The Amazing Screw-On Head

The Amazing Screw-On Head was a one-shot comic book by Mike Mignola. Published in 2002, it went on to win an Eisner award for Best Humor Publication. Mignola’s idea with Screw-On Head was that his Hellboy stories never quite turned out as bizarre and weird on paper as they did in his head. ASOH was his attempt to depict a Mignola story in its purest, unadultered form.
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Superman Returns

In 1962, writer and academic Umberto Eco published an essay called “The Myth of Superman,” in which he outlined how Superman (and superheroes in general) didn’t fit the traditional concept of a mythological hero due to the nature of capitalism and the episodic nature of Superman’s life. In essence, Superman has countless adventures over decades, all of which take place in a continuous present, while he remains the same approximate age. His story has a beginning, but it will never reach its end; but more importantly, he can never make progress, can never develop as a human being.
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Last Comic Standing

Since I currently find myself with excessive amounts of free time, I stopped by my parents’ house yesterday with the intention of retrieving my old comicbooks. My main period of comic collecting (aside from Hellboy in the last year or so) was 1991-1992; it began with Wolverine #41 and ended with X-Men #20, from what I can tell. In any event, I knew my old comics were buried somewhere in our terrifying cluttered attic. I went up there, fully expecting to spend the next two hours climbing over boxes and generally making the attic an even worse mess, when, to my shock, I discovered my father had cleaned the entire attic. At first I thought this might be a bad thing; I’d had a vague notion of where my comics had been. To my surprise, it only took me about thirty seconds to find the comics box.

Looking over those old comics was an interesting experience. I was a fan dead-center in the period where artists were very much trumping writers; the comics I was reading were being plotted and even written by the likes of Rob Liefeld and Todd McFarlane. Bleh. Some of these comics had decent writers—Larry Hama on Wolverine, Chris Claremont on X-Men, Peter David on Incredible Hulk—but for the most part this was a very style-over-substance era. I’ve also been reading old collections of 1960s comics, where Stan Lee ended every line of dialogue with an exclamation mark, but the dialogue in many of these comics is much worse—like a buffoonish caricature of Lee’s expository-heavy style.

In light of my recent resurgence of interest in comics, I’ve started flipping through some recent Marvel and DC comics, and even picking up a graphic novel or two. My feelings are mixed. On the one hand, the writing is definitely better, now that we’re in the Writer’s Age of Comics (Warren Ellis, Brian Michael Bendis, Neil Gaiman, Joss Whedon, Mark Millar, Grant Morrison, and so forth—I leave out Alan Moore only because he hasn’t written much lately). But my God, are these companies obsessed with their superhero worlds, what with the Infinite Crises and Civil Wars. Every comic has ten characters in it, be they villains or heroes.

Am I old-fashioned because I’d like to read a story where Batman foils a normal human terrorist, or Wolverine, say, sneaks into Iraq to save a Canadian captive? I’d like to see some small-scale stories and some good characterization. Maybe that’s happening in some places…J_Stone informs me that DC has been quite good lately. I’m not as fond of the DC characters, except maybe for Batman and/or Superman, but I could try them. Unfortunately I don’t really like the concept of the Ultimate Marvel universe…I can’t really say why, other than I just prefer the mainstream world.

Of course, I really haven’t bought many comics lately. I keep telling myself I’ll buy various series when they come out as trade paperbacks, and in the meantime I’m enjoying myself more by reading old 1960s and 1970s comics alongside my goofy 1990s ones. But for a good perspective on why people like me have mixed feelings about today’s comics, check out this excellent article by Greg Hatcher: A Friday Spider-Epiphany. Hatcher’s theory is that

There’s two groups of fans reading superhero comics right now, the illusion-of-change fans and the real-change fans, and each one is absolutely convinced that the other group is going to destroy their beloved superheroes. And it terrifies them, because they both love comics fiercely, and neither can stand the idea that they might get taken away. So each group is constantly yelling at the other to for Christ’s sake STOP it, d’you have any idea what you’re doing? I suspect that this underlies a lot of that free-floating fan anger out there. This is why so many comic book message boards have the social niceties of Mad Max’s Thunderdome.

I think Hatcher may be on to something here. For instance, the only Marvel or DC comic I’m reading regularly at the moment is Wolverine: Origins, which I’m trying out solely because it features Wolverine back in the brown costume I first encountered him in. So where does that put me? I suspect I prefer the illusion of change to real change. I agree with Hatcher, if you want to make real changes, create a new character (as Mike Mignola did with Hellboy) and maybe even a new universe (like Ultimate Marvel or All-Star DC). (That said, I loved what Peter David did with the Hulk during his run—joining the three personalities into one—and I always thought it was a shame they brought back the dumb savage Hulk, cool as he is.)

Review: Hellboy Makoma #2

I’ve reactivated the comments feature on the blog. It requires you to create a free account with TypeKey (because I hate clearing out spam comments), but the process takes just a few minutes and the account can be used on any website that uses Blogger, Typepad or a few other formats. Also, now that I know some people get my blog through an RSS feed, I’m going to start using real titles rather than one-word appellations.

I picked up the second and final issue of Hellboy: Makoma, or, A Tale Told by a Mummy in the New York City Explorers’ Club on August 16, 1993, written by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola and drawn by comics legend Rich (Heavy Metal) Corben. Hellboy stories tend to fall into one of three categories: adventure stories, where Hellboy and his pals get involved in some villain’s scheme or go traipsing across the world to stop some threat (Seed of Destruction, Wake the Devil, Conqueror Worm); folklore adaptations, where Hellboy stands in for the protagonist in an old folktale (“The Corpse,” “Heads”); and then there are the stories that investigate Hellboy’s origins and his destiny.

Lately, almost all of the Hellboy stories have been of the latter variety–to mixed reception by fans. Personally I’m more enamored of the first sort of story, but that has become the province of Hellboy’s spin-off comic, BPRD. However, we still occasionally get a one-off story of the second variety, folktale adaptations, and this is the story of Makoma. Mignola himself draws some bumper pages to place the folktale in context of Hellboy’s history, but Corben takes over when we get into the meat of the tale–a story of an African folk hero who wanders about Africa fighting giants and seeking his doom.

I didn’t find the story as engaging as last year’s The Island, which, as some may remember, I wasn’t that taken with either. Recently I’m enjoying the Hellboy tie-in novels, which are set before Hellboy quit the BPRD, more than the Hellboy and BPRD comics of late. I like Hellboy and the BPRD when they’re investigating odd phenomena, from Nazi mad scientist installations to fairy tale monsters in caves, in their business-like, vaguely bureaucratic manner. I like the incongruity of Hellboy in his big trenchcoat, standing in a room with a bunch of suit-clad agents; I like the contrasting of this clearly Judeo-Christian demon fighting tentacled beasts clearly inspired by the materialistic (though still fantastic) vision of Lovecraft. Yeah, it’s inconsistent, yes, it’s a potpourri of science fiction, superhero comics, folktales, UFO conspiracy theories, and everying else you can imagine–and that’s what I enjoyed. I liked that you could get a Hellboy story where he fights Nazi mad scientists, followed by a folktale adaptation such as “The Corpse,” and then a story with alien creatures such as Conqueror Worm. Recently Mignola has been trying to tie all of this together in The Island and BPRD, but I’m not sure if this is the right thing to do.

In any event, I tend to enjoy the X-Files-ish investigations more than the folklore-oriented stories and so I haven’t read a Hellboy story that really got me jazzed since Conqueror Worm (including the one-shots in the Dark Horse Book of the… series). It’s just my personal taste, and I can understand the argument of many fans that Hellboy is a better and more artistic comic now than it was ten years ago. It probably is, but, as I have often found with such things, it’s not quite as fun.

In the letters section of Makoma #2, editor Scott Allie mentions that the next BPRD miniseries will focus on (spoiler alert for those who haven’t read the most recent miniseries, The Black Flame–highlight to read) the efforts of the team to find a way to resurrect Roger the homunculus, who died in the last miniseries. Allie ends the “pitch” with “Don’t get your hopes up.” Well! I’m certainly looking forward to reading a six-issue miniseries that focuses on the efforts of the BPRD to attempt something so momentous, only to fail. I’m reminded of Leonard Nimoy’s words when asked whether Spock would return in Star Trek III: “Well, look, we’re calling the picture Star Trek III: The Search For Spock. If we had Captain Kirk turn to the camera at the end of the picture and say, ‘Sorry, we didn’t find him,’ people would throw rocks at the screen.”

I suspect–or at least hope–that the series will offer something more satisfying than that, but it was a rather cheap shot by Allie.

plenary

Okay, so I didn’t exactly turn around and get another update up right away, as I’d planned to do. I’ll try harder next time.

ToyFare 100

Before we begin, a brief plug: I’ve got two pieces in this month’s ToyFare magazine (#100). The first is an interview with the design group The Four Horsemen, and then there’s my usual “What’s In Store” in the price guide section. You can find ToyFare at comic shops and pop culture stores (like Newbury Comics), or you can order a copy online here (link may not work for a week or so).

Hellboy: On Earth as It Is in Hell

Hellboy: On Earth as it is in Hell by Brian Hodge.

I finally caught up with the various Hellboy lore (graphic novels, graphic anthologies, prose anthologies, prose novels, and the movie) a few months back, so it was nice to have something more to read. Hodge’s novel is the first of a number of planned Hellboy books by various authors.

Hellboy was created in 1994 by comic artist and writer Mike Mignola. I actually liked Mignola’s artwork long before I became aware of Hellboy; he drew a relatively obscure graphic novel titled Wolverine’s Jungle Adventure (1990), which was written by Walt Simonson and is much more mature than its title would suggest. Mignola’s art appealed to me even then; it featured clean, sharp lines, solid colors, and none of the distracting hyper-detail and cross-hatching of that era.

I’m afraid I didn’t read the Hellboy comics until after I saw the movie last year, but I quickly rediscovered what I’d loved so much in Mignola’s art–as well as discovering that Mignola and I shared a love for the pulp authors of the early twentieth century, such as H.P. Lovecraft.

For those who don’t know, the Hellboy stories detail the adventures of the title character, a demon who appeared in an old church in England in 1944. The product of a Nazi occult ritual gone awry, Hellboy was found by Allied soldiers and adopted by a secret American government organization called the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD). They raised Hellboy and he eventually became the Bureau’s best agent, fighting supernatural threats all over the world (while dark hints begin to appear of what his role in the world really is–or will be).

Mignola has carefully controlled his creation. Other than his own work, only a few Hellboy stories are “canon” (the film is decidedly not). The novels, however, are developed with Mignola’s input, and as such can be considered canon (by Mignola’s own admission).

There are two previous Hellboy novels, The Lost Army and The Bones of Giants, both by Christopher Golden. Both featured black-and-white illustrations by Mignola himself. Sadly, Mignola’s art is absent from Brian Hodge’s On Earth as it is in Hell, but what we do get is the best Hellboy novel to date.

The story begins when the Vatican’s library is attacked by angels. Or more specifically, seraphim, the legendary Old Testament incarnations of God’s righteous wrath. It seems the angels were after a specific ancient text that could shake the foundations of the Catholic Church. As luck (or design) would have it, the text survives the conflagration, and Hellboy and the BPRD are flown into Rome to investigate.

Hodge’s story “Far Flew the Boast of Him” in the Hellboy prose anthology Odd Jobs was one of the better pieces (and my personal favorite), so it comes as no surprise that he’s done right by Mignola (and Hellboy) here. While he includes the requisite monsters, dark evil forces, and paranoid conspiracies one expects from a Hellboy story, Hodge also offers good characterization and even a few literary touches. I know from experience how tricky it is to translate the colorful, larger-than-life characters of comic books to the more realistic style of prose (especially when they have names like “Hellboy”), but Hodge’s novel is one of the best such efforts I’ve read (he even addresses the name issue in one amusing exchange).

While I recommend one read the comics before moving on to the prose works (you can start here), if you’re intrigued by Hellboy but don’t like comics, this novel is probably the best introduction to his world outside of Mignola’s work.

And speaking of Hellboy’s world…

Black Flame #2

BPRD: The Black Flame #2 (Dark Horse Comics)

When Hellboy officially quit the BPRD a few years back (Hodges’s novel is set in 1996), Mignola, in effect, quit it as well. While he continues to draw Hellboy’s solitary adventures (though even that will change with the next miniseries), other creators have filled the demand for Hellboy-related material by continuing the adventures of the BPRD in its own series.

So far, BPRD has been more-or-less monthly, but each storyline is broken up into separate story arcs. After a couple of miniseries, the book settled into to a fairly regular schedule with the same writing and artistic teams. The first of the current run was Plague of Frogs, followed by The Dead, and now, The Black Flame. All three series have been drawn by monster-artist extraordinaire Guy Davis (whose “Marquis” comics are superb).

The main characters in BPRD include Liz Sherman, a pyrokinetic; Abe Sapien, a kind of a polite, intelligent version of the Creature from the Black Lagoon; Roger, a human-sized homunculus with a child-like intelligence; Johann Kraus, a disembodied spirit (ghost) contained in a special suit; and my favorite, Kate Corrigan, a former NYU professor and specialist in folklore and mythology who has no supernatural powers whatsoever.

The running theme through the three series has been the growing threat of the “frog monsters”–half-man, half-amphibian creatures who have a habit of infecting humans and turning them into new frog monsters. The creatures are spreading across the U.S. and the BPRD is working desperately to contain them.

The Dead took a break from the frog monster threat to examine the Bureau’s haunted new headquarters in Colorado and delve into Abe’s personal history, but the frogs are front-and-center once more in The Black Flame, as a familiar name from the BPRD’s past–the Zinco corporation–begins to raise its rather skin-impaired head.

It’s difficult to summarize what’s going on in BPRD without giving away the plots of the first two series (and probably the whole of Mignola’s Hellboy-related corpus), so I’ll just review this issue specifically.

As always, Davis’s art is top-notch. It’s tough when an artist creates a signature comic book that becomes associated with his style–especially a style as distinctive as Mignola’s–then hands the reigns over to another artist (though Mignola still plots the series).

But sometimes, if the artist is the right one, it’s great. I’m still not fond of Davis’s faces–everyone looks the same, and their noses are all too big–but there’s no denying the man knows how to draw monsters. Davis draws the best Lovecraftian beasties I’ve seen in comics. And aided by Dave Stewart’s beautiful color work, BPRD is one of the most attractive-looking comics out there.

As for the story itself: in this issue we meet Zinco’s new owner (the last one having met an unfortunate fate in the Hellboy graphic novel Wake the Devil) and find out a bit about his Evil Plan™. It’s a bizarre amalgamation of science and sorcery, which has become a staple of BPRD even as Mignola takes Hellboy himself in a more folklore/mythology direction.

But Hellboy and the BPRD are still in continuity, and those who have read this summer’s Hellboy miniseries “The Island” will know a little more about what’s going on with the plague of frog monsters than the members of the BPRD do (too bad HB can’t check in with someone).

On a side note, one of the most exciting bits in this issue was the discovery that a certain fan-favorite Hellboy villain is apparently still alive or, at least, intact (look carefully at pages 2-3).

The Goon #14

The Goon #14 (Dark Horse Comics)

There were two things that led me to The Goon. First, there was a Hellboy/Goon crossover in Goon #7, which led me to pick it up. And second, Mezco, the company putting out the Hellboy action figures, announced they were going to do Goon figures in the same scale.

At that point, I assumed there must be something to the hubbub, so after enjoying the Hellboy/Goon crossover, I picked up the first Goon trade paperback, Rough Stuff. And when I got to the part with the giant talking fish quoting Quint’s various lines from JAWS, I knew I’d found something special.

The Goon is the brainchild of writer/artist Eric Powell. It centers around the title character, a hulking thug with an overbite and a scally cap who doesn’t go in for zombies.

Yes, you heard right, zombies. The Goon is a wonderful stew of pop culture, mostly from the ’30s–’50s period. There’s a lot of influence from the old EC Horror comics and the works of artist Wally Wood, but I’ve always seen the comic as a sort of twisted cross between Popeye, Dick Tracy, and George Romero zombie movies.

The series takes place in an indeterminate time period, a sort of mélange of the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s as they’re remembered in greeting-card nostalgia. Until recently, Powell’s art style was fairly cartoonish (especially in his depiction of Frankie, Goon’s hilariously pugnacious sidekick, whose pupil-free eyes recall Little Orphan Annie), but recently Dark Horse has improved the paper the comic is printed on, allowing Powell to use more pencils and develop the almost Rockwellian style he’s been moving toward (the comic has featured a number of Rockwell parodies).

But back to the issue at hand (pun intended): in #14 we discover the secret of the Zombie Priest, Goon’s arch-nemesis. This issue also features the welcome return of Buzzard, one of the series’ most fascinating and tragic characters.

The main story is fairly short, so the issue features two amusing back-up stories, one drawn by Neil Vokes and the other by Kyle Hotz (as well as a bizarre one-page short by Powell at the end, featuring what I’m guessing is a real-life acquaintance of Powell’s).

Why two back-up stories in a single issue? Perhaps because Powell was busy working on…

Devil Dinosaur

Marvel Monsters: Devil Dinosaur

I don’t read any Marvel Comics these days (mostly just Dark Horse, if anything), but I had to pick up this one-shot. Not only was it drawn and co-scripted by Eric Powell (with Tom Sniegoski), but it stars one of my favorite obscure Marvel characters, Devil Dinosaur.

I first came across Devil Dinosaur when he and his sidekick, an ape-man called Moon Boy, appeared in a couple of issues of The New Mutants (which I was reading for their connection to Cable, whom I loved in my adolescent unawareness of quality). I found the notion of this semi-intelligent red Tyrannosaurus so cool that I immediately painted my Tyrantisaurus toy red, making a pretty good approximation of the character while costing myself hundreds of future eBay dollars.

Marvel is pushing a whole bunch of monster-related titles this month as part of a Halloween-themed celebration harkening back to their early (pre-Spider-Man) days, when their bread-and-butter was the monster comics created by the legendary Jack Kirby. As it happens, Devil Dinosaur was one of Kirby’s last creations for Marvel, so he’s a fitting character to start the Marvel Monsters series.

That said, this comic feels a lot more like an issue of The Goon than a Marvel comic. Powell’s influence is everywhere, from the Goon-ish look of the Hulk to the Dr. Alloy-like dialogue of Devron the Celestial.

The story is pretty simple: on his home planet, Devil Dinosaur has helped Moon Boy’s friendly Small Folk defeat the vicious Killer Folk. Two Celestials, Devron and Gamiel (think Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation) have been watching all this, and when Devron teases Gamiel for being wrong about the superiority of the Killer Folk, Gamiel decides to even the odds by importing the Hulk from Earth and plopping him in the middle of the Killer Folk as their new champion.

Of course, lots of fighting ensues, helped immensely by Powell’s wonderful art. Powell obviously remembers the time when comics just tried to be fun. It’s good that comics have moved beyond that and evolved into “an original American art form,” but sometimes it’s great to just read a goofy, colorful comic book.

The issue also features a back-up story in the form of an old Jack Kirby comic from 1960 that introduced “the Hulk”–not the familiar green-skinned behemoth of ’80s television and bad Ang Lee films, but the original Marvel Hulk, who was apparently a furry alien monster not unlike Gossamer from the old Marvin Martian cartoons. I didn’t find the comic that interesting; Kirby was working a mile-a-minute in those days, and it shows. Still, it’s always interesting to see ’60s-era art in a glossy contemporary comic.

Batman Begins

My review of Batman Begins has been posted on Fungible Convictions.

In the time between submitting the review yesterday and its publication today, one of my hopes for the sequel came true: Holmes Dropped from ‘Batman’ Sequel.

Batman Begins

What is it with maverick directors and superhero movies? Tim Burton started it. He’d had back-to-back sleeper hits (Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure and Beetlejuice) when he signed on to direct the original Batman. Bryan Singer made the fun and inventive film The Usual Suspects, then went on to direct X-Men, X2 and now Superman Returns. Sam Raimi worked his way up from genre flicks to his dark masterpiece, A Simple Plan—then took the reigns of the Spider-Man franchise. Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Requiem for a Dream) is working on an adaptation of the Japanese graphic novel Lone Wolf and Cub (and for a long time was attached to an adaptation of Alan Moore’s Watchmen).

And now we have Christopher Nolan, who created one of the most innovative films in years (Memento) directing the latest entry in the Batman franchise, Batman Begins. It stars Christian Bale (American Psycho, Reign of Fire) as Bruce Wayne/Batman; Michael Caine as his butler Alfred; Liam Neeson as Wayne’s mysterious mentor, Ducard; Cillian Murphy as Dr. Crane/Scarecrow; Gary Oldman as Sergeant Gordon (not yet the Commissioner), and Katie Holmes as Generic Love Inter—I mean, as Rachel Dawes. Rutger Hauer makes an appearance as the CEO of Wayne Enterprises and Morgan Freeman steps in as Lucius Fox, who is the Q to Batman’s James Bond.

With that sort of cast, you’ve got to expect something good out of the film. Fortunately, Nolan gives us a lot more. Batman Begins is the best entry in the franchise (though Burton’s first two films run very close behind). Gone is the sweeping impressionism and Wagnerian romanticism of the Burton era; Begins reboots the cinematic Batman myth. At least half the film is devoted to showing us how Bruce Wayne goes from millionaire orphan to costume-clad vigilante. The story does a good job of building Wayne’s character, and Bale gives us the most compelling and interesting Wayne to date (though it takes at least twenty minutes too long to finally see Batman in full regalia). Nolan seems interested in showing us the nuts and bolts of Wayne’s operation, and while this adds a degree of realism (if such a thing is possible in a superhero film), it starts to bog down the story.

Fortunately it picks right back up when Batman finally appears. What I like about this Batman is his humanity; the new bat-suit has a more pliable mask, allowing Bale to actually emote. Bale takes a cue from Keaton and gives Batman a harsh, grating voice. His Batman also screws up once in a while; he trips, he falls, he gets bruised and battered.

But as good as Bale is, the best performance comes, as always, from Gary Oldman, who vanishes beneath a thick rust-colored mustache to become Sergeant Jim Gordon, the weary Gotham City cop who clings to his integrity with a kind of resigned hopelessness. He’s the only one who trusts Batman (and vice versa).

The film does have a few problems. Composer Hans Zimmer’s lackluster score offers nothing in the way of memorable motifs; I sorely missed Danny Elfman’s epic themes from the Burton films. The fight scenes are mostly incomprehensible, giving us half-second close-ups of limbs with no indication of who’s hitting whom. And I didn’t care for Holmes, whose role seems wedged into the plot.

But Batman Begins is a promising start to a revitalized Batman franchise. Here’s hoping the same cast (sans Holmes) and Nolan return for the sequels.

insular

Dark Horse has released a four page preview of Mike Mignola’s upcoming Hellboy miniseries “The Island.” It’s the first Hellboy comic (not counting B.P.R.D.) since the movie came out (the last miniseries, “The Third Wish,” was published way back in 2002).

The pages are beautiful–Mignola’s style continues to evolve. Back when I first encountered Mignola’s art (in a Wolverine graphic novel titled The Jungle Adventure–it was much better than it sounds), I loved his sharply-defined, uncluttered style, but he was still using a lot more lines and detail than he does now. There’s more grace in his artwork now, with its smooth curves, inky shadows, and the crescent-shape of Hellboy’s head.

Mignola has promised that the story will deliver a smorgasboard of information about Hellboy’s identity, and in particular, what the Right Hand of Doom is (my guess: it’s the hand of an archangel, or perhaps a god–maybe Hephaestus).

truancy

Sorry for the long absence–I’ve had a tough couple of months. But I’m back and, while not better than ever, I’m at least better than never.

Progress has continued on my Dunwich Horror screenplay, primarily because it has to (I’m writing it for a class). Fortunately, it seems to be going fairly well–I’m not getting bogged down anywhere, and I think I’m finally getting a good grip on the characters.

The big news is that I’ve changed my graduate thesis plans. Instead of writing Tales of Atreval, a collection of linked short stories, I’m going to write the first Jon Shade novel. I made this decision for two reasons. The first is pure self-interest; novels are easier to sell than collections of short stories, particularly for new writers. The second reason is, I recently read Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest and The Dain Curse (as well as re-reading The Maltese Falcon), and those books reminded me that I grew up on novels rather than short stories, and when I write, I have a tendency–or used to, anyway–to write longer works.

In other news, I finally got out to the theater to see a movie–Sin City. I’d read the first graphic novel (which matches the first story in the film, the one featuring Mickey Rourke as Marv). I enjoyed it, though by the third story, it all was getting a bit tiresome and repetitive. It’s a beautiful film and is probably as close as one can get to an image-to-image cinematic translation of a comic without resorting to animation; but it’s so faithful, it shook my long-held preference for uber-faithful movie adaptations of literary works.

As one reviewer wrote (I think it was in Newsweek), if adaptation is good enough for Jane Austen, it should be good enough for Frank Miller. I’m a big fan of both the Hellboy comics and the film version, but the film is its own entity, and both versions have their strengths and weaknesses. The same goes for the Lord of the Rings films; to say the film is better than the book, or vice-versa, is an apples-and-oranges comparison. I’m not sure the same could be said of Sin City.

Still, I recommend it. The second story, which stars Clive Owen and Benicio Del Toro, is particularly interesting. Visually, the movie is stunning, and I expect it will be fairly influential.

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