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Sin City

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Anyone who has seen and enjoyed the recent Frank Miller/Robert Rodriguez film SIN CITY should definitely explore the graphic novels upon which the film is based. THE HARD GOODBYE was the first of Miller's series of novels, and the one upon which the Marv sequence in the film is based. As Miller tells it in interviews, he had been toying with the idea of creating some short 48-page comics dealing with a noirish urban area he called Sin City, and had been coming up with a lot of ideas, such as the geography, some of the back story, and a number of character. But he was struggling to come up with a story. One day, he says, he had a flash: "Conan the Barbarian in a trench coat." And thus was Marv created. The trench coat isn't a trivial matter with Marv. Throughout the book he repeatedly expresses interest in coats, especially coats he can liberate from bad guys he is about to kill. And once Marv's story took off, it wasn't a 48-page tale any longer.

Some write or talk about the Sin City books as if Miller has reinvented the world of noir. This simply isn't true, and no one who has actually followed the host of books and movies to follow in the wake of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler would find anything new in Miller's vision. What little that is new is the extreme to which he takes some of the more garish elements of the hardboiled school, but those elements were all well established before Miller ever turned his attention to the tradition. In particular, he is deeply indebted to Raymond Chandler's take on Dashiell Hammett's creation. If you read Chandler's books, you quickly realize that he views his detective Philip Marlowe as a latter day knight errant, defending the helpless and rescuing damsels in distress, albeit with a thick veneer of world weariness and cynicism. Marlowe has a tough guy exterior, but it hides a heart of mush and a profound moral code to which he remains true. The only thing that Miller brings to the mix is a graphic vividness, and a stretching of the elements of the hardboiled tale to the point of caricature. But Marv's determination to avenge Goldie's death is remarkably similar to Marlowe's dogged faithfulness to those to whom he feels loyal.

THE HARD GOODBYE is part and parcel an exaggerated, almost garish recreation of Raymond Chandler's version of the hardboiled crime story. Miller's heroes are a bit less law-abiding, but at heart they are guys with a profound dedication to idealized women. Marv is insane, suffering from some unspecified mental illness to which he alludes but which he never describes. The pills he takes keeps him barely on this side of over over-the-edge. He is violent, hideously ugly, virtually indestructible, and profoundly dangerous. Miller might describe him as Conan in a trench coat, but he also can remind some as a poor man's Incredible Hulk. But where women are concerned, he is a softy. One theme that runs through Miller's books is that the good guys are all protectors of women, and the bad guys their exploiters. Most of Miller's bad guys rape, torture, assault, or otherwise exploit or kill women. His heroes are determined to stand between the bad guys and the women. One criticism of the books is that they are written from the male point of view. They are male fantasies. And the fantasies are not all that simple. The men are for the most part ugly or even grotesque, while all the women are outrageously gorgeous in a sex shop sort of way. The bad guys can be in many instances even more grotesque. It is all highly stylized, but it is a stylization that remains constant throughout. Miller's heroes are not good men, and in fact the only thing that divides many of them are their treatment of women: the bad guys rape or murder women; the good guys stop the bad guys.

I like Miller as an illustrator for the most part, but my one complaint is that many of the illustrations are not as strong as the best. He is often inspired, and many of the images are unforgettable, but he sometimes can be merely average. What I really like about Miller are his stories and his dialogue. Sometimes people attempting to write in a hardboiled style can fall into unintentional parody. Remarkably, Miller avoids that, despite the extravagant garishness of his characters and his imagery. He often hits the right notes with his words. Like many of the best comic book writers, Miller is better with stories and words than with images, and that's as it should be. The imagery is a vehicle for the tale to be told, not the other way around.

No one in his right mind would argue with Frank Miller's pedigree as a comic artist. Miller single-handedly reinvented the superhero genre with his seminal "Batman: The Dark Night Returns" in 1986, then took on a flagging Daredevil title and made it the most gripping reading available in the comic book racks. Even the X-Clone fans had to applaud Miller for breathing life into a dying medium.

And then he created "Sin City," making everything which came before seem amateurish in comparison.

"Sin City" is the story of a down-on-his-luck,dumb schlub named Marv who wanders into a tangled situation he cannot begin to understand. Naturally, his life heads straight down the toilet immediately after making love to an incredibly beautiful woman. Marv's single-minded pursuit of vengeance consumes the remainder of the series in true film noir fashion.

I could go on and on about the classic noir elements Miller blends into the tale, the obvious glee he takes in crafting this work, or the extraordinary nature of the villain he has constructed to be Marv's foil.

Forget all that and look at the art. It explodes off the page in glorious black and white. Miller's use of light and shadow and the cinematic nature of his composition is the most remarkable thing I have seen in the medium. The best way I can describe the illustrations in this series is to say it looks like a storyboard Orson Welles would have put together for "Touch of Evil."

Let's face it: "Sin City" is no "Othello." ("Titus Andronicus," maybe, "Othello," no.) But Miller's not looking to create great literature here, as Chris Claremont often attempts in his overwrought "X-Men." Instead, he's treating his fans to a tightly-wound, suspenseful romp through a visceral urban swamp.

This is a book you'll read straight through to the shocking end, and I heartily recommend it to anyone tired of the Todd McFarlane clones and their spandex jive.

First let me say that as I write this Amazon.com is offering this outstanding graphic novel for less than $12. That's a jaw dropping deal, folks. And if you still need more convincing to part ways with your 12 bills then just read on...

One word that gets thrown around a lot with SIN CITY is the word "noir." A lotta folks say SIN CITY is a great noir comic, but brother, let me tell ya this: SIN CITY re-defines noir. Saying SIN CITY is a noir book is like saying a Ferrari is a car--it's an understatement of the highest order. Sin City is about good guys doing bad things to bad people for good reasons.

This is volume 1 and was originally serialized in a monthly book called Dark Horse Presents back in the early 1990s. It was collected in book form and Frank Miller (writer/artist/genius) added almost 20 extra pages and put it out as SIN CITY. Later this tale of a gladiator born in the wrong century, Marv, and his quest to avenge the love of his life, a dead hooker named Goldie, got the subtitle The Hard Goodbye.

I'm sure a lot of folks are interested in the SIN CITY series of books due to the recent film co-directed by the book's creator, Frank Miller. Miller settles into what will become his signature style on the Sin City books through the course of the story and his use of black ink on white paper boggles the mind. His images are stark, bold, ingenius. The Hard Goodbye started it all. The Sin City series of books. The action figures. The film. The re-defining of a genre.

See? I told ya $12 was peanuts.

Marv, our protagonist, is a force of nature. Brutish, ugly, a man who has had a hard life and it shows. His one night of passion with a beautiful woman is destroyed by her murder. He decides to set things right. That's the story in a nutshell. Combine it with Miller's designs and you start to enter a new territory of graphic novel. The stunning visuals offset the rather bizarre story and you have a feast for the eyes. The novel has a visceral impact, you can't quite forgive the strange plot but you can't stop looking.

What can I say that hasn't already been said. Yes, it is violent and yes, Marv, the main character probably isn't your friendly everyday neighbor. But who cares? This is a comic book. It has a truely amazing storyline, the most wonderful graphic art I've ever witnessed in black and white. Superb!!!
If you like this one, check out Frank Miller's "Daredevil, The Man without Fear" and "Batman, the Dark Knight Returns".

Sin City: The Hard Goodbye comes packed with the new version of Sin City, and truthfully, it wasn't really needed. The movie follows the book so well that it feels as if you're watching the movie over again as you read. Frank Miller did a hell of a job in this aspect at keeping the movie as true to the book as possible, with Robert Rodriguez's help, of course.

(Possible Spoiler) Mostly everybody who is a fan of Sin City would say that Marv is their favorite character, or at least his story is the best. The graphic novel contains a lot of controversy, with the killing of priests, plenty of nudity, and a load of gore and violence, and it comes off darkly from the pages with Frank Miller's unique, film noir style for this book. You can feel the anger of Marv as he goes from kill to kill, and slowly you start to sense just how gone his mind is from his head. Still, he becomes lovable and somewhat altruistic in his quest for revenge because of a couple of redeeming qualities, that being he never hurts women, and he's willing to die for a cause he believes in. The end, though inevitable, is not disappointing, as you would think a monster like him, who has yet to find his place in this world, would be better off gone.

The setting of this book, Sin City, seems to be a dark mixture of New York City and a third world country. The dead or the fallen litter the streets, and only the strongest or richest survive. The only ones capable of any good are usually the worst of the bunch, including Marv. And more often than not, those moments of good turn into something entirely evil, a common aspect in all of the Sin City graphic novels.

The Sin City movie, though true to the graphic novels, left out a lot of stories, so, if you saw the movie, I'd first recommend buying all the books that were missing from the movie, and then complete your collection with The Hard Goodbye, The Big Fat Kill, and That Yellow Bastard later. But definately complete your collection, as this is a classic series sure to be around for a while (it's already been thirteen years since their first print.

...or black and white for that matter. The good guys in this book are bad and the bad guys are just plain disgusting! A pill popping murderer(with a soft heart) battles a flesh eating priest and his misunderstood cannibal friend. It just doesn't get any darker than this.

Besides the unnaturally sexy women (most of whom are prostitutes), there is nothing attractive about this world that Frank Miller has created. Yet still you will find yourself sucked in by that part of yourself that wants to slow down as you drive by an accident.

I have to say that as soon as I saw the trailer for Sin City on TV i became obssesed. After that it was sin city this sin city that. Although I haven't seen the movie yet, i cant till its on video. Anyways this is one of the best comic books/graphic novels I have ever read. Frank Miller's way of drawing in all black or white is amazing. The storyline definately keeps you wanting to know who Marv is killing next. The basic plot of the story is about a brute of a man by the name of Marv who falls in love with a hooker named Goldie after one night. He wakes up and finds her dead next to him, and spends the rest of the story fighting and killing his way to the culprit. Kevin is by far the most disturbing character ever made (a mute cannibal who cuts the heads of women and eats the rest of them). The comic book does have nudity and some violence in it and isn't appropriate for young kids who are used to stuff like spider man or x-men. this is definately a must read.

In a note in the back of "The Hard Goodbye," Frank Miller explains that this one got away from him. What was supposed to be a 48-page crime thriller turned into a 200-page graphic novel, all because Marv, the story's brutal misanthropic protagonist, started bossing Miller around. If you have seen "Sin City" the movie where Mickey Rourke steals the film as Marv, then you can understand Miller's explanation. You will understand it even more when you read the graphic novel, the first volume in the Miller's comic noir saga.

For me Frank Miller began the road that ends in "Sin City" with "Daredevil" #164, which retold the hero's origin. There is a series of panels in which Daredevil is chasing down the Fixer, the man who arranged the fight that Battling Murdock refused to throw. In each frame Daredevil gets closer to his quarry and cutting across the panels is a line representing the Fixer's heart beat, which goes from blind panic to full cardiac arrest before flatlining. It was at that point that I knew Miller was starting to think of what he could do with art in a comic book. After his work on "Daredevil" there was "Ronin" and "The Dark Knight Returns," and eventually Miller gets to Marv.

There is no doubt that Marv is the walking path of destruction that dominates this narrative. He is extremely violent, deeply disturbed, and whatever medication he is taking is just not doing the job. Still, he is a sympathetic figure because pretty much everybody he is maiming and killing are the real scum of the earth and he is on a mission to avenge the death of Goldie, the beautiful blonde who gave him a toss in the hay. He falls asleep in bed with her, having one of those moments of true happiness that never bodes well, and wakes up with her dead and the cops on their way. Marv is being set up, but that is incidental in his mind to the fact somebody killed Goldie, so somebody has to pay along with everybody else who stands in his way. The grand irony here is Marv and his interior monologues are the voice of sanity by the time he finds the killer.

The characters and the dialogue are easy to characterize as Mickey Spillane types on steroids. Then there is Miller's artwork as he explores what can done with just black and white on a page. The result is wildly experimental and sometimes you can a sense of how rough Miller's ideas are by the time he finishes a page. The first page of the story is more black than white, with Goldie's lips, the outline of her hair, the white skin exposed by the strapless gown and gloves etched out in seductive folds sets the tone for the artwork. The second page is the opposite with more white than black and offers a more conventional view of Marv and Goldie, and already you like the first page better. The third page offers a synthesis of the first two and it is like Miller is laying out the new ground rules. There are figures reduced to silhouettes except for hair or teeth (or bandages), and others reduced to white images against a field of black. Then we get to Marv standing in the rain in Chapter 8 and looking at the statue of Cardinal Roarke, at which point Miller is trying something completely different from the rest of the book.

I have no doubt that if Miller was to do "The Hard Goodbye" today that there would be significant changes in the artwork that would provide a refinement of the raw energy displayed here. There are times when the justification for the artwork seems to clearly be that it is different from the pages Miller has just drawn as opposed to be the best way of illustrating that part of the narrative. But this is the first story in an ongoing series, so allowances can be made if Miller really did decide to do a page a certainly way for no other reason than he had not done one that way yet. After all, it is not like he was coming up with 200 different pages of artwork and by the time you get to Chapter 8, which I think is artistically far and away the best of the entire graphic novel, it is equally clear Miller knows exactly what he is doing and all of the pieces are falling into place. The joy of watching the art evolve in this story makes up for the rough patches.

These stories were originally published in issues #51-62 of the Dark Horse comic book series "Dark Horses Presents" and in the "Dark Horse Presents Fifth Anniversary Special." This second edition has come out with the rest of the extant "Sin City" collection in term to be gobbled up by fans of the movie version and those who come from the theater to the graphic novel will probably be surprised how faithful Robert Rodriguez was to Frank Miller's story and vision. Then again, that was the whole point of doing the film the way it was done.

With that opening line, I was drawn into the damn finest comic book I've read yet. I saw the trailer for "Sin City" and thought it looked very cool. I've never been into comic books, really, but I decided to go and check out the first "Sin City" comic to see what I could expect in the film. Before I read it, I was expecting typical noir: men in raincoats and fedoras skulking around streets in the night.

Ha! Boy, was I wrong.

"Sin City" (or as it was later re-named, "The Hard Goodbye") is film-noir at its darkest, as well as finest. It's filled with guns, the occasional castration, and it even features cannibalism. It's the tale of Marv, who makes the Hulk look like a mindless brute. Marv's in a bad mood tonight, because the only women who ever gave him a chance, Goldie, was just murdered. So he's on a quest to find the bastard that murdered Goldie and kill him, slowly and painfully.

Frank Miller is a genius. He creates an absorbing story focusing on an extremely likable and very interesting main character, filled with terrific, colorless drawings. I never dreamed that comics could be this good, but they sure can.

It's hard to explain "Sin City" unless you've read it for yourself. This Second Edition of the book (to tie-in with the release of the film) is well-designed, making it something for collectors to treasure for years to come.

Walk down the right back alley in Sin City and you can find anything.