Booze, Broads and Bullets? Bye bye...

Just another note on comics.  What else would I talk about?

□ [“Frank Miller's First Work For Marvel In Almost Thirty Years"]

I saw this and wondered what the hell he was doing.  I'd swear Miller did something for Marvel somewhere - a 9/11 tribute? - but what the hell would he be doing now?  Then I saw the result.

Oh come on!  Marvel's doing yet-another reboot of the Fantastic Four, presumably in preparation for an upcoming movie, and Miller did a cover.  It's not even a cover, it's literally just a picture of the Thing.  It's barely even that, what the hell has happened to his artwork?

There is something effective about the image so he clearly hasn't lost all his talent but he's lost most of it.  That barely looks like a human-shape, like Miller just drew a bunch of shapes together and said 'color them orange.'  Out of all the things Marvel would beg him to do for all these years, this is what he finally agrees to?

Alex Ross also did a cover.  It just looks generic but there's four recognizable characters that some of us used to have affection for and it required actual work to make the picture [even with horrible coloring and an even worse logo.]  Miller could say he cranked his out drunkenly in fifteen minutes and nobody would disbelieve him.

And this is what he's become?  Oh, but it gets worse.  This made me look up news in comics and I saw this article from last April, in The Hollywood Reporter of all places:

□ [“Frank Miller Launches Independent Publishing Company, New ‘Sin City,’ ‘Ronin’ Comics in the Works"]

At his age, with not doing much for the last few decades, he's working on two new comics and his own company?  Former DC executive Dan DiDio is the publisher, Miller's the editor-in-chief?

Who do they think they're fooling?  It's good for publicity, sure, and I'd be willing to waste money on the comics if they ever come out, but it's very unlikely they'll ever come out.  It's genuinely a surprise to remember that only a few years ago, he did Dark Knight sequels.  They weren't very good so they're easy to forget but seriously, if he doesn't already have the works finished, they won't happen.

Looking it up, he also did a sequel to 300 and Superman:  Year One.  I knew about the former, I always assumed it was just to set up a movie sequel which bombed.  I also heard about the latter, it was just so ridiculous a concept that I've washed it from my memory.  Although thinking about it, it's possible that I even have a copy, that's how forgettable it is.

So he has done a little more in comics than he'd done for the previous couple decades.  The last Sin City story came out in 2000, shows how important to that he is.  I think there was a sequel to that movie too and it also bombed.  Ok, my memory sucks, but so do Miller's comics for the last few decades.  This is not what we expected from him back in the day.

The recent Dark Knight sequels were just dumb.  All-Star Batman and Robin was badly written, but in a way that I genuinely enjoyed, like Miller was recreating pulp fiction.  I quite enjoyed it, what issues came out anyway.  Dark Knight 2 came out 20 years ago.  I liked that.  It wasn't very good, but I loved the over-the-top approach to the DCU.  I did read Holy Terror but it's totally forgettable.

The first Martha Washington story was great, the others, not-so-much, although I did quite like some of the short stories.  300 and the last Sin City were done around 2000, the last time Miller did great work.  What the hell has he been doing for the last 20 years that now he draws a hideous picture of the Thing and says he's starting a publishing company?

It just sounds delusional, like someone who came of age in the NYC comics field of the late-70s/early-80s.  I'm sure he made tons of money from Dark Knight but I can't imagine it was enough to live comfortably for the rest of his life.  The movie sales probably helped.

It also sounds disappointing, this is where the icons wind up.  But that's what they wanted.  This is what we're stuck with now.

Tom Palmer, comics inker, age 81
August 18, 2022