By Pat Wise
When I was 12 years old, a new wave of artists emerged in the ’80s. One artist in particular, Frank Miller, stood out. Why’d he stand out? He was a comic book punk rocker and visionary who broke the rules. It was through his work on Batman and Daredevil, his creation of the new Elektra character, seen first within the pages of “Daredevil #168” and of course, his creation of “Sin City”—(aka-“Frank Miller’s Sin City”) popularized by the 2005 American neo-noir crime anthology film directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller, based on Miller’s comic book released in 1992.
How did Miller break the rules? Return to 1983 and take a peak at “Daredevil” and Miller’s cover for “DD #191”— a comic that will forever remain a safe haven within the inner folds of my favorite comic memory banks. Here, Miller defied conventional illustration and adopted almost a noir/caricature approach. He was pioneering a new path forward, breaking away from the linear illustrations of old while leaning heavily into a loose abstraction, asymmetric artistic perspective, where flourishes of color were as important, if not more so, than the structural guiding law of line. In breaking that law, Miller’s exaggerated character compositions, odd-shaped bodies, and facial and background details consistently portrayed his style throughout the book. His pages were built on intense, hard-core, razor-edged comic book noir. The chaotic distorted images created a tension with which he played like musical jazz, allowing tension to be felt as much in display as with the tension in his dramatic story birthed deep in the underbelly of big city back alleys. The characters communicated a heavier vibe within the lives of my old favorite characters. The action flew off the pages.
I read “Daredevil #191” on one of those cold, quiet 1983 winter nights. It must have been 2 a.m. As usual, I was up with a reading lamp tucked in the sack with a stack of comics and a fizzing Coke on the nightstand. The house’s creakings and crackings— a nostalgia reminiscent of yesterday’s smell of burning leaves. I remember the world outside, frozen in silence, stark white smoke billowing out of the second-story chimneys. Save for the occasional hum of a late-night car passing by, the sound of the promise of escape in comic book lore lived in silence, setting forth a fitting arena for the loud, unabashed, shocking pages of Frank’s creations to become all the more prevalent.
Journeying back to my 1983 memory banks, I remember that I would have walked to Kehoe Corner Market earlier in the day to grab a comic, a candy bar, and a soda for a dollar down. That’s probably where I got “#191.” Or maybe it was Mr. C’s Seafood market on Route 7. Either way, the memories of the change in comics, attributed explicitly in my mind to one Frank Miller’s “Daredevil # 191” will not be forgotten.
Miller’s “Daredevil” was darker, grittier, and more introspective than anything I’d seen before. It was raw and, at first, almost asking for discomfort from the reader. The lines were rough, the shadows stark, and the emotion – palpable in a way that felt alien to me. It was easy to keep turning those pages. The way the visuals conveyed tension, the hero’s flaws, and the brutal world Miller inhabits was unlike anything I’d experienced in comics. That night, under the dim light of my bedside lamp, comics made another great leap into the recesses of my imagination, all due to one unknown Rock visionary who broke all the rules. Today, many artists, comics, film, pulp fiction, and beyond can trace some of the inspiration and creative freedom back to Frank Miller, whose work helped pry open the door to a vast, untapped landscape of storytelling possibilities.
This week’s Claws
