A Thought

We were goofing around on Twitter and a thought occurred to me. The Spirit was a good property to begin with, and the Frank Miller treatment--Frankification, as it were--has reportedly drained all of the originality and beauty out of the source material. But there are properties out there--popular properties--which the exact same treatment would improve.

Just imagine...
Frank Miller's Twilight.

I think I might be able to fly with that thought.

I can't watch this with a straight face.

(Via)



For an adaptation of a Will Eisner property, it sure looks like a love letter from Frank Miller to Frank Miller, delivered by the fine folks at United Frank Miller's Sin City Parcel Service.

Three Things

Yesterday's goofing around made me realize three very important things:

1)  It is fun to write a Milleresque narrative.  It's all gritty and exaggerated and colorful and abusive to the English Language.  Makes you feel powerful.

2) When I start to have fun and really put myself into writing, I get compared to Jack Kerouac and told I'm writing beat poetry.  I must read some actual Kerouac and see what this means.  Maybe I'm some sort of throwback to the Beat Generation. (What's weird is I think that's my father's generation -- Mama's a Boomer, but he's quite a bit older than her.)

3)  That fucking cat came right out of a Frank Miller book.  He whines, he scratches my carpet, he scratches my long-boxes, he scratches my shortboxes, he scratches my arms and waits while I walk to the bathroom and back until he gets a good chance to lunge at me and bite my thigh (he only does this when I'm not dressed yet, so that he gets the flesh and draws blood).  He gets annoyed whenever I change anything in the apartment.  He sits in my chair.  He sleeps on my bed.  He stinks up the place.  He lies in my footpath.  He's sleeping on top of my monitor right now, dangling his damned tail in front of the screen.  He does everything he can to inconvenience me.

And when he's not inconveniencing me, he's sitting somewhere and staring at me, trying to intimidate me.

That furry bastard is out to get me.

If I disappear, you'll all know why.

Today, We Speak the Truth.

It rained last night.

A harsh rain. A violent rain. The wind was angry at the citizens of Oklahoma. Possibly over the ancient broken treaty. The Sooner state is cursed with blood and wind and rain and broken glass.

The Sirens went off, and I tried to ignore them. I've lived in Oklahoma. I don't fear death. I'd have walked out and met the Finger of God himself if not for the damned cat. Without me, there would be no one to feed the cat. It was possible the cat wouldn't surive if he didn't get some shelter. I hated that fucking cat. But he was the only companion I had in this damned state, and the only living resident of this rotten world who didn't mind spending time with me. So I holed up in the hallway closet with that stupid cat, a flashlight, and a box of books. I didn't look at the books until I was sitting there with that damned cat, or else I wouldn't have been caught dead with them.

It was the entire run of Sin City. The reprints from when that movie came out. That fucking misogynistic movie.

I'd only bought them because the guy in the comic book store with the indy-goatee and the straggly blonde hair recommended them I read every single one of them, and instead of shadowy light of noirish genius I found the stench of foul cigarettes and that cheap cologne your real grandfather wore when he scammed Grandma into bed by swearing on his then-breathing mother's grave that he was "shipping out tomorrow" and may die in the war. Then he left her with the stench of cheap cologne and a swelling in her stomach that you grew up calling "Mom."

It was nothing new. It was every old man's fantasy in cheap paperback black and white with artsy highlights. It was beautiful deadly young girls tearing their clothes off and throwing themselves at wrinkled old bastards who never showed them the slightest bit of respect. It was women love assholes compounded by women love power with women are sneaky whores thrown in to spice it up.

It was cliche. It was stereotyped. It was a case for gathering a band of merry lesbians and embarking on a cross-country crime spree where you stole from the bastards and gave to their broken-hearted ex-lovers and left a river of masculine blood in your wake as you stayed just a half-step across from a grizzled US Marshall with a tarnished gold star, pecs you can cut glass on and pants tight enough to tell if he dresses right to left from 50 yards away.

It was hot.

And not just because I'd left the air conditioner off.

And that's the secret of these stories. That's the reason for the stereotype. Young women want old men. Wild women are just waiting for a man strong enough to get her to shut up, smack her on the butt and send her into the kitchen. That's why "I'm shipping out" never fails to get you laid. In this world of marshmellowy creampuffs there are far too few Real Men, and it takes more than spitting at quiche to fit the bill, though that's a decent start. That's the deep, dark secret of why we rage at Frank Miller, because baby, he's telling the truth. We want Men, not mice. And if you creamy little bastards with the pimples and the faces so pasty white that they glow in the light of your monitor as you stuff cheetoes into your chipmunk cheeks in your mother's basements learn that that's what we are looking for, then you'll pretend to be a real man and fool some poor weak girl into offering up her uterus for your substandard sperm, thus spoiling the pool for our beloved daughters.

We need real rebels, not cowardly losers. We want men with light, not dimbulbs in the comic shop. That's why old bastards like Frank Miller turn young women on. We know they're tough.

So, in honor of the day, that's the secret of Feminism, boys. It's biological imperitive. It's weeding the weak out of the garden. It's truly only the strong survive in our world. Not just the assholes, but the real heroes. Honestly, if I could make each and every first date walk through fire to climb the gates at the local military base and outrun the MPs over a trail of broken glass, I would. Because that's the way to be sure he's worth the utter destruction of my body and the years of my life spent rearing his squawling brats.

Until then I'll have to settle for spewing my own personal font of rage and hatred at every male member of the species I meet, bedding the one who manages to survive and continuing to test him with the fire of my blood and my soul for the rest of his life, which should be considerably shortened by this treatment.

I do this because I care about the future of our species, and want only the very best genes for my child. As do all women.

Once again...

Fuck you, Frank.

*Sigh*

Happy Pranksgiving Everyone

I wanted to do a nice big prank on the blogosphere, or at least post a joke but the Renfaire was this weekend and I forgot.

So I'd just like to state that I owe you all a practical joke.

(Please note that when I post my theory that Frank Miller is homosexual but severely in denial, that will not be a joke.)

Returning to sanity...

That was fun.

Now, before I get into this, let me thank all the thoughtful people who disagreed and agreed and conversed about propaganda. The majority of the responses.

To the rest of you, I'd like to mention a few things:

1) Despite the fact that I prefaced and ended the post pointing out that I, even possessing the opinion, knew that the opinion was batshit insane, there were a few commenters who felt it was necessary to point out that it was batshit insane. I appreciate your concern.

2) It feels weird to be accused of being overly Americentric because I saw a US-related metaphor in a project involving known Americentric propagandist Frank Miller. (This goes for the person who thought my opinion it would be homophobic and misogynistic was unethical. I've read enough Frank Miller stories to know what to expect, thank you.)

3) Its always fun to see responses to expressing an aversion to seeing a movie based on the marketing for the movie complain about how someone is judging the movie based on the marketing for the movie. You know, the stuff designed to make us want to see the movie. This really fits the mood of the comics-reading community, where we spend hours commiserating about editorial decisions about comic books that we dropped months ago. (And comparing the war in Iraq to my decision not to see a movie was an interesting analogy. Plus the 3 blind men story is cliche, overrated, and quite probably offensive to blind people.)

4) Not a criticism, but its oddly gratifying to find out that people in Iran are having much the same debate.

(Also, this response thread was fun to read, it made me imagine what archaeologists and historians three thousand years from now will say about the 21st Century world. That made me laugh myself silly.)

I've heard he says he writes strong women too...

Okay, everyone has their own crazy idea. I spend all of my time mocking the crazy ideas I find across the internet.

Well, now its time to reveal my own special insanity. The idea that is so strange that I know it will probably make the entire internet sit up, blink, and ask when I went so insane.

I won't watch The 300 because the trailer makes it look like Anti-American propaganda.

Okay, hear me out here. Yes, I know what Frank Miller has said about his patriotism and that, in all likelihood, this movie was meant as war propaganda in the USA's favor, but every time I see the trailer I get this little creeping feeling in my stomach that its not going to show that way.

What makes me think this?

Because the premise is a group of 300 poorly armed men against the greatest fighting force in the known world. The voice-over refers to the "thousand nations of the Persian Empire" and shows an ethnically diverse group of people in power positions who are obviously villains. The Spartans, vastly outnumbered and overpowered, are all the same race, gender, and religion.

I'm absolutely certain that the US parallels better to the Persians, and I do not want to watch two hours of such an obvious US-parallel getting the Frank Miller-villain treatment.

There it is, Internet. My seemingly batshit crazy aversion to The 300. That's right, I'm not thrown by the misogyny and homophobia that is guaranteed to be contained within or any of the already stated reasons to not want to see this movie, but I'm obsessed with the unpleasant political parallels that so very few people have pointed out.

And I wonder who Frank Miller thinks he's fooling.

I await your reaction.

(ETA: See, I'm not alone!)

Dammit

I wasn't going to post about Lea Hernandez, but I had to go and mention an opinion in the previous post. So now, I feel a need to elaborate.

(Yes, There's More)I find it creepy. No two ways about it.

And this is not a commentary on the general state of comics, or the objectification of women in comics (I understand completely about the pandering and sexualizing and demand an equal amount of sexualization of male characters), or even the quality of the book itself (I stopped reading after issue one and haven't picked up since).

This is solely about Frank Miller.

And it's not because I consider him a "Master" in the Art form either. I enjoyed Batman: Year One and Born Again but I'm not going to put him at the level of Willaim Eisner. Even though Dark Knight Returns did predate Watchmen for starting the grimness craze, I still don't consider him that good. If comic books have any modern masters, Alan Moore and Grant Morrison top the list.

But it's not about his status, or his talent, or even a lack of talent.

It's because I've long been getting a subconcious vibe from his work.

I noticed a pattern around the time the Sin City movie came out.

The Hard Goodbye -- Older Man/Younger Woman
That Yellow Bastard -- Older Man/Younger Woman
Hell and Back -- Older Man/Younger Woman

Then there's the Dwight stories, where Dwight may not be all that older, but he tends to involve himself heavily with adoring prostitutes.

Add to that, his other works I'd read:
Daredevil: Born Again -- Karen Page is a drug-addicted prostitute
Batman: Year One -- Selina Kyle rebooted from simple cat thief to prostitute
The Dark Knight Returns -- Older Batman/Little Girl Robin

Now, any one of these stories standing alone is actually pretty damned enjoyable. I prefer Catwoman's new origin. But putting them all together, and realizing that the same writer has been using the same basic staples in so much of his work is disturbing to me. This body of work has left me with the overall picture of "Dirty Old Man" when I think of Frank Miller.

And this little bit of script has just confirmed it.

I can hear a confirmation of the story about Wally Wood increasing Power Girl's bra size and laugh (possibly because Wood was that much better and artist than Lee, possibly because Power Girl's dialogue tends to be smart and empowering). I can ogle Lantern butts, find out somehow this tradition is actually intentional, and giggle. But due to a confirmed lack of professionalism on his part, added to what I've seen in his own portfolio, I'm afraid I can't think of Frank Miller without shuddering anymore.