I looked at the first Sin City book today. The story bored me to death but I was hooked to the gorgeous stark art. Come to think of it, I thought the artwork was unnecessarily fussy. Comic geeks, feel free to kill me for the sacrilege.
I have a Holy Bible now. The inside cover says
Presented to :-
Dr B.D. Agarwalla F.R.C.S.
4 Bishop Lifnoy Road
Cal-20.
With best of compliments of :-
Michael Bhattacharjia
Gideon Association.
C/o "Waldorf"
24-B Park St. Calcutta 16.
Today was a beautiful day. Today was a beautiful day in Kolkata. Today was.
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7 comments:
It's okay to hate Frank Miller these days - even his most rabid fans are generally too embarrassed (of the whole All-Star Batman & Robin thingy) to trounce you. So go right ahead.
Sin City is interesting in that I am fairly sure I would've like it a LOT more if it had been written by someone else. I've always found Miller to be an extremely dry writer, and, storywise, this series is so dark it's dull. I like the art, though, but as you say, it's somewhat too fussy. The 'Silent Night' one-shot showcases most of the good and bad aspects of Sin City, so reading that will make it a lot easier for a reader to decide if s/he wants the whole thing or not. Or, of course, you can simply ignore him and get Indie stuff.
Not even the most rabid fan will say that Sin City is classic for its stories (though I do enjoy the first few volumes for that reason as well), but really, the art is perfection. I don't really see where you guys are coming from with the fussy thing. I have never seen black and white used in the way Miller does. Only Dave Sim comes close with later Cerebus issues. Sin City ultimately comes down to the art and the atmosphere.
And also, Aditya, embarrassment or not, the rabid fans will still stick by him somewhat (as will I) simply on the basis of The Dark Knight Returns which is a near perfect piece of work and without which a large chunk of the comics you enjoy today would not have been written. Ronin is another book of his that I really enjoyed.
That said, yeah, Sin City's stories do - for the most part - leave something to be desired. But ultimately it isnt really the point. And hey, you dont have to look at the recent Batman debacles for ammo against Miller. He wrote the story/screenplay for Robocop 2! Which was a bad but very enjoyable movie. But then he went a step further with Robocop 3 which is up there with Highlander 2 as the greatest desecration of an original film by a horrendous sequel.
You mean Bishop Lefroy?
First, sorry to HPPP for taking up so much space with this comment. If I were a comics blogger, this would be a post.
Abhimanyu: I'm not saying rabid fans won't stick by him - I'm just saying they (or most of them) won't, as they did in the past, question your very interest in comics simply because you don't like Miller. Dark Knight Returns is, of course, near-perfect (although I have to say here again that the story is not to my personal taste).
About the story in Sin City: I do appreciate the fact that the original Sin City book (Violent Marv), and a couple of the others (such as Family Values) do have stories. I don't personally like most of them (note that in my last comment I stick to my personal opinion of the story, and not an objective critique). Haven't seen Robocop 3, but read the script. Awful stuff.
The art in Sin City: I generally like it, and in some places (such as one particular Hartigan panel in TYB - him with his hand splayed out in front of us) it does look gorgeous, but in a lot of places it is simply for its own sake, foregoing even clarity for effect, and then not managing to get the effect. He is so involved in getting that feel that he forgets the reader. In the case of Family Values, though, there's a lot more clarity in the art, mainly because he drew that in a hurry (or so it appears to me), and couldn't fuss over each panel. It does render the art slightly less interesting - but interesting does not necessarily imply good, and good does not imply interesting.
This is again solely from my perspective as a reader: Once you have achieved the objective of your experiment (which he did in the first two volumes), you should try and see how you can use the interesting art in a way that is good. (An example here might be Fripp and Eno coming together to make 'No Pussyfooting', and then going off and using that stuff in actual albums.) Miller doesn't do that, except in parts of Family Values.
Aditya and Abhimanyu: consider this blog a safe space for geekery.
I have something to say about the Sin City thing but not right now so I'll come back later with it.
Srin: That must be him! Is he famous?
oh my god! you thought sin city was boring!!!
which one did you try to read??
the best is probably "that yellow bastard" and "The hard goodbye"
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