sin city - postscript on heroes and antiheroes

postscript to thoughts on heroes and antiheroes:

just got back from watching Robert "From Dusk Till Dawn" Roduiguez's take on Sin City. I remembered first coming across Frank Miller's graphic novels when I was in secondary school.

I remembered skimming through the cannibal sequence at 15 and finding it gruesome enough for me to try and blank it out from my head. I like his eye for black-and-white ink art but well...let's say watching the movie reminded me again of why I blanked out so much of his plots in the first place.

Much as I admired his linework, I could never bring myself to buy a copy of Sin CIty to keep. I just never pictured myself re-reading his stuff again and again. I do own Miller's Batman classic The Dark Knight Returns - that was great story-telling. If you loved Batman Begins, much of it was inspired by that and Miller's other Batman classic, Year One.

Back to Sin CIty and why I don't own a copy: It's not so much the over-the-top sex and violence thing but more because I found the whole macho-man-rescuing-tough-oversexed-dames thing a little trite after a while. His villains were the stuff of stereotypes at heart - the crooked politician, the sanctimonious hypocritical religious figures. His antiheroes and antiheroines were always these bizarre cariacatures, living a caricature of a life. It was like he deliberately pushed the mark of film noir to its extremes, just to see how ridiculous he could get. His anti heroes and antiheroines are a smudge away from absolute villainy.

Miller was my first encounter with graphic novellists that "push the boundaries" through flagrant depictions of sexuality and over-the-top violence. Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison and to a certain extent early Neil Gaiman did it too. In the comics world, these writers and artists are regarded as a heroes for doing so. Their works are hailed as "brave" and "cutting edge".

I would rather heap those accolades on graphic novellists like Joe Sacco, Art Spiegelman or Craig Thompson frankly. Sacco's graphic novels drawn directly from the battlegrounds of Palestine, Bosnia and Afghanistan are brave in every sense. Not only do they boldly speak what no politician dares to speak about, they are documented straight from the mouths of the victims - all information collected at great mortal risk by Sacco himself.

Thompson and Spiegelman's bravery is of a different sort. Thompson's Blankets and Spiegelman's Maus are autobiographies - attempts to courageously capture their most fragile and painful memories in pen and ink for others to connect with.

Sin City is a movie that deserves to be watched solely for being the most successful translation of graphic art to screen to date. The use of lines, angles,shadow and light was truly watershed-stuff in the 80s. But as for the rest of the movie, it's hardly cutting edge or brave stuff. There are one or two inspired moments of dark humour but overall, I think even Miller would admit hat he himself has written far better stories.