy I've ever encountered in a Sin City story.
FM: Yeah, he is a pure hero, without self-doubt, and without self-pity. He's out to do the right thing, and he's extremely good at it.
SE: And it seems like it's been a long time since you've created a character with those traits. I mean, the characters in 300 were just straight and damned heroic, and in reading it you got a really good idea of what they were about, but Spartans didn't seem to be the most self-reflective people in the world.
FM: Right.
SE: So were you craving the chance to develop a character like this?
FM: Yes. That's one of the reasons he's named Wallace--after the old Scottish hero William Wallace, who was portrayed by Mel Gibson in the movie Braveheart. But I guess I'm sick of self-reflection, and I'm sick of the therapy culture, and I'm more in the mood for people whose instincts are to do the right thing just because it is the right thing. That's always been an aspect of Sin City and my other work, but I think I've heard enough whining in the last few years to make me want to start showing characters who don't do that.
SE: All right. Well, we're talking kind of abstractly about this. So for the people who will be reading this, can you describe what the elements of the new Sin City are. What's the story about?
FM: How do I put this? Man, it's hard to condense things.
SE: That's why I'm letting you do it.
FM: (laughs) Okay. A very good man meets the woman of his dreams, and she's stolen from him the night they meet. He walks over corpses to get her back, and to save her from a hideous conspiracy.
SE: And these are corpses that he's partly responsible for . . .
FM: Oh, yeah.
SE: I don't think we want to get too far into it, because the story gets complicated rather quickly. So, I've read in a number of places that Sin City is kind of the fulfillment of a lifelong desire to create crime comics. And now it seems like you're really diving in and extending yourself as far as what you can do within the genre of crime comics. I guess what I'm getting at is, what new dimensions have you discovered within the concept of crime comics that you might not have realized were there when you started?
FM: Crime stories are even more versatile than I thought they were. I started Sin City playing against the various types that were already out there, in reverence to previous authors--Chandler and Hammett--and the first Sin City owed one hell of a lot to Mickey Spillane. But I feel like I've found my own voice with the material now; and with this series, what I'm finding intriguing about it is that it deals with two lead characters who are not paranoid, nor obsessed--nor drunk, nor any of the other things my characters tend to be.
SE: And they're not guilty of anything, either.
FM: Not at all. These are two complete innocents. And I guess introducing two people who are so on the face of it normal--though Wallace is far from normal with his abilities--but emotionally normal, to me is helping showcase the weirder characters more than I have before
SE: And Wallace--you mention that his abilities aren't normal, but it seems like he's trying really damned hard to be a normal person and live a normal life. I mean he's got this Medal of Honor hidden in his chest of drawers. He doesn't have it displayed on the wall or anything . . .
FM: Yeah, right.
SE: It seems like he's trying to get away from the things about himself that are anything more than normal.
FM: Well, he's also rather modest. His catch phrase is "I did what anybody would've done," when in fact he's done what most people wouldn't have or couldn't have done.
And I love to write a story so that the hero is revealed across the drama, and because of its longer length I have more room to do that. And almost like Odysseus, he's defined by his obstacles rather than by some internal, tortured sense of self.
SE: That's true. There's so much about Wallace that you wouldn't discover if he was just changing a flat tire.
FM: Whereas someone like Marv could just be hanging out in a bar, but you'd still know a lot about him.
SE: (laughs) Yeah, Marv just sweats who he is, whereas Wallace doesn't advertise himself at all, and you don't have any idea what to expect from him.
FM: But no one can lay a hand on him.
SE: Not at all.
FM: But you should see the fifth issue.
SE: Diana's told me a little, but I just want to read it.
FM: And I just want to finish it (laughs).
SE: Where are you right now?
FM: I'm about a week away from finishing it. [It's now done.--ed.]
SE: Let's talk about the more technical aspects of your work a little bit. The first thing I noticed about the first issue was how expositional it is--almost each page is a pinup. It seems like you're really setting this thing up--milking the drama, which is a great way to build expectations. Did you intentionally lay the art out to have such a dramatic impact from panel to panel?
FM: Well, I wanted this one to absolutely set its own pace. That's one of the reasons I've been cagey with poor Diana [Schutz, Miller's editor] for so many months over how many chapters this is finally going to be. And I wanted to let each important moment breathe. I think that American comics tend toward a very congested effect--packing so much in that great moments are lost.
SE: Well, give somebody 32 pages to tell a ridiculously action-packed superhero story . . .
FM: Yeah. And I've studied the Japanese comics at length, and they have faults in the opposite direction. They tend to be like flip-books, where it takes someone ten pages to walk through a door. And I'm trying to play to the strengths of both, where it gets very dense when it serves the story's purpose, and it also breathes when it needs to. To me a woman on a cliff contemplating suicide is worthy of a great many images before she jumps.
SE: And it serves the story well, because the reader has time to consider the same options Wallace is contemplating. First you've got to figure out what she's doing out there. And can he run up in time to save her ? . . and I was really struck by the page where they're both underwater with all the fish--I don't think I've ever seen you draw fish before.
FM: I don't know if I ever have.
SE: I thought that was cool and unexpected. "So that's what it looks like when Frank Miller draws fish!"
FM: (laughs) And since then I've gotten better fish reference, so I promise better fish in the future!
SE: No, these are good fish (laughs). Okay, here's another question: what do you like best about your own work? And this can be either the physical product or your approach to it.
FM: (long pause) Um, I really can't answer that. I go through periods where I hate it all, and where I love it. I guess what I like best of all is holding the comic book in my hands. To see it actually become real.
SE: And on a similar note, what have you done that you want to do more of?
FM: Oh . . . everything. I'm like a kid in a candy store. There are so many possibilities for comics. When I jumped into 300, I didn't know if I could pull that off. And now, of course, I'm back in the more comfortable world of Sin City, but there's no end to what comics can do. And it's shocking, in a way, that so much time has passed and so little variety has evolved. Since the mid-fifties, it's been nothing but guys in tights hitting each other, and eventually there was the bold innovation of very large-breasted woman hitting each other . . .
SE: (laughs) And that was distracting for a good twenty years or so . . .
FM: But, really, I think there's no end to the possibilities. And I'm always looking for another kind of story to do. I know that I want to dive back into doing some more samurai stuff.
SE: Yes, please do!
FM: Oh, really? Okay.
SE: You're talking to a huge manga fan. A friend just loaned me his whole collection of Lone Wolf and Cub a number of months back, and I was in reading heaven every night for a couple of months.
FM: Have you seen the movies?
SE: I've seen a couple of them, but I haven't even seen the one called "The Babycart Assassin."
FM: They're all available over the internet. Check out animego.com. I ordered all the Lone Wolf and Cub movies the other day, and there's no end to what these guys offer. I could spend all the money in the universe there.
SE: Yeah, those movies are just amazing. And I can see how, over the years, you seem to have taken a lot of inspiration for how you stage things, like certain action scenes, from them.
FM: You know, that's astute. I don't think a lot of people have realized how much manga goes into Sin City, in terms of the storytelling, because the subject matter is so different, and that's distracting.
SE: I think there are a lot of the same elements, actually. The Lone Wolf is like a lone gunslinger, and he's up against so much shit. The shogunate is rotten, like the cops in Sin City are rotten.
FM: It's just that people get distracted by superficial aspects like costuming and time frames.
SE: But I think that's why--I don't know, I like really crazy John Woo movies, too, because the action is so visceral and dramatic.
FM: Yeah--these are people who can take bullets. Did you ever see that Lone Wolf where Ogami, he's lying on the ground with a katana shoved all the way through him? And he's lying on his belly and he yells, "Daigoro! Pull the sword out!"
SE: Totally! That's nuts, especially because he does it.
FM: The poor kid is like King Arthur pulling this thing out of him.
SE: That's kind of a cool analogy, too. If you pull this sword out, you're like no other man. And that's the thing about these characters--it's almost like they're bred to take it and keep giving it back. What is it about that kind of character that compels you to create them?
FM: I don't know. I've always loved . . . let me give you two references. One is The Spirit, by Will Eisner. That guy could take so many hits and still keep coming back. The other was a Jack Kirby job called The Death Wish of Terrible Turpin--it was in The New Gods. And it was about this middle-aged, chubby cop who mixed it up with the heroes and villains of Kirby's world. And he was being knocked around, but he just kept getting back up, and there's a certain appeal to that. But with Wallace I'm after something very different. Like I said before, nobody can lay a hand on him. He's an absolute artist of a warrior.
SE: And it also seems that at least part of that comes from his motivation. His spirit shines through sometimes more than his physical self does. It's not so much what he's doing but why he's doing it that makes him so formidable.
FM: I've done a number of stories in which guys get beat up all the time, and it's always fun to change gears a bit. I'm a little sick of seeing people beat up in stories myself. And to have somebody who's too good for that is kind of lovely. It's kind of like the Three Musketeers and Zorro. There is a pleasure in seeing someone who's unbeatable.
SE: Wallace's approach to it is really different, too. I thought it was a cool choice that you've chosen to leave a lot of the violence off the page. You know the term `obscene' comes from a Greek term that means something close to `off-scene,' meaning the violence takes place away from where the audience can see it.
FM: I didn't know that! Thank you. I'm gonna use that.
SE: Yeah, like when Medea killed her kids, she leaves the stage and comes back covered in her children's blood. But it was done "off-scene." I got to do that when I was a freshman in college.
FM: You were Medea?
SE: (laughs) For some reason everyone thought I was the best choice to be a homicidal queen. Make of that what you will.
FM: But you never got to do Electra? Oh, man.
SE: We did Oedipus, but not Electra. I think the mother-son thing is a little easier to accept for some reason. But it does seem like you treated Wallace with a little of this `off-scene' treatment. Like when the cops are coming down on Wallace in the second issue--you see the initiation of violence, and then you see the result of it. It's a lot different than, say, Family Values, where you see Miho punting people's heads off and stuff. It seems that Family Values was a lot more of a roller coaster, and you were having a lot of fun with the particular kind of violence Miho committed.
FM: Part of that is just Miho, too.
SE: Yeah, because she's like a cat.
FM: She is a cat. In fact, that's one of the first things I wrote down about her. You know that whole scene where she's just toying with that poor bastard?
SE: Like a cat, she wanted to see how long she could play with him before the head came off. And that was part of the joy in reading it, because it seemed like you must've been having a good time concocting that whole scene. It seems like with Hell and Back you're being a lot more calculating in what you're letting the audience see.
FM: Also, Wallace is a much, much more restrained character. He uses exacting force that is acquired. He is a soldier. He's not a force of nature like Marv, or a killing machine like Miho. He gives people fair warning before he flattens them. He says, "You don't want to see my worst."
SE: That's what he tells those cops, who end up in a big pile.
FM: (laughs) Buck naked, too.
SE: That's what I'm talking about. I was at the final panel on the previous page, and I didn't expect to see that when I turned the page. It's almost cooler that you don't really see him do it, because then you get to wonder how he did it.
FM: And it's also humiliating your opponent, because those cops get picked up and have to explain to their buddies that one guy did this. It's psychological warfare, too.
SE: And it makes the cops LOVE Wallace.
FM: (laughs) Oh, yes.
SE: This is fun to talk about, but I have a couple of questions that go in different directions. We mentioned 300 a little earlier. Did you accomplish everything you had in mind for that project?
FM: Everything I had in mind? I don't think I've ever accomplished everything I have in mind. Everything I had in mind would've involved making every single person on this planet cry over this story. You've gotta aim past what you're ever going to achieve.
SE: I cried. I think a couple of people around here did.
FM: Who did?
SE: I know that Scott Allie--our Hellboy editor-- did.
FM: (laughs) Well, good.
SE: We talked about it at a convention last year. I told him that at issue five I was tearing up a lot, and he said, "So was I." I thought I was the only weenie who cried at comics.
FM: Well, I had the benefit on that job of working from the best story you could ever ask for. And it was all there for me. It was my job to portray it and interpret it, but that conclusion is so irresistibly powerful that ever since I was a little kid, when I saw that crummy old movie, I was in love with it. And the more I researched, the more I found. It started out as a chore and turned into a treasure trove. Because the best lines in the book were written down by Herodotus. You know, like, "Then we'll fight in the shade."
SE: "Our arrows will blot out the sun . . ."
FM: Yeah. And "Come and get it." At the actual battle site at Thermopylae, there's a frieze and a statue that is very moving, when you see it. And the statue is of King Leonidas, shield up. The statue was built by a Greek American, and the only words underneath it are the Greek for "Come and get it."
SE: And to have that sort of text as a tribute to a fallen hero, instead of "Here lies our immortal blah, blah . ."
FM: Yeah. It's an amazing place to go to, to walk around on this big mound which is actually where the Spartans made their final stand. There's a tiny little plaque--it can't be more than a yard wide-- that reads, in Greek, "Go tell the Spartans, Passerby, that here by Spartan law we lie." That's the eternal memorial. I spent an afternoon there, and even though the terrain is not like what I drew--because since then there have been a series of earthquakes that moved the battlefield away from the sea--it's still quite a place, given that it's cut in half by a freeway.
SE: Did you do a lot of drawing there?
FM: No, I mainly just walked around, took a lot of photographs, and just sucked it all in. It was more of a pilgrimage than anything else.
SE: I'm wondering how you generally feel after you finish an involved project like 300? I'm sure it's different time to time, but I remember talking to Diana right after you turned in the final issue of 300, and she said you were already at work on another Sin City. I thought you would've been exhausted.
FM: Yeah, I was. But exhaustion can take strange forms. For me, 300 was the most taxing book I've ever done in my entire career. It was utterly exhausting on every level. But one of the forms that exhaustion can take is almost like one of those ramps they have--you know, where they have the dirt piled deep, and the big trucks have to take that turn-off in order to stop. Because otherwise I'd just get up and have no reason to live. There is such a slow down period, and now I'm starting to gear back up. It's been a year.
SE: Did you feel, at the end of 300, that you threw yourself into Sin City again to kind of distance yourself from the subject matter of 300?
FM: I think it was just so I wouldn't feel completely useless (laughs). And it was good to get back to my little town. I mean, Sin City now is like going home.
SE: But you wouldn't want to live there, really.
FM: I'm afraid I do (laughs).
SE: Who would you be in Sin City?
FM: In truth, the first guy on the train out of town (laughs).
SE: Okay, well, I'm sitting here feeling horribly inadequate, because I've recently reread that Comics Journal interview--or interviews, I should say--that you recently did for those guys. Both of the interviewers did a great job. It was so fun to read. But you've had your differences with The Comics Journal guys over the years. How did it feel to be in contact with them again after so long? I think most people know they've been kind of critical of some of your choices over the years . . .
FM: Somewhat, yeah (laughs).
SE: I mean, when I heard you were doing an interview with Gary Groth, I thought, "what?" How did it feel to walk into that situation?
FM: I think the main thing was that a lot of time had passed. And my own view of the industry has changed over the years, and I guess I understand their point of view a bit better--not in regard to my work, of course (laughs), but to the industry in general. But, also, I've got to say that in a way, me and Gary Groth are really like a pair of old gunslingers, who are more likely to show each other their wounds than to pick another fight. And I guess I had to deal with them again, because for one thing I bear them no personal malice. But beyond that, it does seem to be the only magazine out there that seems to say that a comic book can be worthwhile. And I guess I'd rather be part of the crowd that says "Comic books can be worthwhile" than part of the crowd that says "So when's the new Superman book coming out?"
SE: That's a good call. And regardless of any old animosity, you always find that people are at their best when they're facing their toughest critic. Reading this, I got more out of you than in other interviews I'd read before. And you guys were picking at each other just enough that Gary was saying more profound stuff than I've ever heard him say before.
FM: (laughs) Yeah, that's right. Well, we each know what the other's tried to get away with. I mean, there are no softballs in that camp.
SE: I think that's good. I mean, aren't you glad that you're not just some crusty old industry blowhard who's so comfortable with his career that he can just get away with saying anything and not be challenged by it?
FM: Oh, absolutely. I always look for two warning signs about people. One is when they refer to themselves in the third person. And the second is someone who is a sycophant who just says yes to everything and contributes nothing.
SE:I think in this industry, especially, if you stand up and say "I'm Frank Miller and this is what I think," you're going to get a lot of people who may not have given it a lot of thought nodding their heads. And it must be good every once in a while to have someone stop you and say, "what did you mean by that?"
FM: Or, "You're full of shit."
SE: Every once in a while everyone's full of shit. I just thought the combination made for a great read.
FM: It did read well, then?
SE: Yeah, because you were really trying to make each other think, and the results, for both of you, were really positive.
FM: Well, another thing that really affected that interview was that I had just been to my first SPX [Small Press Expo] show. And I've got to confess, I lead a fairly isolated life. And I don't go to comic book shops, so the comics I tend to see are what people send to me.
SE: So you get Dark Horse books and you get DC stuff . . .
FM: And that's about it. To just see the energy that was there, and to see all these self-published books that ranged from very good to very, very bad made me realize I wanted to open up my life.
SE: What did you see there that you liked?
FM: Probably the biggest discovery would be Dylan Horrocks' stuff, which I think is really, really topnotch. I also really enjoyed a lot of the stuff published by Top Shelf. And there's that little book by Jason Little, Jack's Luck Runs Out. There was one that was kind of like a lesbian version of Lynn Johnston's strip . . .
SE: For Better or For Worse?
FM: Yeah. The art style was similar, the tone was similar, except it had a gay man and a lesbian living together. Manya . . . it sneaks up on you, and the comparison to Lynn Johnston is a compliment, because I think that she's wonderful at pacing.
SE: I respect her so much. Her work isn't exactly cutting edge, but she does a lot with the format she works within. She crafts really complex stories and really makes people care.
FM: And she doesn't strive for a punch line. There usually is one, but it grows organically.
SE: She's also not sentimental. I've teared up at a number of her strips, like when the grandma died . . .
FM: And the grandfather scenes were even more poignant. And how many weeks went by before he finally got the damn dog? But of all the strips, most of all I miss Calvin. Don't we all?
SE: Yeah, but I'm so glad he went out the way he did. No fanfare. No stuffed animals.
FM: No toys, no movies . . .
SE: A lot of times I don't mind when people leave what they do best. Most of the times I like it when my favorite bands break up, because I never have to watch them get crappy. I just also hope they never reunite.
FM: I agree with you there.
SE: Do you read Mutts at all?
FM: Oh, yeah, and that's close. I usually only read on Sundays, and that's a rather charming little strip. But I don't think anyone's ever gonna replace Calvin and Hobbes for me.
SE: Okay, one more topic. First, congratulations on your Harvey and Eisner nominations. [Lynn Varley, colorist on 300, Won the Harvey for Best Coloring, and 300 won the Harvey for Best Continuing or Limited Series.--ed.]
FM: Thanks.
SE: How do you feel about awards and awards ceremonies?
FM:I love 'em. I always wanna win 'em. I will not lie about that for a second. If I lose `em, it stinks, but if I win 'em I feel like a king. It's the affirmation that you've done well. It's the applause of one's peers. There are always surprises at the Eisners. But these are people sitting in their own home voting for what they really like. I mean, I had a terrible time--and I won't say my final vote--picking graphic novels in the Harveys, for instance, because I was stuck between Eisner and Baker. And both had done brilliant work. But it wasn't a matter of "who am I going to see at a party next week?" or "what job am I trying to get?"
And the Eisners really are a powerful thing, because they count for a lot. He's our living treasure. And Jack Kirby--when he died, you could hear the bell toll. It wasn't just him. It was his whole generation. Many of whom have lived for a long time now, there's Will Eisner and Joe Kubert and Steve Ditko, you have to start paying them their due. And all my efforts along those lines, I've gotta confess, are self-serving, namely because I think it's the only way to say "mine is a field worth working in."
SE: It's clear that's important to you. And you've also said it's important to enjoy your work. Are you still having a good time with Sin City?
FM: Are you kidding? I live for it. I wouldn't be putting these books out if I didn't love it. As a matter of fact, this period has been the most enjoyable and rewarding of any in my career. And it's not like I'm sixty years old or anything. I'm just getting started here.