Frank Miller

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Frank Miller at San Diego Comic Con 2008

Frank Miller (* 27. January 1957 in Olney , Maryland ) is an American comic book writer , author , screenwriter and director . He is best known for his style- defining comic stories .

Life

Miller grew up in Montpelier, Vermont . He became a professional comic book artist and worked for a number of major American publishers, including Gold Key , DC Comics and Marvel . He published his first comics in high school and met his future mentor, Neal Adams . Two stories from The Spectacular Spider-Man opened the door to him at Marvel. Soon he was the main draftsman of Daredevil and also took over the title design. He also worked successfully with the Inker Klaus Janson .

style

Frank Miller works with strong graphic contrasts. His dark black and white drawing style is inspired by the film noir of the forties, he says. Other typical stylistic devices are the use of perspectives and page-filling images. The complex stories for superhero comics are drawn by cynical and melancholy characters and outsiders. In Miller's stories, every victory demands a price, often the life of the protagonist. Another element that Miller often uses is the repetition of (often short) sentences. An example of this is Hartigan's sentence in Sin City : "An old man dies, a young girl lives - fair exchange."

comics

Miller at San Diego Comic-Con 1982

Miller's first successful work was editing and redefining well-known comic book icons such as Batman and Daredevil. Typical of this is one of his most famous works, The Dark Knight Returns . Miller portrays an aged Batman as a violent, somewhat confused law enforcement officer, worlds apart from the do-gooder of the 1960s television series. Miller's interpretation had a lasting impact on the character, which extends to Tim Burton's film Batman and comics by other authors such as The Killing Joke by Alan Moore or Arkham Asylum by Grant Morrison .

During this time Miller also created the cartoon character Elektra .

During his time as a freelance comic artist, Miller increasingly became the electoral leader of the American artists' rights movement. From 1980 he began to devote himself increasingly to his own work. Ronin , a SF - Samurai credit history for DC Comics was the first of many productions that Miller's wife Lynn Varley colored. Other notable works from this period include Give Me Liberty (in collaboration with Dave Gibbons ) and Hard Boiled (with Geof Darrow ).

Miller influenced many American comic book readers to read Japanese manga . He wrote introductions and illustrated the first covers of the 28-part paperback edition of Kazuo Koike and Gōseki Kojima's Lone Wolf & Cub when it appeared in English in 1990.

Sin City was Miller's first solo project. The series of black and white detective stories was published by Dark Horse Comics and, in Germany, initially by Carlsen Verlag, and continued by Schreiber und Leser Verlag. Isolated stories were later published by Extrem Successful Entertainment. Sin City is currently beingpublishedby Cross Cult . The German publisher also has Miller's Works 300 , in which heretellsthe story of the Battle of Thermopylae in his unique comic language, and Frank Miller's RoboCop, a comic based on an original screenplay by Miller, in its program.

Scripts

Miller wrote a number of scripts, including RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3 . The series Frank Miller's RoboCop , illustrated by Juan José Ryp , is based on Miller's screenplay for RoboCop 2 , with the rights reserved by Avatar Press . After RoboCop 3 , Miller stated that he would no longer give permission for film adaptations of his comics.

The 2003 film Daredevil, starring Ben Affleck, uses many elements of Miller's stories. The film Elektra was shot as a spin-off .

Robert Rodriguez convinced Miller with a specially made short film to give his permission to film Sin City and to work as a co-director. The film was released in American cinemas on April 1, 2005. Miller's original comics had been used as storyboards . Also Quentin Tarantino was involved in the rotation sequence. The film was quite successful in Germany, especially given the age rating of 18 and over. The second Sin City film was released on September 18, 2014, see Sin City: A Dame to Kill For .

2006 was followed by a successful film adaptation of 300 directed by Zack Snyder , which got a sequel in 2014 with 300: Rise of an Empire .

In 2008 Miller directed the comic book adaptation The Spirit . For the first time, Miller directed the implementation of Will Eisner's classic Spirit comics completely himself.

Together with Tom Wheeler , Miller wrote the novel Cursed , based on the Arthurian saga , which was adapted in parallel to a series .

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personal data
SURNAME Miller, Frank
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American novelist, comic book writer, and artist
DATE OF BIRTH January 27, 1957
PLACE OF BIRTH Olney , Maryland , USA