Frank Miller's Sin City - The Hard Goodbye

Miller's "Sin City - The Hard Goodbye". A gluttonous indulgance in style over substance. But isn't that the point? Marv, sadistic monstrosity and protagonist, commences a blood-soaked rampage for vengeance in honour of the one woman - a prostitute, naturally - who gave him a night of 'pleasure'. As the brute slaughters toward the horrible truth, we encounter instances of rampid corruption, depravity and lust that characterise the city's populous.

Hardly literature.
Hardly pretending to be.

"I'm staring at a goddess. She's telling me she wants me. She sounds like she means it. I'm not going to waste one more second wondering how it is I've gotten so lucky." (p.10)

A far reach from the rythmic eloquence of Chandler, Frank Miller nevertheless grabs the noir / hard-boiled genre and thrusts it into even grittier, ultraviolent territory. Whilst claims of re-inventing the genre may be exercises in hyperbolic praise "Sin City", at least here, does provide a fresh tangent. For the most part generic staples remain intact: the characteristic interplay between light / shadow; overbearing bleakness in the visualisation of setting and situation; inescapable doom of an ill-fated main character; the femme fatale(s), capable of navigating the darkness with their intellect and body etc. Everything just happens to be bolstered to gruffer, darker proportions. And stamped with liberal doses of blood splatter.


Striking in Miller's artwork is an interesting experimentation with shadows / darkness. His mostly minimalist approach to detail, evidenced above in one of my favourite frames of this or any graphic novel, crafts a mood and look that's both appropriate for the story and surprisingly rich despite the lack of colour. The panel is mainly black, leaving the small details illuminated by Marv's lighter to acquire significance. Why did Miller choose to include them? The bandages, reminding of the violence recently seen. Nancy's barely visible breasts, suggesting lurid meaning. The small cross pendant; perhaps a cheeky stab of Miller's in relation to the hinted violence and sex? Or a small nod at where Marv's quest ultimately lands him?

Obviously such a colour (tone?) scheme would become tired rapidly if not interchanged with brighter, detailed moments. In some instances, Miller inverses what's displayed above. Shadows reveal details, rather than occlude, thusly positioning light in the previous role of dark. In "Sin City", are 'light' and 'shadow' one and the same? Or is Frank Miller just being playful? Who knows, but it's an intriguing visual dynamic than once again exposes space for experiment in a seemingly limited colour/tone scheme. Facial expressions and action present the usual Miller roughness, an aspect of his artwork that neither amazes or annoys yours truly.

Want a gruff, violent story that doesn't attempt to noogie your brain cells? A story where its female characters never seem to wear tops? Something that tries to do something with its noir-ish colour/tone scheme? Get "Sin City - The Hard Goodbye". Who reads Frank Miller for complex, thought-provoking narratives anyway?