Frank Miller Speaks
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on February 28, 2006 Sign up now!
by Peter Sanderson, PW Comics Week -- Publishers Weekly, 2/28/2006
 Frank Miller Photo: Tim Soter |
Seen earlier this month at WonderCon in San Francisco, the Miller/Brownstein "dog and pony show" first touched on Miller's forthcoming Batman: Holy Terror, in which the Dark Knight goes after al-Qaeda. And though Brownstein forewarned the audience that the duo would not be discussing the project, that turned out not to be not true.
Brown started out by asking Miller how he uses his work to "read the zeitgeist." Miller explained that a problem with superhero comics is that writers regard them as "irrelevant" to the real world and that superhero critics "ignore elements of superhero history." Miller reminded the audience of the famous cover of Captain America Comics #1: "Captain America punches out Hitler." But following the censorship battles over comics in the 1950s, Miller contends, comics turned away from this sort of political theme.
Superheroes, Miller asserted, are "folk heroes. How can a folk hero have nothing to do with folk?" These days, he continued, we're "now in a clash of civilizations," and "superheroes should be front and center."
Brownstein asked Miller whether superheroes are too "preposterous" to be used in such a context. Miller answered with a rhetorical question: "What made Achilles relevant?" In his view, Miller explained, superheroes are "gods," —not the ones we worship, but more like mythological gods "who live among us." Moreover, thanks to their popularity, superheroes afford Miller "the biggest megaphone I can find."
Brownstein asked why superheroes have become so popular in film and other media in recent years. "My guess is that the audience is reacting to mythology in everything from Superman to Batman to Sin City," Miller said, noting that each "plays on themes that are really ancient." Miller described his popularity as "the shock of the new" for younger audiences who did not really read comics. Brownstein noted that Miller's recent signings were split between his "old" audience of comics fans and this new and "wide-eyed" movie-nurtured audience.
Asked if comics still carry a cultural stigma, Miller asserted, "To new readers, comics have become cool. It's only comic book people who haven't caught on to it." Miller still sees "self-contempt and fear of the outside world" among comics professionals, although he noted that is changing.
And what about those people who don't want political themes in their comics and "just want pure escapism," asked Brownstein. "There are an awful lot of people [in mainstream comics] who are giving them just that," Miller replied. "But I am out to provoke." Miller contended that he isn't propounding a particular political viewpoint. "I don't care how the hell you vote," Miller said, emphasizing that he's aiming to "mostly make fun of" what's going on in the world. "You can't make this stuff up."
Asked to respond to the controversy over those Danish cartoons and the angry, violent Muslim response? "The harsh truth is that we're facing an enemy that keeps telling us what they are and what they want," declared Miller, adding that people refuse to believe it. "They have made it plain they want to exterminate the Jews, to bring down the West, to achieve world dominion," Miller warned, likening Islamic extremists to the Nazis in the 1930s.
Miller described the rage over the cartoonists as "a trumped-up stunt," and said radical Muslim leaders are just "looking for something to yell about." He concluded, "It's just pathetic. If people can't stand cartoons about religion, they've got a problem."
Miller said he regards the cartoonist as an "assassin" who fires arrows with rubber suckers on one end. Miller maintained that the duty of a cartoonist is "to use all of our skills to address, to satirize, to amuse." By doing so, he continued, cartoonists are "getting back to their roots." He pointed out that all of the major superheroes of the 1940s were created by Jews during a time of anti-Semitic persecution: "Superman was a golem." And while he said that he "won't tell Jeff Smith that Bone has got to [go on a political] crusade," Miller nonetheless issued a call to his fellow comics pros: "Let's revive our tradition and get back on the job."
Miller has increasingly regarded himself as a satirist; Brownstein noted that Dark Knight 2 has proven to be controversial precisely because it was "satirical," whereas Miller's original Dark Knight is "reverent" to the long Batman legacy. Miller reminded the audience that the first Dark Knightwas also controversial. It's only after a generation of comics enthusiasts have grown up reading it that it is now regarded as "tradition." Pointing to his treatment of superheroes in Dark Knight 2, Miller said he "wanted to have fun" with them and to show how "cool" they were. Besides, said the man who is considered one of the pioneers of grim and gritty superhero comics, "Superheroes were getting a little too gloomy for me. If I could fly, I'd probably have a big smile on my face."
Moving on to his new career as a filmmaker, Miller said that working with director Robert Rodriguez on the first Sin City movie showed him that everything Hollywood had said to him in the past—"that my dialogue wouldn't work on film; that my stories didn't have the right structure"—was wrong.
Miller has worked as a screenwriter, a job he compared to being "a fire hydrant with a long line of dogs around the block." From now on, "I want to direct," he said. "These things"—his graphic novels—"are my babies, and I'll either be deeply involved in making them into movies or they won't be made."
Miller noted that he had sold the screen rights to 300, his lavish hardcover graphic novel about the Battle of Thermopylae, before becoming co-director of Sin City. But he was happy to report how "faithful" the forthcoming movie version is proving to be. Miller is finishing the screenplay for Sin City 2 and said shooting will begin "as early as this summer." The film will adapt his graphic novel A Dame to Kill For, while weaving in some Sin City short stories as well as a new short story about what happens to Nancy (Jessica Alba's character) after the death of Hartigan.
Sin City taught him two major lessons, Miller said. First: "Stick to your guns. Stay true to your original intent." The second is the "importance of actors and the utter joy of working with them."
Brownstein asked Miller if there was anything he hadn't done that he wanted to do. Miller burst into laughter, announcing, "I hate this guy!" before getting more serious: "Just more stories. I don't have plans to enter architecture or anything." Finally, Brownstein asked, "What if a dirty bomb were to suddenly go off and kill everyone.... What has your body of work contributed to the world?"
Miller's response: "Get lost!"
