The book was... The Storyboard Design Course: The Ultimate Guide for Artists, Directors, Producers and Scriptwriters by Guiseppe Cristiano published in 2008. I read the book and learned the new ways to make story boards, Why are they made, Descriptive ideas and which fields they are important...
so i went through some more books in the library like...
Directing the Story: Professional Storytelling and Storyboarding Techniques for Live Action and Animation by Francis Glebas published in 2008.
Going though these i decided to explain...
usage of 'Story Boards as a Communication'
It all started with the Cave men and the Egyptians...
>We started to communicate through visuals before we learnt to talk properly.
>Cavemen painted on the walls of the caves in order to communicate and tell stories.
>The Egyptians used their hieroglyphs, the primitive writing systems of ancient Egypt where symbols denoted objects and concepts or skip many years of significant development of the medium
>A lot of things we know about egypt today is because of these.
What does it mean today?
*Storyboards are graphic organizers such as a series of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media and even visualizing a fashion collection.*The storyboarding process, in the form it is known today, was developed at the Walt Disney Studio during the early 1930s, after several years of similar processes being in use at Walt Disney and other animation studios. Diane Disney Miller explains that the first complete storyboards were created for the 1933 Disney short Three Little Pigs.
*One of the first live action films to be completely storyboarded was Gone with the Wind.
*Here are the areas which require this mode of communication today.
Initial Creative Process Source
>Film- Alfred Hitchcock's films
>Theater- . The great Russian theatre practitioner Constantin Stanislavski developed storyboards in his detailed production plans for his Moscow Art Theatre performances
Animatics
>In animation and special effects work,
>A photomatic is a series of still photographs edited together and presented on screen in a sequence.
>Comic books
>Fashion
Comic books like...
Spider man
Superman
Flash
……long list….
A clip from sin city.
E.G.'s of Story building in fashion
How to Create?
>Basic illustration and proportion skills.
>Able to use different color materials. collection of pictures or other material If needed.
>Mapping out a situation and building a story in mind.
>Creating a board.
*One advantage of using storyboards is that it allows (in film and business) the user to experiment with changes in the storyline to evoke stronger reaction or interest. Flashbacks, for instance, are often the result of sorting storyboards out of chronological order to help build suspense and interest.*The process of visual thinking and planning allows a group of people to brainstorm together, placing their ideas on storyboards and then arranging the storyboards on the wall.
*This fosters more ideas and generates consensus inside the group.
Helped me to find my inspiration for design process…
A Few Story Board Artists
James Jean (via: Graphic Exchange) Taiwanese-American illustrator and artist James Jean rose to fame as a cover artist for DC Comics, winning many awards including seven Eisner awards. He is best known for the many acclaimed cover illustrations he created for comic book series Fables but his clients also include The New York Times, Time Magazine, Rolling Stone, Spin and Playboy. Jean currently has four published collections of his works including Process Recess volumes 1 and 2, which show his illustration process including the original drawings.
Will Murai (images via WillMurai.com)Brazilian illustrator and comic book colorist Will Murai has worked with W/Brasil, Marvel Comics, DC Comics and Dynamite Entertainment among many other clients. Murai starts with sketches, concepts, studies and textures created using traditional art materials and methods and then completes the painting and coloration process digitally using software like Adobe Illustrator and Corel Painter.
Linn Olofsdotter (images via: Olofsdotter.com)The works of Swedish mixed media artist Linn Olofsdotter are richly textured and layered, using digital software to create a collage-like effect. Now settled in Portland, Olofsdotter has accumulated a varied portfolio creating works for MTV, Bon Magazine, Spin Mag, La Perla and Levi’s.
Brian Despain (images via DespainArt.com)Brian Despain is a painter and illustrator who has worked with industry giants like game publishing companies TSR and Wizards of the Coast. Even the work that Despain does for pleasure tells a story, and his oil paintings reveal a vast imaginary landscape populated with fascinating creatures like robots and walking fish.
Graphic Novels
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using the comics form.[1] The term is employed in a broad manner, encompassing non-fiction works and thematically linked short stories as well as fictional stories across a number of genres.[2]
Graphic novels are typically bound in longer and more durable formats than familiar comic magazines, using the same materials and methods as printed books, and are generally sold in bookstores and specialty comic book shops rather than at newsstands. It has also gained increasing acceptance as desirable materials for libraries.
Definition
The evolving term graphic novel is not strictly defined, and is sometimes used, controversially, to imply subjective distinctions in artistic quality between graphic novels and other kinds of comics. It suggests a complete story that has a beginning, middle and end, as opposed to an ongoing series. It can also imply a story that is outside the genres commonly associated with comic books, or that deals with more mature themes. It is sometimes applied to works that fit this description even though they are serialized in traditional comic book format. The term is sometimes used to disassociate works from the juvenile or humorous connotations of the terms comics and comic book, implying that the work is more serious, mature, or literary than traditional comics. Following this reasoning, the French term Bande Dessinée is occasionally applied, by art historians and others schooled in fine arts, to dissociate comic books in the fine-art tradition from those of popular entertainment, even though in the French language the term has no such connotation and applies equally to all kinds of comic strips and books.
In the publishing trade, the term is sometimes extended to material that would not be considered a novel if produced in another medium. Collections of comic books that do not form a continuous story, anthologies or collections of loosely related pieces, and even non-fiction are stocked by libraries and bookstores as "graphic novels" (similar to the manner in which dramatic stories are included in "comic" books). It is also sometimes used to create a distinction between works created as stand-alone stories, in contrast to collections or compilations of a story arc from a comic book series published in book form.[3][4][5]
Whether manga, which has had a much longer history of both novel-like publishing and production of comics for adult audiences, should be included in the term is not always agreed upon. Likewise, in continental Europe, both original book-length stories such as La rivolta dei racchi (1967) by Guido Buzzeli,[6] and collections of comic strips have been commonly published in hardcover volumes, often called "albums", since the end of the 19th century (including Franco-Belgian comics series such as "The Adventures of Tintin" and "Lieutenant Blueberry", and Italian series such as "Corto Maltese").
[edit] History
As the exact definition of graphic novel is debatable, the origins of the artform itself are open to interpretation. Cave paintings may have told stories, and artists and artisans beginning in the Middle Ages produced tapestries and illuminated manuscripts that told or helped to tell narratives.
The first Western artist who interlocked lengthy writing with specific images was most likely William Blake (1757-1826). Blake created several books in which the pictures and the "storyline" are inseparable in his prophetic books such as Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck, the 1837 English translation of the 1833 Swiss publication Histoire de M. Vieux Bois by Swiss caricaturist Rodolphe Töpffer, is the oldest recognized American example of comics used to this end.[7] The United States has also had a long tradition of collecting comic strips into book form. While these collections and longer-form comic books are not considered graphic novels even by modern standards, they are early steps in the development of the graphic novel.
[edit] Antecedents: 1920s to 1960s
The 1920s saw a revival of the medieval woodcut tradition, with Belgian Frans Masereel often cited as "the undisputed King" (Sabin, 291) of this revival. Among Masereel's works were Passionate Journey (1926, reissued 1985 as Passionate Journey: A Novel in 165 Woodcuts ISBN 0-87286-174-0). American Lynd Ward also worked in this tradition during the 1930s.
Other prototypical examples from this period include American Milt Gross' He Done Her Wrong (1930), a wordless comic published as a hardcover book, and Une Semaine de Bonté (1934), a novel in sequential images composed of collage by the surrealist painter Max Ernst. That same year, the first European comic-strip collections, called "albums", debuted with The Adventures of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets by the Belgian Hergé.
In 1941, author/illustrator Virginia Lee Burton published "Calico the Wonder Horse, or the Saga of Stewy Stinker". Intrigued by her 9-year old son's fascination with comic books, she had taylored the book to his interest, creating an early graphic novel[8]
The 1940s saw the launching of Classics Illustrated, a comic-book series that primarily adapted notable, public domain novels into standalone comic books for young readers. The 1950s saw this format broadened, with popular movies being similarly adapted. By the 1960s, British publisher IPC had started to produce a pocket-sized comic-book line, the "Super Library", that featured war and spy stories told over roughly 130 pages.[citation needed]
In 1943, while imprisoned in Stalag V11A, Sergeant Robert Briggs (no relation to Raymond Briggs, the illustrator) drew a cartoon journal of his experiences from the start of the War till the time of his imprisonment. In his own words, he intended it "to amuse and keep my comrades spirits up". He remained imprisoned till the end of the war but his journal was smuggled out by an escaping officer and given to the Red Cross for safe-keeping. The Red Cross bound it as a token of honour and it was returned to him after the war ended. The journal was published in 1985 by Arlington books under the title 'A Funny Kind Of War'. Despite its posthumous publication, it remains the first instance of a cartoon diary being created under such conditions. Its historical importance is emphasised by the fact that Robert Briggs created it while in prison camp and not in hindsight. Its use of slang, frank depictions of soldiering life during wartime and open racism is more accurate than many other post-war memoirs and accounts which leave out these details. Its format is unique for its time melding the serialised narrative of the comic book format with the gag joke nature of the comic strip.
In 1950, St. John Publications produced the digest-sized, adult-oriented "picture novel" It Rhymes with Lust, a film noir-influenced slice of steeltown life starring a scheming, manipulative redhead named Rust. Touted as "an original full-length novel" on its cover, the 128-page digest by pseudonymous writer "Drake Waller" (Arnold Drake and Leslie Waller), penciler Matt Baker and inker Ray Osrin proved successful enough to lead to an unrelated second picture novel, The Case of the Winking Buddha by pulp novelist Manning Lee Stokes and illustrator Charles Raab.
By the late 1960s, American comic book creators were becoming more adventurous with the form. Gil Kane and Archie Goodwin self-published a 40-page, magazine-format comics novel, His Name is... Savage (Adventure House Press) in 1968 — the same year Marvel Comics published two issues of The Spectacular Spider-Man in a similar format. Columnist Steven Grant also argues that Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's Doctor Strange story in Strange Tales #130-146, although published serially from 1965-1966, is "the first American graphic novel".[9]
Meanwhile, in continental Europe, the tradition of collecting serials of popular strips such as The Adventures of Tintin or Asterix had allowed a system to develop which saw works developed as long form narratives but pre-published as serials; in the 1970s this move in turn allowed creators to become marketable in their own right, auteurs capable of sustaining sales on the strength of their name.
By 1969, the author John Updike, who had entertained ideas of becoming a cartoonist in his youth, addressed the Bristol Literary Society, on "the death of the novel". Updike offered examples of new areas of exploration for novelists, declaring "I see no intrinsic reason why a doubly talented artist might not arise and create a comic strip novel masterpiece".[10]
[edit] Modern form and term
Gil Kane and Archie Goodwin's Blackmark (1971), a science fiction/sword-and-sorcery paperback published by Bantam Books, did not use the term originally; the back-cover blurb of the 30th-anniversary edition (ISBN 1-56097-456-7) calls it, retroactively, "the very first American graphic novel". The Academy of Comic Book Arts presented Kane with a special 1971 Shazam Award for what it called "his paperback comics novel". Whatever the nomenclature, Blackmark is a 119-page story of comic-book art, with captions and word balloons, published in a traditional book format. (It is also the first with an original heroic-adventure character conceived expressly for this form.)
Hyperbolic descriptions of longer comic books as "novels" appear on covers as early as the 1940s. Early issues of DC Comics' All-Flash Quarterly, for example, described their contents as "novel-length stories" and "full-length four chapter novels."[11] The Sinister House of Secret Love #2 (Jan. 1972), one of the same publisher's line of "52-Page Giants", specifically used the phrase "a graphic novel of gothic terror" on its cover.
The first six issues of writer-artist Jack Katz's 1974 Comics and Comix Co. series The First Kingdom were collected as a trade paperback (Pocket Books, March 1978, ISBN 0-671-79016-1),[12] which described itself as "the first graphic novel". Issues of the comic had described themselves as "graphic prose", or simply as a novel.
European creators were also experimenting with the longer narrative in comics form. In the United Kingdom, Raymond Briggs was producing works such as Father Christmas (1972) and The Snowman (1978), which he himself described as being from the "bottomless abyss of strip cartooning", although they, along with such other Briggs works as the more mature When the Wind Blows (1982), have been re-marketed as graphic novels in the wake of the term's popularity. Briggs notes, however, "I don't know if I like that term too much".[13]
[edit] First self proclaimed graphic novels: 1976-1978
Regardless, the term appeared in print in 1976 in connection with three separate works. Bloodstar by Richard Corben (adapted from a story by Robert E. Howard) used the term to define itself on its dust jacket and introduction. George Metzger's Beyond Time and Again, serialized in underground comics from 1967-72, was subtitled "A Graphic Novel" on the inside title page when collected as a 48-page, black-and-white, hardcover book published by Kyle & Wheary.[14] And the digest-sized Chandler: Red Tide (1976) by Jim Steranko, designed to be sold on newsstands, used the term "graphic novel" in its introduction and "a visual novel" on its cover, although Chandler is more commonly considered an illustrated novel than a work of comics.
The following year, Terry Nantier, who had spent his teenage years living in Paris, returned to the United States and formed Flying Buttress Publications, later to incorporate as NBM Publishing (Nantier, Beall, Minoustchine), and published Racket Rumba, a 50-page spoof of the noir-detective genre, written and drawn by the single-name French artist Loro. Nantier followed this with Enki Bilal's The Call of the Stars. The company marketed these works as "graphic albums"[15]
Similarly, Sabre: Slow Fade of an Endangered Species by writer Don McGregor and artist Paul Gulacy (Eclipse Books, Aug. 1978) — the first graphic novel sold in the newly created "direct market" of United States comic-book shops — was called a "graphic album" by the author in interviews, though the publisher dubbed it a "comic novel" on its credits page. "Graphic album" was also the term used the following year by Gene Day for his hardcover short-story collection Future Day (Flying Buttress Press).
Another early graphic novel, though it carried no self-description, was The Silver Surfer (Simon & Schuster/Fireside Books, August 1978), by Marvel Comics' Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Significantly, this was published by a traditional book publisher and distributed through bookstores, as was cartoonist Jules Feiffer's Tantrum (Alfred A. Knopf, 1979)[16] described on its dustjacket as a "novel-in-pictures".
[edit] Adoption of the term
The term "graphic novel" began to grow in popularity months after it appeared on the cover of the trade paperback edition (though not the hardcover edition) of Will Eisner's groundbreaking A Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories (Oct. 1978). This collection of short stories was a mature, complex work focusing on the lives of ordinary people in the real world, and the term "graphic novel" was intended to distinguish it from traditional comic books, with which it shared a storytelling medium. This established both a new book-publishing term and a distinct category. Eisner cited Lynd Ward's 1930s woodcuts (see above) as an inspiration.
The critical and commercial success of A Contract with God helped to establish the term "graphic novel" in common usage, and many sources have incorrectly credited Eisner with being the first to use it. In fact, it was used as early as November 1964 by Richard Kyle in CAPA-ALPHA #2, a newsletter published by the Comic Amateur Press Alliance, and again in Kyle's Fantasy Illustrated #5 (Spring 1966). Kyle, inspired by European and Japanese comic albums, used the label to designate comics of an artistically "serious" sort.[17]
One of the earliest contemporaneous applications of the term post-Eisner came in 1979, when Blackmark's sequel — published a year after A Contract with God though written and drawn in the early 1970s — was labeled a "graphic novel" on the cover of Marvel Comics' black-and-white comics magazine Marvel Preview #17 (Winter 1979), where Blackmark: The Mind Demons premiered — its 117-page contents intact, but its panel-layout reconfigured to fit 62 pages.
Dave Sim's comic book Cerebus had been launched as a funny-animal Conan parody in 1977, but in 1979 Sim announced[citation needed] it was to be a 300-issue novel telling the hero's complete life story. In England, Bryan Talbot wrote and drew The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, described by Warren Ellis as "probably the single most influential graphic novel to have come out of Britain to date".[18] Like Sim, Talbot also began by serializing the story, originally in Near Myths (1978), before it was published as a three-volume graphic-novel series from 1982-87.
Following this, Marvel from 1982 to 1988 published the Marvel Graphic Novel line of 10"x7" trade paperbacks — although numbering them like comic books, from #1 (Jim Starlin's The Death of Captain Marvel) to #35 (Dennis O'Neil, Mike Kaluta, and Russ Heath's Hitler's Astrologer, starring the radio and pulp fiction character the Shadow, and, uniquely for this line, released in hardcover). Marvel commissioned original graphic novels from such creators as John Byrne, J. M. DeMatteis, Steve Gerber, graphic-novel pioneer McGregor, Frank Miller, Bill Sienkiewicz, Walt Simonson, Charles Vess, and Bernie Wrightson. While most of these starred Marvel superheroes, others, such as Rick Veitch's Heartburst featured original SF/fantasy characters; others still, such as John J. Muth's Dracula, featured adaptations of literary stories or characters; and one, Sam Glanzman's A Sailor's Story, was a true-life, World War II naval tale.
In England, Titan Books held the license to reprint strips from 2000 AD, including Judge Dredd, beginning in 1981, and Robo-Hunter, 1982. The company also published British collections of American graphic novels — including Swamp Thing, notable for being printed in black and white rather than in color as originally — and of British newspaper strips, including Modesty Blaise and Garth. Igor Goldkind was the marketing consultant who worked at Titan and moved to 2000 AD and helped to popularize the term "graphic novel" as a way to help sell the trade paperbacks they were publishing. He admits that he "stole the term outright from Will Eisner" and his contribution was to "take the badge (today it's called a 'brand') and explain it, contextualise it and sell it convincingly enough so that bookshop keepers, book distributors and the book trade would accept a new category of 'spine-fiction' on their bookshelves".[19]
DC Comics likewise began collecting series and published them in book format. Two such collections garnered considerable media attention, and they, along with Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus (1986), helped establish both the term and the concept of graphic novels in the minds of the mainstream public. These were Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986), a collection of Frank Miller's four-part comic-book series featuring an older Batman faced with the problems of a dystopian future; and Watchmen (1987), a collection of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' 12-issue limited series in which Moore notes he "set out to explore, amongst other things, the dynamics of power in a post-Hiroshima world".[20]
These works and others were reviewed in newspapers and magazines, leading to such increased coverage that the headline "Comics aren't just for kids anymore" became widely regarded by fans as a mainstream-press cliché.[21] Variations on the term can be seen in the Harvard Independent[22] and at Poynter Online.[23] Regardless, the mainstream coverage led to increased sales, with Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, for example, lasting 40 weeks on a UK best-seller lists.
Frank Miller (born January 27, 1957)[1] is a U.S. writer, artist and film director best known for his dark, film noir-style comic book stories and graphic novelsRonin, Daredevil: Born Again, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City and 300. He recently directed the film version of The Spirit, shared directing duties with Robert Rodriguez on Sin City and produced the film 300.
Personal life
Frank Miller was born in Olney, Maryland,[2] and raised in Montpelier, Vermont,[2] the fifth of seven children of a nurse mother and a carpenter/electrician father.[3] Frank Miller moved to New York City in 1976, when he was 19, to find work as a comic book artist.[4] Living in New York City's Hell's Kitchen influenced Miller's material in the 1980s. Miller lived in Los Angeles, California in the 1990s which influenced Sin City.[5] Miller moved back to New York City's Hell's Kitchen by 2001 and was creating Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again as the 9/11 Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks occurred.[6] In 2005 Miller divorced Lynn Varley, the award-winning colorist who had collaborated with him on several projects.[citation needed]
Career
Setting out to become an artist, Miller received his first published work in Gold Key Comics' licensed TV-series comic book The Twilight Zone #84 (June 1978), drawing the story "Royal Feast", and issue #85 (July 1978), drawing "Endless Cloud".[7] This was followed by penciling jobs for "Deliver Me From D-Day" short story in Weird War Tales #64 (1978), "The Greatest Story Never Told" short story, and "The Day After Doomsday" short story both in Weird War Tales #68 (1978), and "The Edge of History" short story in Unknown Soldier #219 (1978) for DC Comics and his first work for Marvel Comics, penciling the 17-page story "The Master Assassin of Mars, Part 3" in John Carter: Warlord of Mars #18 (Nov. 1978).
At Marvel, Miller would settle in as a regular fill-in and cover artist, working on a variety of titles. One of these jobs was drawing Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #27–28 (Feb.–March 1979), which guest-starred Daredevil. At the time, sales of the Daredevil title were poor; however, Miller saw something in the character he liked and asked editor-in-chief Jim Shooter if he could work on Daredevil's regular title. Shooter agreed and made Miller the new penciller on the title. As Miller recalled in 2008,
When I first showed up in New York, I showed up with a bunch of comics, a bunch of samples, of guys in trench coats and old cars and such. And [comics editors] said, 'Where are the guys in tights?' And I had to learn how to do it. But as soon as a title came along, when [Daredevil signature artist] Gene Colan left Daredevil, I realized it was my secret in to do crime comics with a superhero in them. And so I lobbied for the title and got it".[3]
Daredevil and the early 1980s
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Daredevil #158 (May 1979), Miller's debut on that title, was the finale of an ongoing story written by Roger McKenzie. Although still conforming to traditional comic book styles, Miller infused this first issue with his own film noir style.[8] After this issue, Miller became one of Marvel's rising stars, and began plotting additional stories with McKenzie. Learning from Neal Adams,[citation needed] Miller would sit for hours sketching the roofs of New York in an attempt to give his Daredevil art an authentic feel not commonly seen in superhero comics at the time. Miller was so successful with the title that Marvel began publishing the Daredevil comic monthly (as opposed to its previous bimonthly publication period). With issue #168 (Jan. 1981), Miller took over full duties as writer and penciller, with Klaus Janson as inker. Issue #168 saw the first appearance of the ninja mercenary Elektra, who despite being an assassin-for-hire would become Daredevil's love-interest. Miller would write and draw a solo Elektra story in Bizarre Adventures #28 (Oct. 1981).
With his creation of Elektra, Miller's work on Daredevil was characterized by darker themes and stories. This peaked when in #181 (April 1982) he had the assassin Bullseye kill Elektra. Although deaths of supporting characters are common in comics, the death of a major, costumed character such as Elektra was not. Miller made it clear[citation needed] with the next few issues that he intended Elektra to remain dead, but nonetheless she was revived during his time as writer.[citation needed] Miller finished his Daredevil run with issue #191 (Feb. 1983); in his time he had transformed a second-tier character into one of Marvel's most popular.
Additionally, Miller in 1980 drew a short Batman Christmas story called "Wanted: Santa Claus-Dead or Alive" written by Denny O'Neil for DC Special Series #21. This was his first encounter with a character with which, like Daredevil, he would become closely associated.
As penciler and co-plotter, Miller, together with writer Chris Claremont, produced the miniseries Wolverine #1-4 (Sept.-Dec. 1982), inked by Josef Rubinstein and spinning off from the popular X-Men title. Miller used this miniseries to expand on Wolverine's character while featuring more manga-influenced art.[citation needed] The series was a critical success and further cemented Miller's place as an industry star.
His first creator-owned title was DC Comics' six-issue miniseries Ronin (1983–1984). Here Miller not only refined his own art and storytelling techniques, but also helped change how creator rights were viewed,[citation needed] After Ronin, Miller's only published work in 1985 was Daredevil #219, inspired by the film High Plains Drifter.[citation needed]
[edit] Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and the late 1980s
In 1986, DC Comics released writer-penciler Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, a four-issue miniseries printed in what the publisher called "prestige format" — a squarebound, rather than stapled; on heavy-stock paper rather than newsprint, and with cardstock rather than glossy-paper covers. It was inked by Klaus Janson and colored by Lynn Varley.
The story tells how Batman retired after the death of the second Robin (Jason Todd), and at age 55 returns to fight crime in a dark and violent future. Miller created a tough, gritty portrayal of Batman, who is often referred to as "the Dark Knight." Released the same year as Alan Moore's DC miniseries Watchmen, it showcased a new form of more adult-oriented storytelling to both comics fans and a crossover mainstream audience. The Dark Knight Returns influenced the comic-book industry by heralding a new wave of darker characters. The trade paperback collection proved to be a big seller for DC and remains in print 20 years after first being published.
By this time, Miller had returned as the writer of Daredevil. Following his self-contained story "Badlands", penciled by John Buscema, in #219 (June 1985), he co-wrote #226 (Jan. 1986) with departing writer Dennis O'Neil. Then, with artist David Mazzucchelli, he crafted a seven-issue story arc that, like The Dark Knight Returns, similarly redefined and reinvigorated its main character. The storyline, Daredevil: Born Again, in #227-233 (Feb.-Aug. 1986) chronicled the hero's Catholic background, and the destruction and rebirth of his real-life identity, Manhattan attorney Matt Murdock, at the hands of Daredevil's archnemesis, the crime lord Wilson Fisk, also known as the Kingpin.
Miller and artist Bill Sienkiewicz produced the graphic novel Daredevil: Love and War in 1986. Featuring the character of the Kingpin, it indirectly bridges Miller's first run on Daredevil and Born Again by explaining the change in the Kingpin's attitude toward Daredevil. Miller and Sienkiewicz also produced the eight-issue miniseries Elektra: Assassin for Epic Comics. Set outside regular Marvel continuity, it featured a wild tale of cyborgs and ninjas, while expanding further on Elektra's background. Both of these projects were well-received critically. Elektra: Assassin was praised for its bold storytelling, but neither it nor Daredevil: Love and War had the influence or reached as many readers as Dark Knight Returns or Born Again.
Miller's final major story in this period was in Batman issues 404-407 in 1987, another collaboration with Mazzuchelli. Titled Batman: Year One, this was Miller's version of the origin of Batman in which he retconned many details and adapted the story to fit his Dark Knight continuity. Proving to be hugely popular, this was as influential as Miller's previous work and a trade paperback released in 1988 remains in print and is one of DC's best selling books.
Miller had also drawn the covers for the first twelve issues of First Comics English language reprints of Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima's Lone Wolf and Cub. This helped bring Japanese manga to a wider Western audience.
During this time, Miller (along with Marv Wolfman, Alan Moore and Howard Chaykin) had been in dispute with DC Comics over a proposed ratings system for comics. Disagreeing with what he saw as censorship, Miller refused to do any further work for DC,[8] and he would take his future projects to the independent publisher Dark Horse Comics. From then on Miller would be a major supporter of creator rights and be a major voice against censorship in comics.
Sin City and the 1990s
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After announcing he intended to release his work only via the independent publisher Dark Horse Comics, Miller completed one final project for Epic Comics, the mature-audience imprint of Marvel Comics. Elektra Lives Again was a fully painted graphic novel written and drawn by Miller and colored by longtime partner Lynn Varley. Telling the story of the resurrection of Elektra from the dead and Daredevil's quest to find her, it was the first example of a new style in Miller's art,[citation needed] as well as showing Miller's will to experiment with new story-telling techniques.[citation needed]
1990 saw Miller and artist Geof Darrow start work on Hard Boiled, a three-issue miniseries which suffered from long delays between issues.[citation needed] The title, a mix of violence and satire, was praised[citation needed] for Darrow's highly detailed art and Miller's writing. At the same time Miller and artist Dave Gibbons produced Give Me Liberty, a four-issue miniseries for Dark Horse. A mixture of action and political satire, the title sold well[citation needed] and cemented Miller's reputation as a writer of mature-audience comics. Give Me Liberty was followed by sequel miniseries and specials expanding on the story of protagonist Martha Washington, a South African woman in modern and near-future southern North America, all of which were written by Miller and drawn by Gibbons.
Miller also wrote the scripts for the science fiction films RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3, about a police cyborg. Neither was critically well-received.[citation needed] Afterward, Miller stated[citation needed] he would never allow Hollywood to make movie adaptations of his comics, being disgusted with what he characterized as studio interference with his scriptwriting. Miller would come into contact with the fictional cyborg once more, however, writing the comic-book minieries, RoboCop vs. The Terminator, with art by Walter Simonson. In 2003, Miller's screenplay for RoboCop 2 was adapted by Steven Grant for Avatar Press's Pulsaar imprint. Illustrated by Juan Jose Ryp, the series is called Frank Miller's RoboCop and contains plot elements that were divided between RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3.
In 1991 Miller started work on his first Sin City story. Serialized in Dark Horse Presents #51-62, Miller wrote and drew the story in black and white to emphasize its film noir origins. Proving to be another success, the story was released in a trade paperback. This first Sin City "yarn" was rereleased in 2005 under the name The Hard Goodbye. Sin City proved to be Miller's main project for much of the remainder of the decade, as Miller told more Sin City stories within this noir world of his creation, in the process helping to revitalize the crime comics genre.[citation needed] Sin City proved artistically auspicious for Miller and again brought his work to a wider audience without comics.
Daredevil: Man Without Fear was a miniseries published by Marvel Comics in 1993 based on an earlier film script.[citation needed] In this Miller and artist John Romita Jr. told Daredevil's origins differently than in the comics. Miller also returned to superheroes by writing issue #11 of Todd McFarlane's Spawn, as well as the Spawn/Batman crossover for Image Comics.
In 1995, Miller and Darrow collaborated again on Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot — a homage to Godzilla movies, Astro Boy and patriotic American films from World War II. The series was published as a two-part mini-series from Dark Horse Comics. In 1999 it became an animated series on Fox Kids. During this period, Miller became one of the founding members of the comic imprint Legend, under which many of his Sin City works were released, via Dark Horse. Also, it was during the 1990s that Miller did cover art for many titles in the Comics Greatest World/Dark Horse Heroes line.
Written and illustrated by Frank Miller with painted colors by Varley, 300 was a 1998 comic-book miniseries, released as a hardcover collection in 1999, retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae and the events leading up to it from the perspective of Leonidas of Sparta. 300 was particularly inspired by the 1962 film The 300 Spartans, a movie that Miller watched as a young boy. In 2007, 300 was adapted by director Zack Snyder into a highly successful film.
[edit] Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again and the 2000s
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Miller started the new millennium off with the long awaited sequel to Batman: The Dark Knight Returns for DC Comics after Miller had put past difference with D.C. aside. Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again was initially released as a three issue series. Miller has also returned to writing Batman in 2005, taking on the writing duties of All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, a series set inside of the Earth-31 Dark Knight Universe continuity in DC's Multiverse[9] and drawn by Jim Lee. Miller has been vocally opposed to recent comic art attempting to give the cosmetic appearance of what some say is more realism. In an interview on the documentary Legends of the Dark Knight: The History of Batman, Miller said, "People are attempting to bring a superficial reality to superheroes which is rather stupid. They work best as the flamboyant fantasies they are. I mean, these are characters that are broad and big. I don't need to see sweat patches under Superman's arms. I want to see him fly."
Miller's stance against movie adaptations was to change after Robert Rodriguez made a short film from one of Miller's Sin City short stories. Rodriguez showed this short film to Miller, who was so pleased with the result that he approved a full-length film, Sin City. This would be Miller's second experience with the movie world, after becoming disenchanted years earlier with his experiences with RoboCop 2 and 3. The movie was released in the U.S. on April 1, 2005, using Miller's original comics panels as storyboards. Miller and Rodriguez are credited as codirectors, which Rodriguez insisted upon (and had allegedly promised to Miller).[citation needed] Directors Guild of America rules permit only one person or "legitimate" directorial team (such as the Coen brothers) being listed as the director of a film. As a result, Rodriguez elected to resign from the Guild. The film's success brought renewed attention to Miller and to Sin City. And the 300 film did the same for 300.
In 2006, Miller announced that his next Batman project would be Holy Terror, Batman!. In the story, Batman defends Gotham City against attacks by real-life terrorist group Al-Qaeda. In a July 2008 New York Times interview, Miller mentioned that the story was evolving: "As I worked on it, it became something that was no longer Batman. It’s somewhere past that, and I decided it’s going to be part of a new series that I'm starting".[2] However, in December 2008, he told Newsday that Holy Terror, Batman was a single graphic novel "about 40 pages from finished now; it's 122 pages. [Batman is] fighting al-Qaida".[10]
At the 2006 San Diego Comic-Con, it was announced that Miller would write and direct a film version of Will Eisner's The Spirit.[11] Upon release on December 25, 2008, The Spirit film was panned by critics and did poorly at the box office. A sequel to the film Sin City is in progress as of 2009, provisionally entitled Sin City 2.[citation needed]
At the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con, it was revealed that Miller has finished his first draft of what will become the sequel to 300.
Political stance
On January 24, 2007, in an interview with American radio network National Public Radio, Frank Miller talked about his political views. On the issue of 9/11, the second Iraq war and the War on Terrorism, he said:
| “ | Nobody questions why we, after Pearl Harbor, attacked Nazi Germany. It was because we were taking on a form of global fascism, we're doing the same thing now ... It seems to me quite obvious that our country and the entire Western World is up against an existential foe that knows exactly what it wants.... For some reason, nobody seems to be talking about who we're up against, and the sixth-century barbarism that they actually represent. These people saw people's heads off. They enslave women, they genitally mutilate their daughters, they do not behave by any cultural norms that are sensible to us. I’m speaking into a microphone that never could have been a product of their culture, and I'm living in a city where 3000 of my neighbors were killed by thieves of airplanes they never could have built.[12][13] | ” |
Critical reaction
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Miller's work has been met with mixed reception. The Dark Knight Returns was a great critical success. Batman: Year One was met with even greater critical praise for its gritty realism and style.
However, Miller's dark style has been met with criticism. Many of his stories have been criticized for extreme, graphic violence, a lack of emotive depth and perceived nihilistic views[citation needed].
In the 2000s, much of Miller's work, particularly regarding Batman, has been the subject of controversy. Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again met with less positive reviews than its highly acclaimed predecessor. The graphic novel Holy Terror, Batman!, still in production as of December 2008 and which Miller has described as "a piece of propaganda",[14] has been criticized by Grant Morrison, who said that "cheering on a fictional character battling fictionalized terrorists seems like a decadent indulgence" and suggested that Miller join the army and actually fight.[15]
All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder in particular has been met with harsh criticism. William Gatevackes of PopMatters said that "All Star Batman and Robin should be avoided at all costs".[16] Comics journalist Cliff Biggers of Comic Shop News called the series "one of the biggest train wrecks in comics history."[17] Iann Robinson called All Star Batman and Robin "a comic series that just spirals deeper and deeper into the abyss of unreadable", and that, "Miller has erased all the good he did for Batman with The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One".[18]
Entertainment Weekly criticized Miller's RoboCop comic for its "tired story" and lack of "interesting action".[19]
Some of Miller's works have been accused of lacking humanity,[20] particularly in regard to the overabundance of prostitutes portrayed in Sin City.[21] Miller's repeated portrayal of women as prostitutes was the subject of a popular Shortpacked! strip.[22]
When it was released in 2008, Miller's film adaptation of Will Eisner's The Spirit met with largely negative reviews, earning a metascore of only 30/100 at the review aggregation site Metacritic.com.[23]
Influence
His cartoonist influence includes Will Eisner, Jerry Robinson, Dick Sprang, Neal Adams, Jack Kirby, Jim Steranko, Alex Toth, Frank Frazetta, Joe Kubert, Jordi Bernet, Johnny Craig, Milton Caniff, Wally Wood, Hugo Pratt, Frank Robbins, William Gaines, and James Kochalka.
Miller has stated that his influence includes the writing of Mickey Spillane, Raymond Chandler, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson.
Outside of the comic and political circuit, his influence includes art historian Kenneth Clark, and the animation by Fleischer Studios.
[edit] Cameo appearances
Frank Miller has appeared in five films in small roles, dying in each.
- In RoboCop 2 (1990), he plays "Frank, the chemist" and dies in an explosion in the drug lab.
- In Jugular Wine: A Vampire Odyssey (1994), he is killed by vampires in front of Marvel Comics' Stan Lee, who compares his killers to "angels".
- In Daredevil (2003), he appears as a corpse with a pen in his head, thrown by Bullseye, who steals his motorcycle. The credits list Frank Miller as "Man with Pen in Head".
- In Sin City (2005), he plays the priest killed by Marv in the confessional.
- In The Spirit (2008), which was written and directed by Miller, he appears as "Liebowitz", the officer whose head is ripped off by the Octopus and thrown at the Spirit. The name alludes to Jack Liebowitz, a co-founder of what would become DC Comics.[24]
Frank Miller also appeared in an episode of the television series Moonlighting as a customer at a box office.[citation needed]
I have started writing a Graphic novel!.....coming soon....
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