In honor of the big anniversary. Dark Horse is releasing a special edition of the original Sin City graphic novel in December (read more about that at the end of this interview), and with the media frenzy over The Dark Knight Strikes Again just getting started, now seemed like a great time to have a casual catch-up chat with Dark Horse's leading Maverick. Read on to find the answers to some FAFMQ (Frequently Asked Frank Miller Questions) and to see what the world's hottest comic-book writer has been up to lately. Keep in mind, this interview was done less than two weeks after the recent horrendous terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, DC area, so any allusions to "recent events" are referring to this.
Shawna Ervin-Gore: So, Frank, what am I keeping you from working on right now?
Frank Miller: (laughs) The script for Batman: Year One.
SE-G: How's Darren to work with? His films are just amazing.
FM: Oh, it's been a ball. This is the first time we've been co-writers. I told him I wasn't going to compete with him over the treatment because one of us is the director and the other one isn't (laughs). So I told him to throw something at me, and he threw me this big wad of stuff. So I'm just mowing through it right now, trying to put the screenplay together.
SE-G: He seems like a very smart guy...
FM: He is, and he's a lot of fun to work with.
SE-G: This sounds like a much different film-making experience than others you've been through.
FM: Yeah -- maybe one of these days Darren and I will actually get a movie made. I did the Ronin script, and that's floating around right now.
SE-G: Aside from the film stuff, the big Frank Miller news right now is this little Batman comic you're writing...
FM: I think I've heard of this...
SE-G: So why did you decide to revisit Dark Knight?
FM: I had a story. I've always had a bunch of notions about what I would do with Dark Knight, and it just reached a point where I felt like I finally had something TO DO. And it's a very different take than the first one. The last thing I wanted to do was a retread...
SE-G: There are plenty of those already...
FM: (laughs) That's right. Other people have been taking care of that for quite some time.
SE-G: As you've been working on the series, have you been enjoying the creative freedom you feel is necessary to do what you wanted with it?
FM: Oh, yeah. These are somebody else's toys, of course, so there's always negotiation. I think that I've managed to work things out. The way I put it to someone at DC was "You've got a universe, and I want a wormhole." This is my own little arena, and this way I get to play with a lot more of their toys -- a very big cast.
SE-G: Well, I think this book is going to get enough publicity on its own, so I don't need to grill you on it. So here's something different -- while you've been working on the Dark Knight comics, did you find yourself mentally wandering into territory that seemed better suited for other projects, like Sin City.
FM: I'm always filling up note books. It takes my stories a long time to cook, and it really matters what burner they're on. And right now everything is very intensely focused on Dark Knight because I'm two-thirds of the way through it. But at the same time I'm always playing with other possible stories.
SE-G: Before this, you spent much of the last few years working on Sin City, which is primarily black-and-white or when it's colored, it's very sparse and dramatic...so when it comes to doing the art for a book like Dark Knight, which is in color, do you miss the creative control you have over how the book ultimately looks.
FM: They're very different projects, of course. I may miss some of that, but I'm also working with Lynn (Varley), which is amazing. With a project like this, I'm always in the process of producing unfinished artwork. With Sin City, I'm running my own little pocket dictatorship. With this project, I'm working for a much bigger company with lots of different people on a project I didn't create and don't own, and it's just a different process altogether. It's a little like working with Hollywood, because there are more people involved, but at the same time the excitement level is so high that it's a lot of fun.
SE-G: And it is your story -- you're telling it the way you want.
FM: Oh, yeah.
SE-G: Another art question -- do you see your art as having changed a lot over the last few years? I guess I've been looking at Sin City for so long that the first few images from Dark Knight struck me as being very distinctly different. Are there new influences showing up in your art, or new techniques you're working with to achieve something specific?
FM: Well, my art has become a lot more cartoony. I know that. It's a conscious effort, and you'll notice that even more with Dark Knight. It's very deliberate. I just decided that one of the things that's been holding us back is that we've been trying to be too real -- and by real I mean photographic. The beauty of comics is that we distort like crazy to get to the heart of things.
I think when I get back to Sin City, or whatever comes next, you'll see much more of that change than you've seen so far. Unless you think it's disintegrating, and then I'll just be depressed.
SE-G: Not at all! I just find it interesting when art styles evolve. You and I have talked a lot about manga in the past, and I know there are elements of that -- especially in the pacing -- that have worked their way into Sin City. There are artists -- I think young American artists, in particular -- who sort of ape manga-style art. But you seem to distill elements of it that work to a certain effect and adapt those effects into your art.
FM: Sin City is the most manga-related thing I've done, in terms of the pacing and the simplicity. I think there's a lot to be learned from looking at manga, but it has to be applied very intelligently. And also, some of their quirks are hilarious. I love it that when somebody gets sexually aroused, they get a nose bleed.
SE-G: There are a million things like that in manga that seem strange to us.
FM: But it's a great form, and it should be studied. I also think there's a great division between comic-book artists and comic-strip artists, and there's a lot to be learned there. Especially from political cartoonists.
SE-G: Are there any particular political cartoonists you really appreciate?
FM: Well, one of my favorites is one of my high school teachers, Jeff Danziger. He's widely known...and Borgman is great.
SE-G: I know Danziger's stuff from The Washington Post. What is it about political cartoons that you like so much?
FM: They use an abundance of drawing ability and technique, but they distort it so much that it becomes an absolutely ridiculous image that is completely convincing. And in the daily strips, there's Borgman, of course, and all of the absolutely brilliant work that Waterson did, that I think comic-book artists should be studying constantly. And other people -- I mean, Mort Drucker! -- who is a brilliantly talented cartoonist. Why can't comic-books embrace that kind of style?
SE-G: I think there's snobbery coming from both directions. Lots of people read newspaper comics who don't read comic-books, and I know a million comic-book fans who won't crack a newspaper. It's a strange thing.
Since we're on the topic of formats, let's talk more specifically about comic-book storytelling formats. From conversations I've had with Diana (Sin City editor Diana Schutz -- ed.), it sounds like you want to do the next Sin City project as an original graphic novel.
FM: I think with Sin City, I want to go straight to book form for the foreseeable future. I think the only reason we're still doing comics as 32-page pamphlets is because at one point we could sell for twelve cents. Now we're selling them for three dollars to an adult audience, so why don't we just give them the damn book?
The only think I think I'd miss is the letters columns, which I absolutely love to do.
SE-G: So, are you going to give us any hints as to what's coming next? I know you've been planning the sequel to That Yellow Bastard for some time now. Is that what's coming?
FM: I can't really say. I have that notebook full of ideas, but I'm still in Dark Knight mode, and the whole world has turned upside down. Talking about things that are too far in the future feels foolish to me. I think a lot of people are going to be informed by recent events, and that may change a lot of creative ideas.
SE-G: This falls into the same category, but I have to ask, just to keep the fans current -- what's up with JESUS!?
FM: (laughs) I don't know! What's up with that guy? What a trouble maker! Again, I can't get into that right now, especially since it deals with the subject of religion. It's a much different subject now than it was when I first seriously thought of the project.
SE-G: True. Okay, just a few more questions. There's this media machine that starts churning whenever you do a Batman book...
FM: (laughs) Come on! You make it sound like I'm doing one every couple of years...
SE-G: I guess that's a good point, but you know what I'm saying. Every time there's an "event" comic of some sort, or a film made from a comic-book series, there are a million reverberations throughout the comics industry that this one big event is going to forever change how mainstream entertainment seekers are going to view comics, and that it's going to yield some huge, profound result for the medium. What do you make of that? Do you just enjoy it while you can?
FM: Well, I hope it gets the word out. Whenever I'm caught in one of these waves, I try to speak well, and I try to get across the best points about the medium. But the media does what the media does.
SE-G: It's almost like a brief love affair. The media will woo comics for a few brief moments, then the next morning, they can't remember our name.
FM: Yes, but in the long run, I do think it's sinking in. It's a very mixed blessing that Hollywood has so thoroughly embraced comics that they're practically strip-mining us. And I definitely think that comics have become more "cool." But I really don't think that the national media phenomenon that happened with the first Dark Knight really can be created with the sequel. It may sell better, but the shock won't be there. And there's gonna be a certain number of people who are going to say, "This didn't make me feel like it did when I was a kid," if that's when they read the first one. But I think it will be good. People will be surprised by it.
SE-G: Final question: You've always been an outspoken opponent of censorship, so I'm wondering what you think of how a lot of entertainment providers, in particular, are sort of going out of their way right now to make it seem like the World Trade Center never existed? I just heard that for the intro to the TV show Friends, they're digitally erasing the twin towers from the skyline, and something about that is not right.
FM: I know. The same thing is happening with Sex and the City, I guess. You know what it is? Hollywood is externalizing denial. "This was never there." Well, it was there, and it got blown to Hell, and more than 6,000 people died. I'm really dreading some of the things that are going to be coming out of both comic books and Hollywood. I'm really dreading that too much of it will be trying to reassure. I want someone to do some pissed-off work. And the digital erasing is creepy.
But I do think that we are in for some really, seriously tough times, in terms of censorship. Everybody likes to blame fiction, because it can be changed. I'm already hearing people say some completely outrageous things, like that we're training terrorists with our action movies. I'm sorry -- a pudgy guy with a safari jacket sitting in a movie studio in Burbank is not training terrorists. So we'll just have to fight that fight all over again. I think it will be a different form of censorship though, and I think the big wave now will be anti-violence, and especially anti-explosion. But while everybody's assuming that all entertainment should be When Harry Met Sally now, that's a stupid assumption. During WWII, which is our closest precedent to this, Hollywood produced some of its best -- and most violent -- movies. Whatever happens, I guarantee it'll be interesting.
In commemoration of Sin City's 10th birthday, Dark Horse Maverick is releasing a new limited hardcover edition of the original Sin City graphic novel, which comes slip-cased with a 64-page spiral-bound book of never-before-seen sketches from Miller's personal Sin City archives. Also included in the package is a signed, framable Sin City print of the series' iconic anti-hero, Marv. This once-in-a-lifetime commemorative set is limited to 500 pieces and will be available December 19 for $175.