Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Sin City, Volumes 2, 3, and 4

by Frank Miller

So the trailer for the Sin City movie looked pretty cool, and it's received very good reviews, so I thought I should check out the books it's based on before I see it.

The movie trailer kind of gave me the impression that it was an SF story (possibly because of the yellow guy), but it's not at all. Instead it's just dark bleak noir, set in a fictional city filled with scumbags, lowlifes, and of course, beautiful women.

Volume two is probably the one I liked best. It's a fairly basic noir set-up, a guy with a past, and a blonde with a problem, and a supporting cast of lost souls. The other two volumes continue in a similar vein, but don't quite match the stylishness of the first. But of course, they were still well worth reading.

The art is just great, entirely done in black and white with occasional spots of colour. It's moody and evocative and I'm glad they've kept the idea for the movie. And I can't mention the art without noting that these stories always revolve around women, inevitably impossibly beautiful women wearing sexy clothes, and Miller draws them with a particular passion. And when I say passion, I don't mean that in a snickering sarcastic way. It might be kinky and gratuitous, but it's damn good art. I've certainly never seen comic book superheroines look half this good.

More of these will no doubt find their way into my possession at some stage, and I'm really looking forward to the movie too.

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