Down the Tubes gave some coverage of comics artist Miller's trip to a convention in Dublin, Ireland, where his recent documentary, American Genius, was screened, and his 2011 GN, Holy Terror, is also brought up, which he may have otherwise disowned in a very sad example of capitulation several years back. Most eyebrow raising here is that he actually raises the issue of censorship:
He also spoke about censorship, about how it’s like being trapped, and how “it’s worse than anything, censorship always achieves the opposite of what it intends to”. He went on to say that “through the 1950s, when they clamped down on every foreign entertainment we loved, the most subversive stuff in the world surfaced”. This part is interesting to me, as I am looking at Irish censorship of that time, that relates to comics.
Frank then reflected on entering the film business, and how he was working on Robocop II and he said “I convinced myself this thing would be this thing was going to win an Oscar” and how it was brilliant, and he would fix it, fix it in editing and how “I’d been convinced that something was brilliant, that wasn’t that good”.
Well first, I don't think he was ever a success at writing screenplays himself at the time, nor was he ever successful at crafting a film based on Will Eisner's Spirit, as he once did around the time Eisner passed on. So who's to say he's truly a "genius"? Not really.
But how funny if he's bringing up censorship problems, when he himself, in a way,
succumbed to just that when he expressed regret over crafting Holy Terror about 7 years ago? And a lot of good it did him, since the Thought Bubble convention shunned him? All that does is put a damper on his whole argument, and suggest he's not very firm on his positions at all.
There's also the following claim that's bizarre:
Dave Gibbons spoke about Martha Washington, and then Frank spoke about Sin City, the black and white crime comic and how Dark Horse “didn’t flinch”, even though there were no superheroes, and which, at the time, was unheard of. We see a variety of authors, Al Williamson, and John Romita Jr., talk about comics they worked on with Frank, and there is discussion about original art.
Gee, hasn't the writer heard of say, Adam Strange, Nick Fury, and even Jon Sable, Freelance? Those weren't exactly characters known for being superheroes. Why, even the Warlord and Omega Men could be considered non-superheroes within such a universe. Even Marvel's New Universe line, short as it was, may have had characters who weren't superheroes either. We could even add the GI Joe and Transformers comics. Those aren't superheroes by any stretch either, no matter how close they came to having similar adventures. Now, here's more about the documentary:
The film pivots to the 21st century, and after the events of 9/11. One of the narrators explains how he “used nails to scrape the ink into the page because he had such visual visceral response to everything that happened during 9/11 and this was one of his first expressions of his anger and pain” we are told.
“I was still breathing in the stink,” says Frank Miller, visibly emotional, “of concrete, glass and human flesh” and how immense it was going through a “darkness, a sadness and horror”… “it turned into rage later”.
[...] The time shifts twice now, as two hours later, I learned that Frank was at home in New York during the 9/11 attack and tragedy, something I had suspected, but could not imagine. There were no shortage of connections at the time, including its impact his work on The Dark Knight Strikes Again, and, later, for example, his controversial contribution for the anthology, 9-11: Artists Respond. Art and anger, the expression of an artistic response, dealing with upset or trauma through art, it is a very interesting aspect.
I have no idea what the precise contribution was, but is the columnist complaining about something published in response to a horrifying incident where thousands of people were murdered by jihadists? It's bad enough he let's his leftism be clear later in the article. Now we have to hear something's wrong with contributing to what one would think was meant to be a tribute to the victims? Though as I'm aware, at least one special published around that time did contain left-wing messaging, and it's chilling now to wonder if Miller did anything similar. Because as revealed by the following:
Back to the film, which continues apace, and later the music later goes deep, a bass sound, and we learn that that the American conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart was a fan of Frank’s work, and tried, perhaps, to use him. Frank talks about how he met Breitbart, and discusses how people have an agenda, and how individuals had an agenda.
This element of the film was very specific. You can see how he is so unhappy with this time, and how he was near “something that gave us Donald Trump” and this was not something Frank was happy with. Frank wasn’t having any part of that (Breitbart News itself reported in 2017 how Miller described Trump as a “buffoon” during a Comic Con panel), and stayed very much away from them.
Obviously unhappy, Frank spoke of how the “propaganda” that Breitbart practised crossed a line into the territory on “no respect”.
Then Frank was asked a direct question: “Do you regret your comments on the other Occupy Wall Street people?” and he responded he was “certainly inconsiderate of the people who were occupying Wall Street, so sure,” and he reflects, “it was very aggressive”.
It's already old news he sadly backtracked, but what's really bizarre is that, at the time he first made the condemnations, he never provided even a single article link to back up his accusations. Let's take
this report and also
this one as examples. Why didn't he direct anybody to check those out? I never understood that at all. If anything, Miller's retraction sounds like a frantic effort to mend fences with fellow leftists when he didn't have to, and that's another huge problem - he didn't have the courage to part ways with them. I guess being famous was far too important to him than justice. And Breitbart's also problematic for him? For shame. If memory serves, the late Andrew Breitbart
was favorable to Israel, and the news site named after him, in a manner of speaking,
got a special start in Israel. Recalling Holy Terror, a subject of the American Genius documentary, is supposed to involve an Israeli mentor or something, I must say I find it difficult to understand why Miller has an issue with somebody in real life who was helpful to Israel in his time, unless maybe Miller wasn't so strong on his positions then at the time after all? He certainly doesn't seem to think much now of saying he supported patriotism back then either. And then, turning to the documentary's discussion of Holy Terror, it says:
The film then switches to footage of what I would consider right wing television championing his controversial project, Holy Terror, the film purposely showing its impact, in that regard, feeding the Islamophobic hatred that some people harbour, recognising an aspect of Frank’s past work that I had not expected to see.
“I get that it was complete freedom and a break,” Frank acknowledges, “and it shows… I was not at my best.”
The discussion moves to actors and film aspects, but then comes back to Frank, and he says how he was processing a large “amount of alcohol without even being aware of what I was doing.”
I realize Miller had problems with addiction,
as he later told, but this seems like a cheap, all too convenient excuse to say he was almost literally wrong in his beliefs at the time. Wow, he sure isn't doing much to make me think he's worth upholding. Not that I ever thought much of his resume before though, recalling GNs like Sin City seem to comprise the bulk of his output, and hardly anything that could be described as optimistic. That's decidedly one of Miller's biggest problems, and why he's unfortunately overrated. Perhaps that's why, if there's any mistake Breitbart made, it was being too big a fan of Miller's. Also, lest we forget, Miller's art style's become very mediocre over the years, to the point where one can wonder why he continues his artist career, if he does. He even tears down on Will Eisner:
He then spoke about his “biggest feeling about addiction” which was a “sickening sense of missing time”. I thought this was powerful and he spoke about when he sat down with Will Eisner, over dinner, and Eisner did not want to talk about life, or what he had done wrong, but rather he had to go out, “travel the world, and get his heart broken”.
Then we see him talking about how he loves people who tell “heart-rending” stories, and how some people he admires, have made “terrible and tragic mistakes” and how he has to “learn from them, to to learn the true nature of life and what success is”.
One can only wonder if he believes Eisner made a mistake to research Islamic antisemitism,
as he did when he was developing his last GN, The Plot. Miller certainly lets down Eisner's memory with this defeatist position, that's for sure, and what Miller says here about Eisner sounds rather forced, like he's looking for an opportunity to rip down on a guy I thought was a respectable mentor to him. And recalling the disgraced Neil Gaiman
was a contributor to the documentary, does Miller come to terms with how Gaiman made mistakes? Who knows? It's shameful how he clings to friendship with otherwise unreliable figures, and recalling he wasn't credited to
a letter written by Batman specialists in support of the
Israeli family of an infant who was murdered by Hamas jihadists, one can only wonder - is Miller really that cowardly he couldn't add his name to the list, assuming the Wyman Institute asked him? That's not helpful at all. What's he "learning" then? The discussion of the documentary continues:
Frank Miller: American Genius is definitely not a piece of propaganda, as it goes to the weaknesses and failings that have occurred to Frank, which I had not anticipated, issues which were discussed included his alcoholism and its effect on him, his anger and the graphic novel Holy Terror, and his take on the Occupy Wall Street Movement. I wasn’t aware that during that darker phase of his life, that Breitbart and Steve Bannon, had become somewhat enthralled and desired to be aligned with Frank.
The film was not afraid of addressing parts of Frank’s life that one would be ashamed of, and I felt that this film was prepared to probe and ask hard questions. It was reflecting on what had happened, and Frank came across as quite remorseful about what had occurred, and repentant.
It is not for me to decide what others will make of the film, or whether they can find any form of reconciliation for the harsh utterances he made and the work that was Holy Terror. I am not and was not impacted in the way others were, who will have felt outrage with validity; that they were impacted, hurt or targeted. My position and privilege protect me, and it is easy for me to consider that to fail is to be human. So it it is to individuals to consider and decide for themselves their view, if they even want to.
Gee, the writer sure is intent on validating the defeatist side of the whole affair. Has he even ever met
9-11 Families? In the near quarter century since the tragedy, people like him never seem to bring up
the victims and their families, as if they don't matter. At worst, the defeatists act like they don't even exist. It's a similar situation with Israel post-
October 7, 2023. Also note he complained earlier about "islamophobia", and that's pretty telling as well. And on that note, the columnist then proceeds to sugarcoat pro-Hamas movements in Ireland:
This is no scarf to give warmth or comfort. It is an international quilt of resistance, which has been crocheted in rural Ireland by a group of women and their international allies for Palestinian children killed in Gaza. This is “Craftivism” and the quilt is “a gesture of remembrance, resistance, and rage at the appalling loss of life in Palestine.”
Wow, so much feeling for "palestinians", but none for
Israeli victims of Islamofascism, huh? Or even
the Irish victims of the same? That's the impression one can get from this otherwise one-sided disgust and sorry excuse for a pop culture column, which even proceeds to sugarcoat anti-Israel cartoonist Joe Sacco:
I had picked up Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco earlier in the day, at the Oxfam charity table at Dublin Comic Con. Charity tables at conventions turn up the most unusual things, and I think they add a lovely aspect, so I rummage under the table, and find this amazing book, and I am asked whether it was a good book, as I commented that I had it, even though I was considering it, you can always gift such a book, I reckon, and I respond, “one of the best” I says, “Sacco is brilliant and one might find a path to understanding what is happening now, and an appreciation of the history for sure.
Oh yeah, Sacco's a pure god, but Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster are nothing, is that it? Such a disgrace. And no objections to
how "palestinians" are indoctrinating their children with the Religion of Peace? There's another sad example of failure right there. The writer then says:
I am back in the room with Frank and many fans, and I have three questions in mind, I have mentioned to comic reading pals over the years, that I have these questions, for some time, that I wanted to ask them of him, long before I knew he would be in Ireland. The third, which sadly I do not get to ask, would be tricky, although possibly the easiest in this setting, as I want to ask Frank “If he hates the Irish”, given his portrayal of David the bomb maker in Holy Terror and The Mercenaries in Sin City as Irish; and I am not altogether sure that the Irish aspect was a positive element in Daredevil, and if Matt Murdoch is crippled by his Irish Catholicism – but I did not get to ask this question. Probably for the best.
My second question was about 9/11 and as you know, I asked this on Monday.
After all the defeatism, one could wonder if Miller really cares about the better interests of the Irish at all, though an even better query is whether the columnist does, after all
Ireland's gone through, and even
Britain, at the hands of the Religion of Peace, which the
Gazans he speaks of adhere to, and
many of them even kept Mein Kamph in their houses. What, is that okay if they follow those kind of horrific belief systems? That Islamic indoctrination practically led to
October 7, 2023. It even led to
the assault on Salman Rushdie. On which note, is Miller aware of
verses in the koran like 47:4? There's valid issues that can be made about the "Religion of Peace", and he throws them all away just to remain in the "good graces" of the leftists with whom he produced the documentary.
In the end, I'm very disappointed with Miller, who appears to have made use of the American Genius documentary as a means of groveling for all the wrong reasons. Mike Baron and Chuck Dixon, by contrast, will likely never get a documentary about their careers by contrast. And as for the Down The Tubes news site, it's more like down the drain, seeing how far-left their approach really is, so what business do they have speaking for the medium anyway? Miller has at least a few allusions to WW2 in his writings, and his standings today end up making them look like a joke. Does he also think communism isn't worth protesting? From what I know, Miller was unhappy in the 90s when Marvel put Elektra to more use again, but considering how poor his own viewpoints have become, that's why I don't think Miller has any business complaining that Marvel decided to bring the kunoichi he created in 1981 back into the spotlight again. All that matters is how artistically successful that was, and post-2000, it definitely wasn't much. But then, it's not like Miller's had much to do with Marvel and Daredevil for years now, so maybe he at least understands it's hardly worth it to be so petty.
He has recently returned to work with them on a joint project with DC, for a Batman/Wolverine crossover. but again, his artwork has become so forced and mediocre, what's the use beyond the artist's name recognition?
And that's got to be the problem with how that comic's being sold too - just upon that Miller's the illustrator. But that alone doesn't guarantee artistic success, even story-wise. All that aside, my problem with Miller, again, is that he's the kind of creator who's far too obsessed with all that's dark, yet when a serious issue like Islamic terrorism comes about, he turns defeatist, as is already old news. When it comes to brighter storytelling, there's very little of that in Miller's resume, as again, he's just so obsessed with making use of Batman for reasons increasingly pointless. No doubt, a similar argument could be made involving Wolverine. And Miller even has the gall to throw Eisner under the bus. I just don't know what Miller's still working in entertainment for, or why we have to consider Sin City fantastic art any more than anything else. Miller's definitely past his prime, and the defeatist path he's taken of recent only feeds into the narrative the far-left wants to hear. And all this just explains why, beyond Daredevil, there's little else he's ever drawn and written that I've ever cared for.
