San Marcos Public Library

Push The Wall

by Frank Miller

Publishers Weekly Miller, creator of such celebrated comics series as the Dark Knight Returns and 300, meditates on the forces behind his art in this exuberant memoir. The episodic narrative revisits Miller’s career milestones, including breaking into the comics biz in the gloriously grungy New York City of the 1970s, whose urban squalor and violence infused his artistic sensibility; his triumphant reboot of Batman as a grizzled, cantankerous 50-year-old battling nihilistic perps and a vapid media culture; and a humbling Hollywood gig scripting 1990’s Robocop 2 (“Writing a screenplay can be a lot like carefully casting and assembling what you’re certain is a beautiful fire hydrant, only to watch a long line of dogs come piss on it”). Sprinkled throughout are revelatory explorations of comics craft, from storytelling rules (“Tell whoever’s watching who the hero is, and then get that hero into trouble right quick”) to celebrations of the genre’s excess (“I adore swirling hair and rumpling trench coat cloth and frothing spittle.... Teeth clenched like psychotic chiclets”). Gorgeously illustrated with panels from Miller’s work and written in elegantly two-fisted prose, this is a wildly entertaining account that his fans will savor. Illus. Agent: Albert Lee, UTA. (July)

Kirkus A spirited fusion of memoir and expertise. Loosely structured as a series of lessons, this is a revelatory ramble through the life and oeuvre of comic book creator Miller (Ronin Rising, 2024, etc.). Celebrated for his grimy, paint-spattered comics likeSin City,300, andThe Dark Knight Returns, Miller is an industry giant who consistently strove to “push the walls that others constructed, to challenge the strictures others put in place to stifle and smother.” Readers expecting an incendiary screed will be caught off guard by his erudition. He pulls wisdom from Joseph Campbell’s hero tales as effortlessly as he does from Bill Watterson’sCalvin and Hobbes, and he cites Goya, Käthe Kollwitz, and Norman Rockwell as pictorial influences on his artmaking. Miller’s secret is a delicate balance of highbrow touchstones and visceral appeal, which is articulated here in a charismatic, pulpy cadence that will be warmly familiar to fans. “I wanted drama,” he writes while recalling the creation ofSin City protagonist Marv. “Violence. Passion. Madness. Something that body-slammed Film Noir fever dreams into Forbidden Fifties comics. I wanted a feral atmosphere. I wanted to take something very old and transform it into something very new—something scary and primal.” Elsewhere, he broadly encourages artists to “allow entropy to run its course” and not let one’s work become “fearful and tentative.” “Any time that happens,” he riffs, “just crumple it up and toss it out like the garbage it is. You’re lucky that you’re not standing in front of an open mic, drowning in flop sweat like a live comedian on a bad night. You can just trash the damn thing and start over.” Enlightening digressions about cinema and comics as well as scathing tangents about the Comics Code further secure the book’s broad fiery appeal. Edgy and edifying, the book is a resounding collision of advice and anecdotes that shrewdly rises above the artist’s iconic grittiness. Insight and encouragement from a contemporary comics heavyweight. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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