Frank Miller Quits Comics Forever! Really?
Frank Miller was recently out in Rome promoting this winter’s upcoming travesty/movie The Spirit with a few clips and a Q&A (in Italian!). Most of the clips shown seemed boring and confusing, much like the trailer (all except a gratuitous Eva Mendes butt-shot), but the more interesting part is how Miller explained to the press that he has no intention on going back to comics and that he is very close to starting production on Sin City 2. You can read a part of the interview below (poorly translated for our benefit) or check out the complete piece over here.
I can’t talk about my projects, because I don’t believe a movie is real until I see the title on the screen. There are many things that can go wrong. But I can tell you that I’m very close to begin Sin City 2 with Robert Rodriguez. We have to arrange a few things and we’ll be back in action.
The Spirit hits screens this Christmas and if you weren’t already planning on going, the aforementioned trailer below should help give you the boost you need.
Frank Miller quitting comics? I feel like throwing a party:http://www.cbgxtra.com/Default.aspx?tabid=42&…
After "All-Star Batman and Robin" I'm with you, Tony. I fear greatly for "The Spirt" , however, I doubt we can get him to leave movies of other people's work alone as well.
I feared greatly for the Spirit BEFORE All-Star Batman and Robin #10.
AWESOME! , not get a Non-fascist writer who can write parody in a trainwreck sort of way to write All-Star Batman, or just end this shit fest now.
*Now
So, is he trying to make each trailer look worse than the one that came before it…?
I'll break open a bottle of champagne, and I don't even drink.
Doesn't FM have another Sin City series in planning before the second movie is to be done?And for that matter, I thought FM is to team up with Neal Adams to do an "All-Star Batman" limited series?Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about either one of these.
Tony, do you want me to bring the onion dip?I enjoyed Frank Miller's work for years, including "Born Again" and the "Sin City" books, but this is over the top (and that's saying something, considering the trend for "torture porn" in today's industry).Regarding Miller's treatment of "The Spirit", I read an interesting comment by John Byrne, how Frank Miller is doing to Will Eisner's work what Frank himself was concerned Hollywood would do to his work. There's some irony there.Having read the tpb "The Best of the Spirit", I became a big fan of Eisner's work. "The Spirit" had both humor and seriousness blended well together. While I would like to see a second "Sin City" film, "The Spirit" is not in the mold of "Sin City". But what do I know, I'm just a dumb reader who hates seeing someone's work trampled upon.
For good or ill, Eisner gave Miller control of his story to be transferred to film. I'm sure Eisner knew there was a chance it wouldn't translate well, or that Miller might actually transfer it wrong. Eisner took the chance that Miller could make it into a good movie. I'd like to see the movie first before I condemn it.All Star Batman is a very good comic book, but I do agree that it probably should not have starred the Batman character. A newly created character would have worked just fine.There's a lot of viss and pinegar being thrown at this book, yet it seems nary a word about the wholesale slaughter of characters over in Secret Invasion. Perhaps it doesn't matter, as the characters in Secret Invasion are merely sub-human, after all. Yet every time I look at a Secret Invasion story, I think that the Skrulls are analogs of illegal aliens. Illegal aliens are sub-human, aren't they? Aren't they? Or perhaps the Skrulls are analogs for the dire threat of Muslims. Perhaps? White makes right? ???
I'm not reading "Secret Invasion" so I can't really comment on it that much, other than I'm afflicted with "Event Fatigue" so I'm doing myself and my bank account a favor by not dropping money on "this will change everything…until the next big event when we cancel out the previous event" type books.Actually, Eisner didn't consent to the adaptation of his work to Miller. At his funeral, people approached Miller to work on the film adaptation. Granted, it seemed logical, initially, due to Eisner's and Miller's friendship and Miller's earlier stance on creator's rights and being faithful to the source material. It just seems now he's doing what he wants and saying "well, Will would have wanted it this way". Maybe he would, either way I think it could have been done better (at least based upon the parts released). I'll vote with my wallet on this film. If I don't think much of it, yet go see it anyway, I'm just part of the problem.
Skrulls as illegals or Muslims? Quite the stretch. I don't see it. I think you give Bendis way too much credit.
That slaughter of Skrulls in Secret Invasion is likely intended to create revulsion, and to build into a subsequent plot or subplot. You're supposed to be disturbed by it. I'm sure it's not a case of the creators encouraging slaughter or dehumanizing opponents.(I'm more bothered by some characters that I like to follow, being added to X-Force and the ends-justify-the-means attitude, which I will not support.)Despite trepidations, I too would want to wait and see the movie, before making judgements on it. (But since I only see movies when they come to TV or DVD, I'm not likely to influence the bottom line much.)
I can't comment on that since I am not reading Secret Invasion. I just hated what Miller did with Batman in "All-Star" so much I got half way through issue 2 and couldn't go on. First time anyone has driven me off a Batman book ever.
Did Eisner personally give Miller control, or did his estate?
As I mentioned above, it was Eisner's estate that gave Frank Miller their blessing to make the film about "The Spirit", not Eisner himself.
I hit your comment after i posted mine.Brecht and Weill got Marc Blitzstein; Will Eisner got Frank Miller.Why couldn't Eisner be the lucky one?
Has Frank Miller undergone some kind of metamorphosis in the past decade? Jokes and criticism aside, I'm genuinely curious as I have an old issue of Comics Journal that compiles a bunch of interviews from earlier years.There was a time when the thought of Frank Miller embracing Hollywood and writing awful Batman stories would have evoked laughter and ridicule at whoever suggested it.Is Miller taking Batman and superheroes in general to an extreme, satirical conclusion from the trend that Miller himself laid down in DKR? Why are Year One and DKR still regarded as classic stories even though they also took great liberties with iconic characters? I'm not saying DK2 and All-Star Batman are great by any stretch but what exactly changed in-between?
How about really crappy writing?
Yes, but…but, why? What happened from Year One and Dark Knight Returns to DK2 and ASBAR?Quality issues aside, are there people who despise the former two as much as the latter two for taking iconic characters into territory that they don't think they should go?
Iconic character or not, sales on Batman are very low. If the Batman comic sold to 1% of the nation, it would have sales of 3,000,000. Current sales are in the neighborhood of 70,000. Continuing to write Batman as traditionally written isn't going to expand the reading base in any way. Perhaps new approaches is a good idea. We can't live in the past. To stay in the past is to begin dying. I'm not quite ready for that.
DC could hire the ghost of Truman Capote to write Batman — or anything else — and it wouldn't sell any better in our current distribution and marketing system. The circle tightens every day, and by the standards of September 2008 a sale of 70,000 copies is great. By the standards of September 1958, Bob Kane wouldn't lift his head out of his own puke to sell 70,000.The medium cannot survive on comics shop sales. It can't even survive on bookstore sales of graphic novels and trades, but that helps. We have to support alternate means of distribution.You know, like the Internet.
"By the standards of September 1958, Bob Kane wouldn't lift his head out of his own puke to sell 70,000."That quote seems like it should be on a TPB cover or a book jacket somewhere.Isn't the circulation of ASBAR a bit higher at 100 000 because of the star creator billing?
I've got this working theory that it's his divorce from Lynn Varley. Completely unsupported and unfounded. But it's when I personally started to notice his rampant (creative) misogyny getting out of control. And there's an interview floating around where he refers to his 300 painter (Lynn) as a dude.
What have we done to deserve this?I wanna know so that i can do a lot more to make sure that McCain doesn't win the electon.
"no more comics forever" happens when you're dead. If FM NEEDS to return to comics because his movie projects tank (not saying they will; just if); he'll come back to comics and comics will welcome with open arms. That how it works.
My god. The trailer has gotten worse. I didn't think it was possible….Frank Miller was replaced by a Skrull imposter assigned to eradicate all joy in reading comic books.And the Skrulls are us. "He loves you!"Oy.
The latest trailer makes me wonder if it's an expensive music video or an actual movie.
if you think that's bad. Look around online for the leaked fight sequence between Spirit and Sam Jackson. Awful.
Mike – You're right…REALLY embarrassing. This one's gonna stick up the place like four day old fish.