MILLER, Frank 1957-

PERSONAL:

Born February 1, 1957, in Olmie, MD.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY. Agent—c/o Author Mail, DC Comics, 1700 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.

CAREER:

Writer and cartoonist.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Eisner award, 1993, for "Hard Boiled" series; Eisner awards for Best Finite Series, Best Coloring, and Best Penciller/Inker, all for "Martha Washington" series; Harvey Award for Best Continuing Series, 1996, for "Sin City"; Harvey Award for Best Graphic Album of Original Work, 1998, for That Yellow Bastard; Harvey Award, 1999; Eisner awards for Best Continuing Series, Best Comic-related Product or Item, Best Cover Artist, Best Writer/Artist, Best Limited Series, and Best Graphic Album, Harvey Special Award for Excellence in Presentation, and Eagle Award for Best Black-and-White Comic Book, all 2000, all for "300"; Reben Award, National Cartoonist's Society.

WRITINGS:

GRAPHIC NOVELS

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, illustrated by Lynn Varley and Klaus Janson, DC Comics (New York, NY), 1986, tenth anniversary edition, 1996.

Daredevil, illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz, Marvel Comics (New York, NY), 1986.

(And illustrator) Ronin, DC Comics (New York, NY), 1987.

Elektra: Assassin, illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz, Epic Comics (New York, NY), 1987.

Daredevil and the Punisher in Child's Play, Marvel Comics (New York, NY), 1988.

(With others) Batman: Year One, Warner (New York, NY), 1988.

(With Klaus Janson) Elektra—The Complete Saga, Marvel Comics (New York, NY), 1989.

Elektra Lives Again, illustrated by Lynn Varley, Epic Comics (New York, NY), 1990.

Give Me Liberty: An American Dream, illustrated by Dave Gibbons, Dark Horse Comics (New York, NY), 1991.

Daredevil: Gang War, Marvel Comics (New York, NY), 1992.

Daredevil: The Man without Fear, illustrated by John Romita, Marvel Comics (New York, NY), 1992.

(And illustrator) Sin City, coloring by Lynn Varley, Dark Horse Comics (New York, NY), 1993.

(And illustrator) A Dame to Kill for: A Tale from Sin City, coloring by Lynn Varley, Dark Horse Comics (New York, NY), 1993.

Martha Washington Goes to War, illustrated by Dave Gibbons, Dark Horse Comics (New York, NY), 1995.

(And illustrator) Big Fat Kill: Sin City, coloring by Lynn Varley, Dark Horse Comics (New York, NY), 1996.

Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, illustrated by Geof Darrow, Dark Horse Comics (New York, NY), 1996.

(And illustrator) That Yellow Bastard: A Tale from Sin City, coloring by Lynn Varley, Dark Horse Comics (New York, NY), 1997.

Hard Boiled, Dark Horse Comics (New York, NY), 1997.

Batman: Year One, illustrated by David Mazzucchelli, DC Comics (New York, NY), 1997.

Spawn Batman, illustrated by Todd McFarlane, Image Comics (New York, NY), 1998.

(And illustrator) Family Values: A Sin City Yarn, coloring by Lynn Varley, Dark Horse Comics (New York, NY), 1998.

(And illustrator) Booze, Broads, and Bullets: Sin City, coloring by Lynn Varley, Dark Horse Comics (New York, NY), 1998.

Martha Washington Saves the World, illustrated by Dave Gibbons, Dark Horse Comics (New York, NY), 1999.

300, illustrated by Lynn Varley, Dark Horse Comics (New York, NY), 2000.

Daredevil Visionaries, three volumes, Marvel Books (New York, NY), 2001.

(And illustrator) Hell and Back: A Sin City Love Story, coloring by Lynn Varley, Dark Horse Comics (New York, NY), 2001.

Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again, DC Comics (New York, NY), 2002.

Has written and illustrated for DC Comics, Marvel Comics, and Dark Horse Comics, in a variety of series, including "Daredevil," "Batman," "Incredible Hulk," "Spider Man," "Wolverine," "Sin City," "RoboCop vs. Terminator," "Hard Boiled," "Martha Washington," "Elektra," "Lone Wolf and Cub," and "300."

OTHER

(With Walon Green) RoboCop 2 (screenplay), Orion Pictures, 1990.

(With Fred Dekker) RoboCop 3 (screenplay), Orion Pictures, 1993.

SIDELIGHTS:

Highly acclaimed for his original stories for the long-running superhero comic "Batman," Frank Miller has been hailed for his contribution to expanding the comic industry into the adult market during the 1980s. Writing Marvel Comic's "Daredevil" series from 1979 to 1981, Miller transformed that classic into "the first film noir comic book," according to Lloyd Rose in Atlantic. Rose also maintained that the "Daredevil" graphic novels—each a compilation of several issues of the regularly issued paper-covered comic book—are among "the most successful marriage of beauty and blood in mainstream comics." Miller's groundbreaking work, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, which drew praise from an Economist contributor as "one of the best in the genre," sold over 200,000 copies in graphic novel form. Describing Miller's new storyline for the Batman character first created by Bob Kane, Rose noted that reading the strip is "like seeing your squirmiest, grossest street fears brought into the light and given, if not exactly reality, at lest shape."

The Dark Knight Returns joined such works as Maus by Art Spiegelman in rejuvenating the comic book, creating the long graphic novel format that, according to Washington Post Book World contributor Mike Musgrove, made comics "a medium perhaps fit for adult consumption." Miller has continued his innovative role in his "Sin City" series, and in his "300" comic series he draws on history by presenting a fictionalized take on the Persian-Greco war. He has also continued the "Batman" series with Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again, released in graphic novel format in 2002.

Beginning his career at Marvel Comics in the mid-1970s, Miller recalled in an interview with Los Angeles Times contributor David Colker that "When I started, just about all anybody was doing was guys in tights." While Miller's "Daredevil" series still retains its lycraclad superhero, it also has an edgy twist. Blinded New York attorney Matt Murdock, his other senses compensating for his sightlessness by increasing to superhuman levels, battles the evil underworld of New York's Hell's Kitchen area as Daredevil. Miller's take on the original series, violent storylines that incorporate "arresting graphics, an imaginative use of panels and story lines steeped in martial arts mysticism," according to Colker, caught the attention of comics fans across the world, and even attracted the attention of academic classicists who noted Miller's allusions to Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus. His creation of a superhero love interest in the sensuous Greek Elektra also prompted a spin-off series in which she joins a group of ninja assassins.

Moving to D.C. Comics in the early 1980s, Miller wrote and drew the original six-book "Ronin" comic series. Living in a future urban society, Ronin is a reincarnated thirteenth-century samurai hero who, with neither arms nor legs, is used for testing prosthetic devices until he becomes transformed into an aggressive protagonist. As with "Daredevil," Miller's "Ronin" glorifies violent, vigilante-style reprisals, a factor that has drawn some criticism. A Washington Post contributor described Ronin as a "razzle-dazzle tale of the epic battle between a samurai warrior, reincarnated in a run-down twenty-first century, and an ancient, all-powerful demon disguised as the director of a huge computer complex." The same reviewer praised Miller's artwork, which "transforms this melodramatic revenge tale into a visual nightmare." Describing his style as "geometric and mosaic" and influenced by Japanese manga, a Booklist reviewer noted that Miller's Ronin "ultimately warrant[s] comparison not with conventional fantasy novels but with the movies," and praised the work as "terrific entertainment."

Published in 1986, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns collects Miller's first four comic books created for DC Comics' long-running "Batman" series. Described by Rose as "nightmarish," Batman: The Dark Knight Returns focuses on fifty-something billionaire Bruce Wayne, who is forced out of retirement to fight evil in Gotham City. Instead of Robin, Batman has a punk teen female sidekick, as well as new enemies to go along with the Joker and the Riddler, among them "obnoxious liberal defense lawyers, pop psychologists and TV commentators who complain about his vigilante tactics," according to Charles Solomon in the Los Angeles Times. Also grounding Miller's Batman in reality is his persona as what Solomon described as "a bitter, disillusioned anti-hero." A Publishers Weekly contributor viewed Miller's character even more substantively, noting that the author/illustrator "sees Batmam as an extremist, pushed to the verge of insanity because he can't compromise his beliefs." Praising the second of Miller's "Batman" comics, Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again, the critic called the work "serious" and "important," adding that Miller's story is "intentionally disturbing in many ways and on many levels."

According to Rolling Stone contributor Mikal Gilmore, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns broadened "the artistic and storytelling ranges of the American mass-market comic book, forcing the medium to accommodate fresh, dramatic visual styles and bold thematic twists." It also caused many to rethink comics as a serious and previously underappreciated art form. However, some critics expressed concern with the trends inherent in Miller's work. While appreciating the noir look of Miller's Dark Knight, cartoonist Jules Feiffer expressed concern over the glorification of vigilantism, telling Solomon: "In the comics, the law is always ineffectual and the Bill of Rights is a pain." Interestingly, Feiffer interpreted Batman: The Dark Knight Returns as "primarily a complaint about middle age. If it's a graphic novel, it's a rather paltry one—gorgeously illustrated, but shoddily thought out."

Despite some qualms about his violent storylines, Miller's noir vision for "Batman" has influenced a generation of comic book authors and illustrators, and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns paved the way for the graphic novel to appear in bookstores. In addition to adding to his "Batman" saga with such works as Spawn Batman and Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again, he has also produced the vigilante-styled Hard Boiled, as well as the "Martha Washington" and "Sin City" series. In addition, in the early 1990s he branched out into screenwriting with the screenplay for two films in the "RoboCop" series.

"Martha Washington" features a heroic black female protagonist who single-handedly battles right-wing evildoers ranging from Fat Boy Burger Corporation employees to members of the Aryan Thrust and even the U.S. Surgeon General in the graphic novels Give Me Liberty: An American Dream, Martha Washington Goes to War, and Martha Washington Saves the World. More sophisticated in tone, Miller's noir black-and-white series "Sin City" is set in a decaying urban environment. Calling "Sin City" his "dream project," Miller explained to Michael Gilman in an interview on the Dark Horse Comics Web site that "when I was 14 years old I was drawing comics about tough guys in trench coats." Set in fictional Basin City, "Sin City" gets its name from the fact that when viewers see the city-limits sign, the "B" and "A" are always blocked off. "Miller's theme, for better or worse has not changed one whit" since childhood, noted Musgrove in the Washington Post Book World, adding that the "Sin City" graphic novels take place "in a metropolis so overrun with dirty cops, mob thugs and ruined women that Philip Marlowe or make hammer would consider a move to the suburbs." "When I started 'Sin City,'" Miller told Gilman, "I made the determination that all the women would be drop-dead gorgeous and all the cars would be vintage. These were two things that were important, because that makes it fun to draw, and it makes this the fantasy I want it to be."

The protagonist of 1993's Sin City graphic novel is Marv, a man driven to avenge his murdered girlfriend Goldie. "Marv is half convict, half hero," wrote Kari Haskell in the New York Times. "He is the guy who never gets the girl because his face is a cross between Freddy Kreuger and Bluto; his body is a muscular mass that is as wide as it is long. To some, he is the loser they desperately want to see win. O.K., he's an antihero with no charisma, good looks or any redeeming social value." In A Dame to Kill For, also released in 1993, photographer Dwight McCarthy is drawn into trouble by Ava, a seductive woman from his past. In these "Sin City" compilations, as well as other books in the series, such as Booze, Broads, and Bullets and Hell and Back, Miller draws on classic archetypes from 1930s gangster films, including the caricaturish depiction of wasp-waisted, large-chested women and grotesquely musclebound or wimpish and deformed men. In an interview with Shawna Ervine-Gore posted on the Dark Horse Comics Web site, Miller noted: "I'm sick of the therapy culture, and I'm more in the mood for people whose instincts are to do the right thing just because it is the right thing. That's always been an aspect of 'Sin City' in my other work, but I think I've heard enough whining in the last few years to make me want to start showing characters who don't do that."

Inspired by a 1962 film titled 300 Spartans, Miller's comic series "300" reflects its author's lifelong interest in Greek history, and proves that "comic books can be more than superhero fluff," according to Jeff Jensen in Entertainment Weekly. Reproducing Miller's original five-part comics series, 300 tells the story of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. and the valiant efforts of 300 Spartan soldiers to resist the massive forces of Persian Emperor Xerxes long enough to allow the Greeks to rally and ultimately win the war. Reviewing 300 for Publishers Weekly, a contributor noted that Miller "injects his own brand of graphic sensationalism" into the tale, showing that he "clearly isn't as interested in being a historian as he is in telling a story." Jensen maintained that by reproducing the comic series in a coffee-table-book format it "flatters Miller's meticulous designs," but also "amplifies" some of the "weaknesses," such as "archaic dialogue," "visual grandstanding" and "heavy-handed storytelling."

Continuing his role as an innovator in the comic book medium, Miller told Ervin-Gore on the Dark Horse Comics Web site that "there's no end to what comics can do. And it's shocking, in a way, that so much time has passed and so little variety has evolved. Since the mid-fifties, it's been nothing but guys in tights hitting each other, and eventually there was the bold innovation of very large-breasted women hitting each other.… But really, I think there's no end to the possibilities. And I'm always looking for another kind of story to do."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Schuster, Hal, Frank Miller, Borgo Press (San Bernadino, CA), 1986.

PERIODICALS

Analog Science Fiction-Science Fact, August, 1987, Tom Easton, review of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, p. 187.

Atlantic, August, 1986, Lloyd Rose, "Comic Books for Grown-Ups," pp. 77-80.

Automotive News, June 4, 2001, p. 8.

Booklist, December 1, 1987, review of Ronin, p. 598; October 1, 1988, Ray Olsen, review of Batman: Year One, p. 201; January 1, 2003, Gordon Flagg, review of Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again, p. 827.

Economist, October 24, 1987, "The Comic Novel," pp. 109-110.

Entertainment Weekly, March 10, 2000, Jeff Jensen, review of 300, p. 66; July 21, 2000, p. 16.

Journal of Popular Culture, winter, 1993, Tim Blackmore, "Blind Daring: Vision and Re-Vision of Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrranus in Frank Miller's Daredevil: Born Again," pp. 135-162.

Library Journal, March 15, 1990, Keith R. A. DeCandido, review of Elektra: Assassin and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, pp. 54, 55.

Los Angeles Times, April 16, 1989, Charles Solomon, "The Comic Book Grows Up," p. 6; December 30, 1990, David Colker, "The Dark Knight of the Graphic Novel Returns," p. 86; November 5, 1993, Kevin Thomas, "Mechanical 'RoboCop 3' in Need of Policing," p. 6; July 17, 2001, p. E1; March 1, 2003, Steve Raiteri, review of Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again, p. 75..

Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October, 1990, pp. 57-60.

Newsweek, January 18, 1988, pp. 70-71; July 2, 1990, David Ansen, review of RoboCop 2, p. 54.

New York Times, July 9, 1995, p. I33; July 23, 2000, Kari Haskell, "Never Say Die. Just Execute," sec. 4, p. 3.

New York Times Book Review, May 3, 1987, p. 35.

People, July 2, 1990, Ralph Novak, review of Robo-Cop 2, p. 10.

Publishers Weekly, December 13, 1991, review of Give Me Liberty, p. 52; October 20, 1997, review of Family Values, p. 57; April 17, 2000, review of 300, p. 52; May 28, 2001, review of Hell and Back: A Sin City Love Story, p. 52; December 24, 2001, Douglas Wolk, "Frank Miller Returns with DK2," p. 25; April 28, 2003, review of Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again, p. 50.

Reason, May, 1989, pp. 44-46.

Rolling Stone, May 17, 1990, Mikal Gilmore, "Dare-devil Authors: Today's Real Superheroes," p. 57.

Science Fiction Chronicle, January, 1988, p. 50; November, 1988, p. 43.

Time, January 25, 1988, pp. 65-66.

Voice of Youth Advocates, April, 1988, p. 15; June, 1992, Christy Tyson, review of Give Me Liberty, p. 112.

Washington Post Book World, September 27, 1987, review of Ronin, p. X12; June 22, 1990, Hal Hinson, "'RoboCop 2': The Law of Savages," p. C1; November 5, 1993, Richard Harrington, "'RoboCop': Blight in Shining Armor," p. G7; January 11, 1998, Mike Musgrove, "Graphic Novels," p. 4; May 21, 2000, Mike Musgrove, "Helenic Heroes," p. 15.

Wilson Library Bulletin, February, 1988, p. 80.

ONLINE

CounterCulture,http://www.counterculture.co.uk/ (October 7, 2003).

Dark Horse Comics Web site,http://www.darkhorse.com/ (October 1, 1996), Michael Gilman, interview with Miller; (January 27, 1997) Tom Fassbender, "Frank Miller on 'Sin City'"; (February 28, 1998) Shawna Ervin-Gore, "Frank Miller on '300'"; (May 1, 1999) Shawna Ervin-Gore, "Frank Miller on Sin City: Hell and Back."

Indy Magazine Online,http://www.indymagazine.com/ (May 13, 2004), William Kenyon, "Frank Miller's 300."

Lambiek.net,http://www.lambiek.net/ (May 13, 2004)."Frank Miller."*