Frank Miller Backs Fewer Comic-Book Adaptations — SkimNews
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- Frank Miller said he hoped the comic-book-to-movie pipeline had dipped this year, arguing that creators’ pursuit of movie and TV money, fame and prestige had put comics at risk of losing their “souls” and literary identity.
- Lucca Comics and Games hosted Miller’s return, where the 40th anniversary of “Batman: The Dark Knight Returns” was marked and Silenn Thomas’s documentary “American Genius,” about his cultural impact, was introduced.
- Superman’s 1970s film slogan, “You’ll believe a man can fly,” marked for Miller the point when convincing flight and new technology let superhero movies render virtually anything imaginable.
- Sin City stories illustrate Miller’s argument that a hero need not be society’s voice: Marv can be ugly, Hartigan can be tortured, and the figure becomes an examination of the human spirit.
- America has become bloated and lost its center in Miller’s view, while the MAGA slogan’s “again” exposes, in his reading, contradictions about whether the country is actually great.
- Milo Manara asked Miller onstage to write a “Sin City” story, and Miller agreed, calling the Italian artist the only colleague he could imagine drawing one because Miller had always drawn them all himself.
- Peach Momoko was announced as another Miller collaborator, reuniting with the Japanese artist behind their earlier Marvel story “Tears of the Spider Queen.”
Why it matters: Making Milo Manara the exception to his usual practice of drawing his own “Sin City” stories, Miller is also teaming again with Peach Momoko. For filmmakers and comics creators, his standard is direct: adaptation should not pull creators so far toward Hollywood that the medium loses its own literary identity.
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