GraphicNYC and Indie Spinner Rack got together at MOCCA to record a conversation which can rightfully be called epic. Discussing the Art of the Superhero, how and why they matter, and all other things superhero related, at a convention where superheroes are anything but the focus, you can hear from Frank Miller, Paul Pope, Jamie Hernandez, Kyle Baker, and Dean Haspiel.
Highlights include Frank Miller talking about Jack Kirby:
"I think what Jack Kirby did, among many other things, was he completely energized the superhero. He also, in a more subtle way, showed us that comics weren’t just illustration, but they were cartoons first and foremost. His figures, as time passed, less and less resembled reality and more and more evoked it. His dynamics and his deliberate misproportions, and his sense of absurdity (where if someone were angry, books would fall off the shelves across the room). Through all of that, he let us loose, it was like D.W. Griffith tearing the camera off of the floor."
If you want to read the transcript, or listen to the audio from this momentous conversations, go to GraphicNYC.
Find us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Subscribe to our RSS Feed
Some rights reserved.
Wow, thanks for posting this.
I don’t like all of Frank Miller’s work, but I like that quote. The man knows comics.
This looks interesting.
I have never thought much of Miller as a writer, and he has gotten progressively worse, but only balance out his brilliant brilliant art. I wish he would do more pencils. Or at least return to Sin City. And the comparison between Kirby and Griffith is rather apt.
You guys should do a show about minicomics. I’m starting to move away from superheroes and into that stuff, pretty sweet.
Waring, what you are about to read is "One of those type of comments" Josh, look away:
Okay, why is Frank Miller talking about Superheroes and about the legacy of the great grandfathers of comics? He hasn’t written a super-hero ever, and if we could hook Will Eisner up to some coils or something, we could make limitless power with the amount Frank has made him spin in his grave.
It’s ok to disagree with someone, but it’s not ok to be a dick about it.
That said, to say that Miller hasn’t written a superhero ever is flat out wrong. He reinvented the genre with Daredevil and Dark Knight Returns. Those works still have resonance today. But I’ll grant you that it’s been a long time since he’s written anything I’ve really liked, but I’m not going to let the Spirit movie make me forget the real brilliant points of his career.
I’m very glad this was posted.
With each passing year, Frank Miller looks a little more like he might kill me in my dreams with his claw-hands. Still, his insight is invaluable.
Simmons: while it wasn’t a show, one of my first columns when I started here back in the late 1970s was about minicomics. I need to revisit that, actually….
Frank Miller is a lot like Jeph Loeb….except Loeb is actually sanier.
Both men have done incredible work for the industry. (To be fair, no matter what Miller will be one of the legendary men of the modern era) Recently though? God help you if you read their work.
Batman Year One is the only Batman story that matters.
@muddi900: I disagree with you 100%. TDKR is a collosal leap in the comics industry. To this day it’s the only mainstream comic (that ISN’T WATCHMEN) that’s a required read in MANY literature classes in Universities all over the WA state. Yeaer One is not.
Continuity-wise though, I would agree (or not depending if I believe Zero-Hour happened). But if we’re still talking innovation and attention and even quality, TDKR all the way.