Holy Terror by Frank Miller

Re: Batman vs Al Qaeda - By Frank Miller

Don't forget the hookers!
 
No posts about this gem since 2008?! Are you kidding me?!

Obviously it's only called "Holy Terror" and features amazingly transparent ripoffs of Batman, Catwoman, and Detective Gordon.

I read it last night, just to be able to say that I had. And that's just about the best I can say about it.
 
Frank Miller has jumped the shark a long tine ago. He's like Stan Lee, he only worked as as a writer in a certain decade. Take Frank Miller out the of 80s and his writing doesn't work anymore. I think Grant Morrison had the right idea when called this dreck hateful propaganda and said Frank Miller should go serve as a solider in Afghanistan if this is how he truly feels.
 
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The Overlord said:
Frank Miller has jumped the shark a long tine ago. He's like Stan Lee, he only worked as as a writer in a certain decade. Take Frank Miller out the of 80s and his writing doesn't work anymore. I think Grant Morrison had the right idea when called this dreck hateful propaganda and said Frank Miller should go serve as a solider in Afghanistan if this is how he truly feels.
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I think it's more than that. Stan Lee wasn't a great writer. I'd dare say he wasn't even a good writer. But he dared to do something new with comics in a market that was stuck in a quagmire of stale routine (mostly facilitated by the monopoly DC held on the market). But then, it's not all that uncommon for the innovators of a medium's creative change to not be especially talented in the field. The capacity for tectonic ideas and the capacity to work skillfully in a particular art form don't always go hand in hand (See, Frank Miller). It's not that his writing was good. It's simply that no one was telling the types of stories he told. Legitimate writers saw comic books as schlock exploitation and staff writers (who sometimes might have wanted to tell a fantastic story but mostly were working just for a paycheck) were living food to mouth meeting the narrow expectations of their editors, so it took a middle of the road guy to change the market. It doesn't hurt that Stan Lee soaked up so much of the credit for the brilliant stuff being done by Kirby and Ditko. But then, he was always the hype man. ;) There's a reason why Flava Flav is so much more universally recognized than the rest of Public Enemy. People want a personality. They want their artists to be larger than life.

And then there's Frank Miller, who's output has a perfect parallel in his literary contemporary, Bret Easton Ellis (You know American Psycho and may know Less Than Zero or Rules of Attraction). Though Chuck Palahniuk may be a better fit (You know Fight Club and may know a legion of books that read exactly like Fight Club, though I hear he's been experimenting more in his books following Lullaby). These are guys who clearly had a story to tell, but once that story was told, heady on their success, and not realizing they didn't have further stories to tell, they kept telling that same story over and over with slight variations in window dressing. The problem is that, the more we read the same story, the more we see the frays in it. It's not that Miller's new stuff is quantitatively worse than his Daredevil or Batman. It's just, the more we read and the more he starts believing his own hype and magnifying those little themes that might have been slightly more subtle in his earlier work, the more we realize it's all about swastikas, repressed homo-eroticism, big ****, misogyny, and a threadbare and terrifying sort of fascism that slams into direct contrast with Alan Moore's obsession with all the above mentioned things. ;)

And God help us all, great as TDK and Batman: Year One were, as much as the character is indebted to Miller, why are we still telling stories about Frank Miller's Batman a quarter century later?

Finally, as for Morrison's statement about Miller. Well...... I love Morrison to pieces. Seriously. He's the very first and one of the very few comic book writers I put on the same pedestal as my "legitimate" literary heroes (even if he admittedly suffers a lot of the same flaws of recursive storytelling as Franky), but that comment sort of raises my hackles. I'm not quite sure why, though. Partially it's my belief that art is always about hypocrisy. It's about shoving your nose into subjects you don't have the right to speak about. But beyond that, I'm not quite sure. I agree with his statement. I find the premise of the book completely dreadful. Yet somehow, it just irritates me. Is there anyone else who feels the same way and can maybe provide some insight into why I might be feeling this?

Edit: Actually, you know what I think it is? This idea that being on the "front lines" of an issue is somehow more legitimate than using some auxiliary method of supporting your ideology. Propagandists (and let's be pretty honest, all art is propaganda of some sort. You're trying to sell the reader on your opinion. Some art expresses arguments that are more existential or less controversial, and some artists are capable of doing it with significantly more tact than other. Frank Miller has a nauseating ideology and the grace of a hippo riding a T-Rex with a concussion, but the issue is still the same, regardless of execution) are one of the most important aspects of forwarding any ideology. And it strikes me as especially hypocritical coming from Morrison, who thinks he's going to change the very shape of reality with his stories.

P.S.
I somehow managed to restrain myself and prevent this from turning into a response the size of that Spider-Island comment. I managed the same a while back when I was initially going to respond to the idea of the Punisher TV show. You're welcome.

P.P.S
Although.......
My thoughts on Frank Miller's output (particularly Batman and Daredevil, though all of it really stands) converge pretty tightly with my thesis on the Punisher and the American pop fascination with revenge fiction. His success actually sits pretty squarely at the source of this obsession. We might call him a forefather. God help us if my attempts at restraining myself are ultimately undermined by a vast cross-hyper-linked doctoral thesis sprawling across a multitude of threads.

God help us all.

It will consume first the forum, and then all of cyberspace.

P.P.P.S.
I am the living personification of kudzu.

I am thought kudzu.

Swamp Thing has nothing on me.








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The Overlord said:
Frank Miller has jumped the shark a long tine ago. He's like Stan Lee, he only worked as as a writer in a certain decade.
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You're right. Well put.

Although 300 was outside of that decade and it was still good.

Zombipanda said:
I think it's more than that. Stan Lee wasn't a great writer. I'd dare say he wasn't even a good writer.
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Agreed.
 
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Re: Batman vs Al Qaeda - By Frank Miller

Miller's rant about the Occupy Wall Street movement has made it to the national news circuit. Crazy old man.

His jingoism is amazing. Plus, if I read/hear him one more time saying stuff like "The Occupy" movement should enlist in the military, or that he regrets being too old to enlist, i'm going to scream. One person made a great comment; if he knew Islam was so evil, and his love for the US was so great, why didn't he enlist during the Iran Hostage Crisis, or after Pan Am Flight 103, or after the Marine base attack in Beirut, or after the first WTC attack, etc.

If it's because the number of victims weren't as high as on the second attack on the WTC? Then why doesn't he rally against;

Domestic violence (~2000 deaths per year)
Tobacco (~400,000 deaths a year)
Drunk Driving (~10,000 deaths a year)
The War in Iraq [who had nothing to do with the WTC attack, no matter what Miller or Bush tell everyone] (~3777 Friendly Fire Deaths/~7299 Civilian deaths)


****er makes my head hurt.
 
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Re: Batman vs Al Qaeda - By Frank Miller

Jaggyd said:
Miller's rant about the Occupy Wall Street movement has made it to the national news circuit. Crazy old man.

His jingoism is amazing. Plus, if I read/hear him one more time saying stuff like "The Occupy" movement should enlist in the military, or that he regrets being too old to enlist, i'm going to scream. One person made a great comment; if he knew Islam was so evil, and his love for the US was so great, why didn't he enlist during the Iran Hostage Crisis, or after Pan Am Flight 103, or after the Marine base attack in Beirut, or after the first WTC attack, etc.

If it's because the number of victims weren't as high as on the second attack on the WTC? Then why doesn't he rally against;

Domestic violence (~2000 deaths per year)
Tobacco (~400,000 deaths a year)
Drunk Driving (~10,000 deaths a year)
The War in Iraq [who had nothing to do with the WTC attack, no matter what Miller or Bush tell everyone] (~3777 Friendly Fire Deaths/~7299 Civilian deaths)


****er makes my head hurt.
Click to expand...

I have lost any respect I had for Miller a long time ago. Reading this I have to fight the urge to go back and burn his crap and mail the ashes to him in an envelope. What a tool.
 
Re: Batman vs Al Qaeda - By Frank Miller

Jaggyd said:
Miller's rant about the Occupy Wall Street movement has made it to the national news circuit. Crazy old man.

His jingoism is amazing. Plus, if I read/hear him one more time saying stuff like "The Occupy" movement should enlist in the military, or that he regrets being too old to enlist, i'm going to scream. One person made a great comment; if he knew Islam was so evil, and his love for the US was so great, why didn't he enlist during the Iran Hostage Crisis, or after Pan Am Flight 103, or after the Marine base attack in Beirut, or after the first WTC attack, etc.

If it's because the number of victims weren't as high as on the second attack on the WTC? Then why doesn't he rally against;

Domestic violence (~2000 deaths per year)
Tobacco (~400,000 deaths a year)
Drunk Driving (~10,000 deaths a year)
The War in Iraq [who had nothing to do with the WTC attack, no matter what Miller or Bush tell everyone] (~3777 Friendly Fire Deaths/~7299 Civilian deaths)


****er makes my head hurt.
Click to expand...

mike3717 said:
I have lost any respect I had for Miller a long time ago. Reading this I have to fight the urge to go back and burn his crap and mail the ashes to him in an envelope. What a tool.
Click to expand...

Yes, yes. He is retroactively destroying his work, much like John Byrne.
 
Re: Batman vs Al Qaeda - By Frank Miller

Bass said:
Yes, yes. He is retroactively destroying his work, much like John Byrne.
Click to expand...

See as much as Miller's jingoism/sexism/homophobia and Byrne's sexism/homophobia now bothers me, I'm able to detach myself from any disgust i have for them. I'll reread Miller's Daredevil and Elektra and Byrne's X-Men/Alpha Flight until i go blind. I feel that those pieces of work are some of the best in comic book storytelling.
 
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