The Times talks to Miller about the movie:
Early trailers may have given the impression that “The Spirit” is akin to “Sin City,” but Mr. Miller said the two “are fundamentally different.”
“The only ways they resemble each other are the ways that I learned from Will Eisner: the use of black and white, certainly the rapturous approach to women.” Mr. Miller spoke after an editing session in Culver City in June, wearing a straw hat, a gray shirt and a loose black jacket; his voice, faintly adenoidal, stems from a long relationship with Winston Lights.
I went out to see The Dark Knight with friends yesterday, and we saw one of the Spirit posters afterward. One of my friends asked me what differentated The Spirit from Sin City. As far as he could tell from anything he’d seen, they might as well have been the same film.
Looks like Miller is giving up on Batman Versus al-Qaeda and rehashing it into something else:
“I have a bunch of drawing I want to do,” he said. One project, which began as “Holy War, Batman!,” a series with a post-9/11 context, has shifted. “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.”
Given his incoherent thoughts on 9/11 (particularly on the pathetically weak “Martha Washington Dies”), this isn’t even worth considering.
It’s official. Frank Miller has become the M. Night Shyamalan of comics.
Just the mention of his name incites nothing but vitriol from fans these days. Not that I’m any kind of Miller fan, but I can’t help feeling bad for him (and M. Night.)
When/How did this happen? What was the turning point? I still remember the days when nothing but hyperbolic praise would flow at the mention of Miller. It was that interview he did for NPR when he rambled incoherently about 9/11, wasn’t it?
While the “This I Believe” segment was confirmation of the man he is today and eliminated any hope of redemption, I think the actual turning point was the release of the first issue of DK2.
“I still remember the days when nothing but hyperbolic praise would flow at the mention of Miller.”
Those were the days when his comics, on average, were very good.
To say that buzz for The Spirit is “muted” is pretty, well, muted.
“Hostile or “trepidiatious” is more like it.
And what’s with the hats?
More like Spillane than Chandler, Frank.
Dark Knight 2 = The Happening / Lady in the Water
Yeah, I can see that.
What happened? He’s not liberal enough, apparently!
Miller’s politics haven’t really changed much in the past 20 yrs. He’s always been more of a libertarian than anything else (by my reading). It’s the quality of his writing that’s gone steadily downhill, starting after Sin City and continuing down until now with The Spirit. His plotting is sloppy, his “characters” are now caricatures, and the dialogue reads like a parody of his style.
Maybe we hold him to a higher standard because he used to be so good. I still think his stuff from the 90’s is brilliant. But his track record since then seems to indicate he’s well past his creative prime.
“And what’s with the hats?”
Maybe Miller could bring back the old TV series, “The Hat Squad”.
I don’t understand why there are a gazillion bus, bench, and poster kiosks going up all over Los Angeles NOW for a movie that doesn’t open up until Christmas.
Heidi, is like this in New York too?
~
Coat
I’m not Heidi, but I do live in New York!
I haven’t seen a huge amount of publicity, but I did see those posters go up several months ago. Non-comics fan friends of mine see them and say, “huh?”
I’ve seen posters on bus stops here in the Boston area too. I don’t get it. Maybe to cash in on the summer movie season?
As for Frank Miller’s The Goddamn Spirit film, I’m.. yeah.. cynical might be a good word.
Meanwhile, I can’t wait to see Miller’s war on terror comic, even if Batman isn’t in it. Hell, even if I totally disagree with it, it still will be interesting. Actually, from what I’ve heard, most libertarians seem to be against it. I know self proclaimed Libertarian, and Miller fan himself, Paul Pope seemed against it in an interview I read. Though I could be simplifying things. (I should be careful what I say, especially because I’ve seen him post here. Heh.) Heck, if anything politically, I think I’d call myself libertarian. Though I really don’t have a black and white answer to the war. Hurm.
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