Sunday, June 18, 2006
Anti-Heroes Anonymous
So I need to update that reading list sidebar again. I finished The Watchmen and Sin City. In case there was any doubt in your minds (those of you who read comics), Watchmen is by far the superior read. Alan Moore's Watchmen is the only graphic novel to have won a Hugo and also the only graphic novel in Time's top 100 books of the century. (wiki). The watchmen is a deconstructionalist's dream, with all the nuclear war paranoia of the 80's wrapped around the decaying image of the comic superhero. It's characters are brutally real, and easily earned the comic an adult perspective. It's graphic, but not senselessly so. A comic book within the comic book ads a little more literary flare, helping this story earn its place on Time's top 100. I'm glad to have discovered Moore's contribution to literature.
And horrified to hear they're turning it into a movie.
Which brings us right around to sin city.
Anybody have some soap for my brain? I admire the artistic approach (and will probably emulate it in my own webcomic project that I hint at every so often), but the content went from tiresome to loathsome. By the time I trudged through "Hell and Back", I was ready to never pick up another Frank Miller tale. I don't want to get on a high horse about morality and comics. I understand he's going for the anti-hero, and that the nastier a hard-boiled noir story it becomes, the more of his purpose he's achieved, but come on. The stories started ok, I actually found a little catharsis in Dwight from "The Big Fat Kill". "That Yellow Bastard" was starting to go downhill. As I continued through the remaining stories, the patterns started setting in. Formulaic stories aggrevate me. And then I realize Miller's leaning a lot on shock value here. Characters react in ways that are sometimes realistic, but often one-sided. What was starting to seem a little juvenile ended as utterly ridiculous. Hell and Back isn't worth the paper it's printed on. If Miller's setting out to create some kind of post-modern dissection of a dying genre, I guess he did ok. But I can't stomach much postmodernism either.
Again, what was mild curiosity about the movies is now indifference.
And if any of my Frank Miller fans are still reading, I will give him credit for memorable characters, great style (again), and a gutsy, uncompromising approach to telling a story. It just wasn't my particular flavor.
Maybe if I was still 16. ¶ 0 comments
And horrified to hear they're turning it into a movie.
Which brings us right around to sin city.
Anybody have some soap for my brain? I admire the artistic approach (and will probably emulate it in my own webcomic project that I hint at every so often), but the content went from tiresome to loathsome. By the time I trudged through "Hell and Back", I was ready to never pick up another Frank Miller tale. I don't want to get on a high horse about morality and comics. I understand he's going for the anti-hero, and that the nastier a hard-boiled noir story it becomes, the more of his purpose he's achieved, but come on. The stories started ok, I actually found a little catharsis in Dwight from "The Big Fat Kill". "That Yellow Bastard" was starting to go downhill. As I continued through the remaining stories, the patterns started setting in. Formulaic stories aggrevate me. And then I realize Miller's leaning a lot on shock value here. Characters react in ways that are sometimes realistic, but often one-sided. What was starting to seem a little juvenile ended as utterly ridiculous. Hell and Back isn't worth the paper it's printed on. If Miller's setting out to create some kind of post-modern dissection of a dying genre, I guess he did ok. But I can't stomach much postmodernism either.
Again, what was mild curiosity about the movies is now indifference.
And if any of my Frank Miller fans are still reading, I will give him credit for memorable characters, great style (again), and a gutsy, uncompromising approach to telling a story. It just wasn't my particular flavor.
Maybe if I was still 16. ¶ 0 comments
