Sin City: That Yellow Bastard, Part 1

[cyberghostface]

In addition to the usual content warning for 'Sin City' -- violence, nudity, etc -- I'm going to preface with this a warning: one of the villains is a child molester/killer. We don't actually see anything related to that but it's mentioned so I figured it's worth a heads up.

I think this is one of the stronger Sin City stories but if you're not a fan of the previous ones or Frank Miller's style in general it's probably not for you.

Comments

[lb_lee]

Wow. Like, for the first time, I actually GET why people liked Frank Miller, once upon a time. I had only seen his, you know, ASBAR kinda stuff, when he'd already kinda hit rock bottom. I didn't get what people saw in him as a writer or an artist, and even though a lot of the content here really bothers me, I ACTUALLY GET IT NOW.

Which actually makes it even sadder that now he's the ASBAR guy.

Also holy shit does this give me a bigger insight into Madison Clell's work--she sites Sin City as one of her influences, and DAMN, but she modeled young Nancy Callahan off her childhood self... (Clell made Cuckoo, a comics memoir of child sexual abuse.)

[cyberghostface]

FWIW his work on Daredevil and his early Batman stuff are all considerably better than this.

[lb_lee]

Yeah? How context dependent are his runs?

[cyberghostface]

They're all pretty accessible to newcomers.

[servant_iskandar]

The Bullseye - Elektra arc in Daredevil is pretty self-contained for the most part: it's also worth noting for Klaus Janson's strong contribute on art duties / inking.

Then there's the culmination in Born Again, which reads well as a standalone story; it is also the first collaboration of note Miller had with artist David Mazzuchelli.

They would eventually join again for Batman: Year One. My advice is to simply go, grab a copy (your local library might also carry one) and read it. If you can manage to find it, go for the original edition because the coloring in it is much better in my opinion, as Mazzuchelli's firing on all cylinders there.

You should also be able to find excerpts on s_d. As for The Dark Knight Returns, I still see it as one of the strong points of Miller's career... but you can also spot what eventually would turn to excess/flanderization/self-parody and go wrong in just a few years: DC resorting to GRIMDARK GRIMDARK GRIMDARK all too often, while Miller sped up his own decline, a virtual red line leading to The Dark Knight Strikes Again and ASBAR.

This arc of Sin City is relatively early in that descent, you've already noticed both its problems and high notes. IMHO, there's something truly hilarious and disturbing about Junior coming back at Hartigan as a homicidal version of the Yellow Kid.

[lb_lee]

Yeah, like it's kinda weird reading THIS when my sole exposures (asides from random snippets here and there) were things like ASBAR and some godawful post-apocalyptic story with a child main character whose title and publisher I've mercifully forgotten. Like, I can see his "good" skills and also the "dear god no" skills, and knowing where they ended... it's just kinda sad.

Batman is also admittedly a pretty hard sell for me even at the best of times. I MIGHT pick it up if I see it, but I admit, I'm not hugely invested either way.

God, THAT'S what I was missing! I felt there was something more to the Yellow Guy and now I'm like, "oh god, OF COURSE. Goddammit Miller."

[lb_lee]

gah. Modeled her childhood self off NANCY, I meant.

[thatnickguy]

Yeah, Sin City is pretty much the last time anyone saw the Frank Miller that was actually good. He was untouchable up until about that point. It all kind of went downhill from there.

But some of his Millerisms were still there. Women were either prostitutes or victims (despite some admittedly not-terrible characterizations sometimes). And the over-the-top tough guy characters made sense at least in Sin City, which was both honouring and parodying film noir.

[lb_lee]

Oh yeah, and like, I can see the roots of the ASBAR crap too. Like, I kinda CRINGE at Nancy, because I would actually really like to see them platonic friends instead of this Freudian guilt-ridden, "Oh noes, I want to bone her BUT I KNEW HER WHEN SHE WAS ELEVEN" thing. And the machismo makes me want to gag. Also what is up with the lawyer woman? Her characterization is just... WEIRD.

But like, even with that, I can understand why people liked this. I can understand what they saw in Frank Miller, which I never had before.

[thatnickguy]

Yeah, I'd really like to know what happened to this Miller. As you said, you can see the roots, but they're reined back. It makes me wonder if something happened to make him snap all the way or if he was just always like this and he reined it in better.

[lb_lee]

Part of me wonders if it was editorial reining him in, and then once he became big enough, he got let loose more. That was what happened with Piers Anthony, far as I can tell--Del Rey was like, "Um, we're kinda uncomfortable with the pedo stuff," and he just kept moving publishers that allowed him to get skeezier and skeezier.

I mean, Miller became HUGE. I wonder if it was less him "snapping" and more there just weren't as many people willing to tell him, "No, Frank."

[thatnickguy]

I get the feeling it's a mix of both. He snapped, but also because of the name he built up, he had more pull.

Personally, I think doing the scripts for Robocop 2 & 3 was what did it. I remember reading some comments or interviews with him where he HATED Hollywood after that (and why he was VERY hesitant about Robert Rodriguez's Sin City adaptation).

But around that same time, he was also doing his own creator-owned stuff like Sin City, Big Guy & Rusty, and such, really making a name for himself outside of DC/Marvel through Dark Horse. He became a big name on his own, outside of Batman and Daredevil, which gave me him more clout. So he was given a LOT more leeway when DC brought him back for Dark Knight Strikes Again.

[shadowpsykie]

oh early Miller was amazing. Sin City. The dark Knight returns, Daredevil. His "Whore whores whores" thing didn't start till like the dark knight strikes back... then he went COMPLETELY off the rails...

[thezmage]

He never looked so much like Shrek to me before.

[an_idol_mind]

Huh. I never realized that the constant repetition of, "Dick Grayson, age twelve" in ASBAR has its roots in Sin City.

It's like Miller wants to go back to the well on his good comics, but doesn't understand what parts of the stories people actually liked.