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Frank Miller Has Completely Lost It

edited November 2011 in Politics
I'm not sure if this belongs in the Politics category or the comics one, but after reading this blog post by Frank Miller, I truly believe that he has gone completely crazy, and I no longer have any respect for the man.

Anarchy

“Occupy” is nothing but a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists, an unruly mob, fed by Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness. These clowns can do nothing but harm America.

I used to be a HUGE Frank Miller fan. What he did with Daredevil, The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Year One, even Sin City were revolutionary. Now, he's like a caricature of his former self.

It was bad when I read all the negative reviews of Holy Terror, but after this, I don't think I will ever buy another Frank Miller comic again.
Post edited by jabrams007 on
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Comments

  • wow, that comment selection is special.
  • It sounds like he's been drinking from the Fox News fountain. If you listen to Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, that's exactly what they're saying about Occupy.

    It's sad, really.
  • That's an exaggerated description, to be certain, but here in Seattle is not far from true. By all accounts, the Occupy protests have been a cross between a homeless camp and a riot, with unwashed and unruly masses leaving trash and needles everywhere, and destroying every bathroom in a several block radius. Even The Stranger, our incredibly leftist paper, can't find a way to portray them in a positive light.
  • wow, that comment selection is special.
    Could you give some examples, or is it too vile to share? I'd prefer to not give that particular article the page view.
  • That's an exaggerated description, to be certain, but here in Seattle is not far from true. By all accounts, the Occupy protests have been a cross between a homeless camp and a riot, with unwashed and unruly masses leaving trash and needles everywhere, and destroying every bathroom in a several block radius. Even The Stranger, our incredibly leftist paper, can't find a way to portray them in a positive light.
    That's really unfortunate.
  • Actually, the very first comment to his blog post is pretty good. The rest of them are what you would expect from the internet. Here's the very first post in response to Frank's rant:

    "Dear Frank,
    I used to be your biggest fan.

    You're now dead to me.

    After reading your blog and suffering through "Holy Terror," I don't ever need to pay money for your entertainment, again.

    Holy Terror is a MESS. It's sloppy, pedantic, on the nose, silly and confusing. It doesn't make a clear point, at all, which is odd because it was obviously your purposed to make a point, not to tell a good story.

    Remind me again which regiment you served with? Oh, right, you were drawing cartoons at the age of those Occupy folks you suggest should enlist. Because if there's one thing a soldier can look forward to these days, it's trusting that his/her superiors will send them to do the right thing and really get the job done.

    Like eliminate Al Quaeda overseas. Good mission. The Marines and Army have done that.

    Root out sleeper terrorists on American soil. Good idea. The FBI does that, and they do it, well.

    So how should the rest of us fight terror? Oh, right, by not rocking the boat. Never complaining, just stewing in our anger and writing angry screeds online and in comic books. Gettin' the ol' job done, aren't we, Frank? Thank God we've got you on that wall, because we need you on that wall.

    Remember the Frank Miller who donated to groups that supported creator-owned companies? The guy who printed "Give 'em an inch, they'll take a Mile" in big bold letters on the back cover of one of his books? He was talking about CORPORATIONS, not big government.

    He was protesting corporations that exploit their workers.

    Remember the Frank Miller that co-founded his own comic publishing company, Legend, and extolled the accomplishment of the Image comics founders who left the big bad Marvel all at the same time? You know, those guys who staged a...let's see, what's the term for it...oh, yeah, a...walkout. Just walked off their jobs, the lazy fucks! Gave the finger to that gracious corporation that so generously employed them and thousands of others, to go..."freelance." Yeccch. Just the word itself makes me feel grimy.

    In short, just to be as clear as propaganda: the young Frank Miller would look at what you've aged into and be sick.

    On a personal note, I've been trying to decide for months if I should sell my old Frank Miller comics to make some decent cash or save them to give to my nephew when he's old enough to appreciate them. I'd like to think that he would be as inspired by them as I was, that they might even change the course of his creative ambitions as they did for me.

    Fuck it, I'm going to Ebay right now and unloading these tainted piles of crap. And I hope you're currently working on some new lunatic book so I can scoff at it as I buy other books by still relevant artists.

    I wonder if John Byrne has become a right-wing psycho nutjob, too? Nah, he's Canadian and wayyy too nice a guy for that. But you never know, these days, you never know."
  • Lets be honest. Are we really SURPRISED that Frank Miller is a right-wing nut who doesn't clearly think through the implications of what he's saying? I mean, fuck. We all read Dark Knight Returns. Great comic, but it's basically the right-wing self-defense-before-all ideology in paper.
  • Are we really SURPRISED that Frank Miller is a right-wing nut who doesn't clearly think through the implications of what he's saying?
  • Are we really SURPRISED that Frank Miller is a right-wing nut who doesn't clearly think through the implications of what he's saying?
    He didn't use to be... at least, not to the extent he is now. Kind of like Dennis Miller, I think 9/11 scared the shit out of him so much, that he just jumped completely off the deep end into bat-shit crazy land.

    It's a real shame, he used to be a comic genius.
  • It's been that way for awhile. You just discovered it recently. There are lots of crazy comics creators out there who are very disagreeable. Dave Sim (Cerebus), Bill Willingham (Fables) and Neal Adams (Batman) are all crazy in their own ways.

    I've covered this topic many times. Plenty of people throughout history have been talented and created great works of art while simultaneously being bad people. I don't think there's any hypocrisy in respecting someone's body of work while disrespecting the person themselves.

    Mike Tyson is always my go to example. He's an abhorrent human being, and he knows it. But the fights in his heyday were a glory to behold.
  • It's been that way for awhile. You just discovered it recently. There are lots of crazy comics creators out there who are very disagreeable. Dave Sim (Cerebus), Bill Willingham (Fables) and Neal Adams (Batman) are all crazy in their own ways.

    I've covered this topic many times. Plenty of people throughout history have been talented and created great works of art while simultaneously being bad people. I don't think there's any hypocrisy in respecting someone's body of work while disrespecting the person themselves.

    Mike Tyson is always my go to example. He's an abhorrent human being, and he knows it. But the fights in his heyday were a glory to behold.
    I knew about Dave Sim, but how are Bill Willingham and Neal Adams crazy?

  • There are a lot of musicians, rappers in particular, who are kind of abhorrent human beings but who's music are good. Same goes for authors; to read Ender's Game, you need to know that Orson Scott Card is fucking nuts. If they still produce good stuff and their crazy views don't get too entangled with their stuff, I still listen. You kind of need to take that view or a lot of good entertainment will be cut off from you.
  • It's been that way for awhile. You just discovered it recently. There are lots of crazy comics creators out there who are very disagreeable. Dave Sim (Cerebus), Bill Willingham (Fables) and Neal Adams (Batman) are all crazy in their own ways.

    I've covered this topic many times. Plenty of people throughout history have been talented and created great works of art while simultaneously being bad people. I don't think there's any hypocrisy in respecting someone's body of work while disrespecting the person themselves.

    Mike Tyson is always my go to example. He's an abhorrent human being, and he knows it. But the fights in his heyday were a glory to behold.
    Basically, this. Michael Jackson diddled little boys. He also made Thriller.

    Take a Lit102 class and you will quickly learn to separate art and artist. The art always stands on its own, as a separate thing from the artist.
  • I don't think there's any hypocrisy in respecting someone's body of work while disrespecting the person themselves.
    Yeah, this. Learn to separate the art from the artist.

  • True, you can separate the art from the artist, but when the artist's work deteriorates because of his crazy, then the art suffers.

    I don't really care that Frank Miller is a nutjob. It's when he spends his time supporting those views instead of making awesome comics, then I get sad.
  • True, you can separate the art from the artist, but when the artist's work deteriorates because of his crazy, then the art suffers.
    Very true. Sim's work after Church and State was an endless downward spiral of misogyny and shit. Fables is good but well-laced with the craziness of its author. Orson Scott Card is openly homophobic and misogynistic in several of his works (I think the most recent Hamlet debacle stands out). Dan Simmons is a huge fucking Islamophobe such that it even manages to permeate his best book.
  • Yea, I enjoy Ender's Game but Orson Scott Card is a twat.
  • Basically, this. Michael Jackson diddled little boys. He also made Thriller.
    I'm pretty sure he was never convicted of anything. Just remember that the court of public opinion should not determine reality.
    I don't think there's any hypocrisy in respecting someone's body of work while disrespecting the person themselves.
    Yeah, this. Learn to separate the art from the artist.

    Ehhhhhhhh. I'm on the fence about this. It's a matter of scope and scale, I think, and the degree to which the two are actually separable.

    I'll use my go-to example from the metal panel: NSBM - National Socialist Black Metal. Supporting the art is tantamount to supporting the ideology behind it, because you give the artist the resources they need, and the attention they need, to continue spreading abhorrent ideas. It's the problem that we encounter when we pay attention to trolls, or loud-mouth political pundits.

    Our collective societal values will determine the limit of what is considered acceptable. I'm sure if Frank Miller was spouting Nazi propaganda and started putting it in his comics, you'd stop buying his stuff even if it was good, because the idea is simply reprehensible.

  • I don't know Pete, his work on Batman was really freaking good. I would read Hitler if he wrote a good batman story :-p

  • edited November 2011
    I don't know Pete, his work on Batman was really freaking good. I would read Hitler if he wrote a good batman story :-p

    If Batman was advocating gassing all of the Jews because they led to Gotham's downfall, I think you might think otherwise.

    EDIT: Well, OK, if Miller was advocating for the gassing of Jews using Batman as a vehicle. If he just makes Batman look like an asshole, that's all good and well.

    Post edited by TheWhaleShark on
  • I hope you guys realize that Frank Miller has already made Goddamn Batman look like an asshole.
  • I hope you guys realize that Frank Miller has already made Goddamn Batman look like an asshole.
    I was going to say. Motherfucker made Bruce Wayne a child abuser.
  • Chick tracts are a good example of what I'm talking about - artist and art are impossibly intertwined, as the art exists solely as a transparent vehicle for the artist's ideology. I choose not to support that art precisely because of the ideology espoused by the artist, which is conveyed through his art. If he espoused a message with which I agreed, I'd support the art.

    In that regard, the only thing that distinguished Chick from Miller is the degree to which the art is mashed up with the message, and the amount that you can extract from it otherwise. And it generally goes that as someone gets nuttier, their art tends to become heavily muddled with their ideology.
  • I have read a lot of Chick tracts though.
  • edited November 2011
    I have read a lot of Chick tracts though.
    So have I, but do you throw money at them? Do you support them? That's the question here. If Jack Chick came up to you and said, "I want money to keep publishing my tracts," would you give him money?

    Voting with your dollars and so on.

    EDIT: And I'm honestly on the fence about them. I don't discuss Chick tracts routinely for the same reason I try to minimize legitimate consideration of any argument put forth by, say, Glen Beck or Ann Coulter. It's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation, because repeating the ideology means that you will give it the breeding ground it needs to thrive, but you need to discuss it in order to form an intelligent opinion.
    Post edited by TheWhaleShark on
  • If Jack Chick came up to you and said, "I want money to keep publishing my tracts," would you give him money?
    And end the tenure of one of our best comedy writers?

  • If Jack Chick came up to you and said, "I want money to keep publishing my tracts," would you give him money?
    And end the tenure of one of our best comedy writers?

    People on the Internet give that shit away for free. Hell, I can just go browse FreeRepublic when I feel the need to eat a helping of derp.

  • edited November 2011
    To be honest, I'm with the "Are we surprised? Why?" camp.

    This is absolutely something I can see Frank Miller's borderline-suicidal-Fuck-everyone-punch-crime-till-it's-liver-explodes Batman from DKR saying, in character and without a hint of acknowledgement to the fourth wall, not to mention a good half the characters in Sin City, Marv in particular, but also Dwight, Hartigan and Wallace. Shit, it wouldn't even be too out of place in the mouth of Born again era Daredevil.
    Post edited by Churba on
  • Hey. He's always been a bit nuts. I liked his Batman stuff. Until everyone tried to emulate him.
    Lest you forget, Batman is kind enough, and eccentric enough to randomly adopt children.
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