Frank Miller appreciation thread

[Otomofan]

Frank Miller is my favorite American comic book artist. (My favorite overall is Katsuhiro Otomo, but I'll get around to starting a thread about him later.)

I posted some pics I'd found the in Dark Knight III thread, but I have found some cool stuff lately so I figured I'd start a thread just dedicated to Frank.

It's in vogue these days to call Frank a cranky old man that's lost his mind, but this isn't about his personal politics. I just wanna focus on his art, and be glad that he's still around. He looked like he was absolutely on death's door for a while there. I don't know if he's out of the woods, but I hope he pulls through and gives us some more work, cause he actually hasn't drawn THAT much compared to his contemporaries, like say John Byrne or Walt Simsonson.

His art is almost as divisive as his politics. Some people think it's ugly, grotesque, lazy, etc. I've always thought it was gorgeous. His work with Lynn Varley is probably my favorite stuff ever printed. I love how his intricate detail lines get enhanced by her moody watercolors. But I love his black and white Sin City style too, as it evolved from that hyper detailed linework down to the spare economy of big bold lines.

I didn't think his art was remarkable on Daredevil, but it started evolving with Ronin, and then perfected with Dark Knight, and peaked with Elektra Lives Again.

OK.....enough talk. I'm just gonna start posting pics of his I love, in more or less chronological order.

 

[Otomofan]

 

[punisher1974]

I have always liked Miller's art. I like he adapted his art style to tell the story he wanted to tell. Overall very creative with angles and use of color. Dark Knight and the first 2 sin city's and wolverine are my favorites of his.

 

[Otomofan]

 

[Bravomite]

When I first started out reading comics as a kid I didn't like Frank's work as much and preferred things to look more standard 'heroic' like Jim Lee. But as I have aged my taste has changed and I have grown to love his artwork. He is very emotive through his visual story telling and it always suits the tone and theme of the character or narrative that he is portraying. His work on Daredevil is my favourite but his batman is a close second. Cool thread

 

[Otomofan]

 

[Otomofan]

 

[Otomofan]

And lots more to come, but I'm just throwing random stuff in now.

Here's some recent work I found...commissioned sketches and stuff. These are NOT cheap. Glad to see he's still capable of drawing when he wants to though, and not just the quick doodles he's mostly done the last few years.

 

[Darth Waller]

His Daredevil run is one of my favorite runs in comic history. I also hold his Wolverine, Ronin and Dark Knight Returns work as some of the best mini-series of all time.

 

[Otomofan]

I honestly love all of his major works. The original Daredevil run, the Wolverine mini-series, and then Ronin, which is a bit clunky and dated now but I bet it must have really been something in 1983.

Dark Knight Returns is, in my opinion, the finest work ever published in the genre of super hero comics. Just a true masterpiece and utter perfection blending story and art.

Daredevil Born Again is his finest Daredevil work, despite not drawing it himself.

I think the Lone Wolf and Cub covers, along with the entire Elektra Lives Again graphic novel were the peak of his artistic collaboration with Lynn Varley, even though the story for Elektra wasn't as good as the art.

I love Sin City....all of it. I kind of cringed a bit watching the movie though, cause its dialogue worked perfectly on the printed page, but spoken out loud sounded a bit ridiculous. It's interesting to see how the art evolved over the years. The first chapters were so hyper-detailed, and then he really got went on a kick with pushing the envelope with the stark black and white images.

300 was also fantastic, and totally refreshing.

After the last Sin City book (Hell and Back) things weren't as good. Dark Knight Strikes Again started off pretty interesting, and it's like we watched him getting bored halfway through issue two and it just went to hell. I think that was his last collaboration with Lynn Varley too, which is unfortunate, cause she colored the book digitally and it looked awful. I'm actually curious to see if the new black and white reprint coming out this year will improve the book.

His last major work was Holy Terror, which everyone hated. The story doesn't make a lick of sense, and the art wasn't up to Sin City standards, but I still like it just cause it's his art, and it shows his progression.

In April, the 300 sequel Xerxes is finally coming out.

And there's also a Superman project in the works, but we'll see if that ever sees the light of day. He's announced several books, including more Sin City tales, that have never materialized. Xerxes has been in the works for the better part of a decade now.

 

[Niltusk]

The only thing I liked seeing more than Frank Miller on the cover of a comic was "Miller and Mazzucchelli". Their entire Daredevil run was the best thing ever in that title, doubly so as a huge TMNT fan since it was basically the sperm that created the turtles. Also, was never a Batman fan before they did Year One and thats all it took. Year one is probably to this day my favorite 4 issues of any comic ever. I've read and re-read those things so many times over the years its not even funny. I consider myself primarily and forever a Spidey (Marvel) and Flash (DC) fanboi, so it is hard choking down that Batman is my #1 comic, even if for only 4 issues.
That Rai cover is an excellent example of his art, I remember wishing I had a poster of that back in the day, just great style whether an author or artist.

 

[Otomofan]

I always used to daydream that if I ever met Frank at a comic convention (I never did...he seemed to only go to the really big ones like SDCC or NYCC and I could never afford to go) I wanted to tell him all the kiss-ass fanboy stuff of course ("You're the best writer/artist that ever lived blah blah blah!") but I really wanted to tell him that when I read Dark Knight for the first time, around the time I was 10 or 11 years old.....this page REALLY messed up:



Jesus, that still gets to me 30 years later.

 

[Plastic Bateman]

I hate how it's become trendy in certain quarters to **** on Frank Miller in recent years. Similar to you, I think, the two comic artists I always find myself going back to are Miller and Otomo - I'm honestly starting to hate American cape comics in general at this point, but I keep going back to Dark Knight Returns, Daredevil, Wolverine (and titles he did as a writer like Elektra with Sienkiewicz and his collaborations with Mazzucchelli) and being consistently amazed at his utter mastery of visual storytelling. Anyone aspiring to be an artist stands to learn a lot from examining Frank at the height of his powers.

 

[Otomofan]

Yes, like I said, I'll start an Otomo thread eventually.

I got the recent hardcover 35th anniversary edition of AKIRA, which I've read probably a hundred times. But I haven't read it straight through in years, so I'm taking my time and just savoring the re-read. Lingering on each panel as long as I can. The actions sequences in AKIRA are simply unparalleled. If they shot a movie using the manga as a storyboard, it would be the most expensive movie ever made, but it would be the best science fiction movie of all time. Better than Jodorosky's Dune would have been!

 

[Otomofan]

For the tenth anniversary of Dark Knight, Frank did a bunch of new Batman pieces. I really like these cause they are very much in his Sin City style of the time (1996) with stark black and white and big bold lines, and exaggerated hands and feet (which he still uses.)












He also did a cover for Batman: Black and White and a pin up of Carrie Kelley Robin around this time, again with that similar art style.




After Dark Knight Strikes Again, the next time Frank had Batman pieces published were the cover and back cover for Absolute Dark Knight and the variant covers for All Star Batman and Robin.

Here you can see the lines getting "sloppier" and sketchier, which seems to be how he drew most of Holy Terror and his more recent pieces.

 

[Otomofan]

When Marvel (finally) got around to reprinting all of Miller's Daredevil stories in 2000 in paperbacks called Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller, he did three new covers that again showed his current style at the time, which was a big departure from the stories inside from the 70s.





At some point he went back and drew a new cover for RONIN as well, again using the very exaggerated style.

 

[Plastic Bateman]

I'm not the biggest fan of Frank's newer style but there was an excellent blog post from another comic artist a while back demonstrating that his work is coloured all wrong nowadays (no fault of his own).

https://harveyjames.tumblr.com/post/143735873863/theory-frank-millers-recent-work-is-good-but-it

Also I ordered that Akira 35th anniversary box set from Amazon US on Black Friday... and it got lost (or more likely stolen) in the mail. Amazon refunded me, but there was nothing they could do to replace it. Refund didn't cover a replacement set, drowned my sorrows by putting the money towards some Rotring 600s

 

[Otomofan]

I saw that blog and I thought it was interesting, but I didn't agree with a lot of the color choices he made.

It seems like Frank is working exclusively with a guy named Alex Sinclair as his colorist these days, and I don't really like the computer generated shadows and "sheen" he uses. Frank needs to be colored by Lynn really. Or just left in black and white. I think Sinclair's colors would be fine if he just kept it flat and didn't try to add "textures" and stuff.

Oh man, you definitely need to get that AKIRA boxed set...it's absolutely lovely....the outer box, the covers, everything. Just put in a new order!

 

[filip629]

I've greatly enjoyed all of Frank's older work but I'm not a big fan of what I've seen of his work the last few years. I don't know if it's due to his health struggles of just a change in his art style but it isn't working for me personally. That said, he's still one of the giants in the industry.

 

[Otomofan]

Supposedly Xerxes WILL be be published starting in April. And the three issue mini Superman: Year One not long after that/

Given his track record of insane lags between issues, I'm not optimistic they'll be on time but at least the man is drawing again.