Sin City - Frank Miller

Advantages: A classy tale of crime and retribution
Disadvantages: Oh ok it IS a comic book

...who reads this. The Sin City series first ran for thirteen months in ‘Dark Horse Presents’ a monthly anthology comic. The author/artist has worked on Batman: The Dark Knight, Robocop and Daredevil and he is highly acclaimed in his field. He is currently directing a film version of his work with Robert Rodriguez (From Dusk til Dawn, The Faculty, Once Upon a time in Mexico, Desperado) starring the likes of Elijah Wood, Brittany Murphy, Bruce Willis, ...
...knowledgeable at dinner parties! Sin City is a dark rain filled hole of a town full of clip joints and wino’s, with everyone in authority being corrupt and trigger happy, and most of the residents choosing to throw themselves on the rocks of their Jack Daniels or lose themselves for a moment in cheap sweaty sex. The men are big and mean and the women are beautiful and bad. The style of writing and artistry is homage to American pulp fiction writing, ... Read review

Advantages: An interesting read and artwork
Disadvantages: May not be quite your style

Frank Miller strikes again, this is one of the more unusual graphic novels that you will find as it contains no colour and all of the pictures are just pure black and white, not even shades of grey. You may think that this style of artwork is not very good when compared to Frank Miller’s other works that have full colour, but strange as it may seem it works. The story is very film noir where you will find dames not women and all the men are gritty ...
...simple. It is about Marv who as ugly as he seems gets to go to bed with the lovely Goldie. He wakes up the next day to find her dead and the story tells us about his retribution on the people who did it. This is one of those books where you will find no middle ground, people either love it or loath it, I love it. ... Read review

Advantages: Incredible art work
Disadvantages: Overlong

...Anyone familiar to Frank Miller's Sin City series of graphic novels will already know just how good it is. Those of you that first caught Sin City in the film version have not yet seen the best version out there. Yes, while most of the shots in the film are taken from the graphic novels directly (in fact, the books were used as storyboards), there was something lacking from the film. A certain sense of humour that seemed to make jokes of the characters even during their darkest moments ruined the film for many fans of the original books, who loved Sin City for its twisted take on the criminal underworlds of 40s noir film-making. All of you that saw the film and enjoyed it in any way (even if you just liked the nice colour bits!) should pick up the books (seven in total), and revel in what they were intended to be. That Yellow... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Nice Drawings
Disadvantages: Soulless compared to other installments

...This book, number 5 in the Sin City series, sees the return (again....?) of main character Dwight. Again, the artwork is magnificent, drenched in black and white with characters that have obviously been thought long and hard about and not just thrown onto the page. Detailed and lush, Frank Miller has outdone himself again. If only he had applied the same care and attention to the story. Lets face facts. Its the plot, characterisation and depth that bring you back time and time again to watch your favourite films. Yes, Star Wars looks great but if nothing happend you wouldnt have watched it a thousand time by now, if you know what is good for you that is. The same applies to Family Values. Whereas the other books in the series have collected little or no dust upon my shelf, Family Values sits there avoiding any re... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: Everything is turned upside down.
Disadvantages: Violent in places!

...is outside its normal "comfort zone" and you can see that as you read the book, writer Frank Miller who also wrote the graphic novels 300 and Sin City has taken everything and played against type throughout. Immediately you see that people have a different persona and that different methods are used to address certain issues. For example Batman using the weight of the Batmobile to crush cars and using a high level of brute force on Robin. In fact for me this was one of the more frightening aspects to the story as Grayson adapts to his role of sidekick, Batman does emit a high level of violence towards the child. In some cases leaving him to hunt for food himself by capturing a rat inside the Batcave rather than starve and telling him what he will be doing rather in an aggressive manner that genuinely scares the young Grayson. To give the full... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful