Push the Wall: My Life, Writing, Drawing and the Art of Storytelling

Miller, creator of such celebrated comics series as the Dark Knight Returns and 300, meditates on the forces behind his art in this exuberant memoir. The episodic narrative revisits Miller’s career milestones, including breaking into the comics biz in the gloriously grungy New York City of the 1970s, whose urban squalor and violence infused his artistic sensibility; his triumphant reboot of Batman as a grizzled, cantankerous 50-year-old battling nihilistic perps and a vapid media culture; and a humbling Hollywood gig scripting 1990’s Robocop 2 (“Writing a screenplay can be a lot like carefully casting and assembling what you’re certain is a beautiful fire hydrant, only to watch a long line of dogs come piss on it”). Sprinkled throughout are revelatory explorations of comics craft, from storytelling rules (“Tell whoever’s watching who the hero is, and then get that hero into trouble right quick”) to celebrations of the genre’s excess (“I adore swirling hair and rumpling trench coat cloth and frothing spittle.... Teeth clenched like psychotic chiclets”). Gorgeously illustrated with panels from Miller’s work and written in elegantly two-fisted prose, this is a wildly entertaining account that his fans will savor. Illus. Agent: Albert Lee, UTA. (July)