Frank Miller took the stage at Lucca Comics & Games to discuss his illustrious career once again this year. During the panel, there was an interesting comment he made discussing a character that really stuck out to him, one that listeners probably wouldn’t expect: “The other character that I was deeply in love with is Martha Washington. Of course. I don’t know where she came from, but she’s just good. She started speaking her own language just all by herself, and I’ve been in love with hers.”
His career has spanned decades, bringing iconic characters to life that some comic and movie fans would die for. He is responsible for Marv and Hartigan in Sin City. Frank Miller brought us Batman in The Dark KnightReturns. He brought us his version of Daredevil in 1979 and then explored the Battle of Thermopylae in 300. I don’t believe the audience was expecting “Martha Washington” to come out of his mouth. After the panel, we were able to sit down in a roundtable interview with Miller, and I just had to know: what matters to him as an artist?
Mainstream success tends to be defined by fame and fortune, and I expected to hear some predictable answers from Miller when I asked him about success as a creator. Instead, he looked at me and said:
“I’d say what defines a creative life is one where you have always sought to do the very best you can, and are known to learn when you need to learn how to command the tools you need to command.” he paused and thought on his answer, making sure to explain his choice of words. “I don’t use the word master much because people throw it around like dishwater.”
“I’d say what defines a creative life is one where you have always sought to do the very best you can, and are known to learn when you need to learn how to command the tools you need to command.”
He then continued to explain what he deems most important in a creative career: “But to learn how to use the tools, how to do the very best that you’re capable of, and to translate those things that are inside yourself, those fantasies that are inside yourself, into something that other people can really relate to that touches other people. Otherwise, you know, if it doesn’t reach other people, I believe it’s an empty pursuit.”
Not one mention of financial success. Not one word about how many people you reach. Just that artists should work as hard as they can, care about what they are doing, and share it with someone. Art is meant to be shared. It was a thoughtful and meaningful answer, but that was the trend with Miller’s answers to my questions.
I wanted to talk more about his career, wondering if there were any stories or characters he had written that he wished were more successful; more specifically, I asked if he wished people would go back and revisit any of them, thinking he might bring up Martha Washington again. He answered humbly, “I’ve got no complaints. I’ve been very lucky, and my work has been read and examined and criticized and ripped to pieces and enjoyed. And I would have to be even more selfish than I am to have any complaints at all.”
I continued down that path, wondering if there were any characters he would like to revisit himself, but instead we went with inspirations of his that he has gone back to over his career, happy to talk about inspiration rather than his own catalogue, “The people I do revisit from time to time, I always love to go back and re-study Hugo Pratt and just about every aspect of his work, and I always learn more from it when I do. I’ve got to also say, Jack Kirby. It’s always astonishing to rediscover him. And considering when I first discovered him, I was probably about six years old.”
“I’ve got no complaints. I’ve been very lucky, and my work has been read and examined and criticized and ripped to pieces and enjoyed.”
Frank Miller spoke on these famous comic book writers fondly, the way many readers, aspiring writers and pop culture fans would speak about him today. I wanted to know from the best of the best how you know when something is ready to share with the world. I asked how he knew when a character was done and ready to put out there, essentially, when he knew it was ready to succeed.
The answer I got from Miller was a simple one, but one that felt the most heartfelt. After plenty of smiles and laughs-he was teasing me shortly before-he got quiet and a bit more serious before he said, “You can feel it. Really. You can feel it. You might have lingering doubts or anything, but it’s like with anything else, you learn to know that those doubts are emotions. They’re not judgments. And they’re usually not rational. But when you’re finished, you can feel it.”
The sentiment at the round table was that he gave very meaningful answers across the board any time that he was asked to reflect on his career or his success. Did we have some fun at the table too? Of course. When IGN asked if he would go back to directing Hollywood films like Sin City, he stated, “True,” going on to say, “C’mon, it’s an amazing field. It’s an amazing form. It’s like nothing else in the world. That’s like asking a kid if he wants to fly the Millennium Falcon.
He was also incredibly kind and humble when it came to working with Peach Momoko. SciFiNow asked about their collaborations, and he discussed exploring Japanese anime and their take on horror. “To work with Peach, I got to throw her stories that involved the supernatural and then to see what she conjured, and some of it was a lot scarier than you can imagine.”
He continued on to praise Momoko, “She’s just a young prodigy.” Miller even revealed that he and Peach Momoko are working on another book together, saying, “I hope to work with her more, but more just watching her explode.”
After about 30 minutes in a room with Frank Miller, I was impressed by how humble he is, considering the absolutely incredible career that he has had. He wanted to take his time with the press at Lucca Comics & Games to embrace art, credit his heroes, and praise younger artists rather than talk all about himself, even though he clearly has so much more to tell.
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