Art That Goes BOOM: Genre

and Aesthetics in Frank

Millers SIN CITY
Christopher Pizzino

he growing prominence of comics in the United States presents a difficult question of critical focus.1 Comics changing cultural fortunes undoubtedly merit attention as significant developments in their own right, but such attention does not
always shed light on comics as such, and on the ways they have remained distinct from
other art forms.The increasing number of connections developing among comics and other
mediaevident in the number of films that have recently been adapted from comics and in
the emergence of major American novels that are self-consciously influenced by themcan
work to deflect a focus on comics as a distinct object of study.2 Frank Millers Sin City series
(19912000), a collection of violent urban crime stories, is a case in point. Although in 2002
he claimed to be wary of translating Sin City for the screen, Miller was actively involved in
a 2005 film adaptation of parts of the series, even receiving credit as a co-director.3 He has
since expressed great satisfaction with the film and is planning to participate in the making
of two sequels. Critical appraisals of the film, whether positive or negative, have tended to
stress its similarity to its source material.4 Miller has encouraged this view, remarking that
the film has retroactively turned the comics into a series of storyboards.5 This observation
is surprising because Miller himself has opposed the cultural disrespect paid to comics, and
has insisted that comics artists not submit to judgments that their work is illegitimate.6
Nevertheless, his suggestion that Sin City is now raw material for another medium gives little incentive to investigate the comics as separate textual objects.
A close examination of the Sin City series reveals both a formal sophistication and an affirmation of comics as an independent medium that belies Millers suggestion of their interchangeability with other art forms. In the discussion that follows I focus on the fourth
volume of the series, titled ThatYellow Bastard, which I believe most fully expresses Millers
vision of what comics committed to popular genres can accomplish.7 Some features of the
volume justify Millers sense that Sin City is easily translatable to other media; it is strongly connected to the realm of noir, and to twentieth-century traditions of visual art both inside
and outside the realm of comics. Further, it critiques its own narrative norms, drawing selfreflexive attention to the conventions of noir. At the same timeand this is the point
ignored by Millers own current viewThatYellow Bastard asserts the sufficiency of its narrative conventions, and of comics as an artistic medium. Further, it makes this assertion

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English Language Notes 46.2 Fall / Winter 2008

through a set of popular generic conventions that defy modern or postmodern rubrics for
evaluating aesthetic expression. Critics who advocate the study of comics continue to struggle with how their achievementsespecially the achievements of artists working in popular genrescan be reconciled with existing literary and aesthetic standards. That Yellow
Bastard ultimately refuses such reconciliation, and thus demands a rethinking of how popular comics should be read and valued.
The sense of separateness and sufficiency Miller asserts in That Yellow Bastard arises,
somewhat paradoxically, out of his use of the materials of noir, a narrative mode that has
long thrived on intertextual traffic. James Naremores history of film noir ends by suggesting that noir should be seen not in terms of individual media (film, fiction, comics, radio,
etc.) but as a kind of mediascapea loosely related collection of perversely related motifs
or scenarios that circulate through all the information technologies.8 The multimedia nature
of noir makes defining the term especially difficult; JohnT. Irwins more recent treatment of
the subject notes that most critics are able to agree only that noir describes crime narratives with a skeptical, cynical, or fatalistic tone.9 In discussions of the Sin City comics, Miller
has made clear that he is interested in this mode for its potential to explore moral corruption, and the violence he believes is necessary to combat it. Describing his own vision of the
protagonists of noir, Miller claims: The noir hero is a knight in blood-caked armor. Hes
dirty; he does his best to deny the fact that hes a hero the whole time. If you look at
Raymond Chandlers Philip Marlowe, youd never know he was a hero if you only read one
page, but by the end of his novel, you realize the guy is a compulsive do-gooder.10 Millers
focus on moral conflict follows Chandlers own dictum that the noir hero should be the
best man in his world.11 In fact, Miller intensifies this principle by making John Hartigan,
the narrator and hero of ThatYellow Bastard, the only good man in his world (at least in this
particular volume of the series). Hartigan is, it seems, the one cop in his city willing to
oppose the power of Senator Roark, whose son tortures, rapes, and murders children with
impunity. Hartigan rescues a girl named Nancy Callahan from the senators son (known only
as Junior) and is subsequently framed as a child molester by the senator and sentenced to
prison. Upon his release, Hartigan kills Junior, and then himself, to shield Nancy from further acts of vengeance. Throughout his adventures, Hartigan displays an ethical singlemindedness, ignoring any strictures of law or custom that interfere with his mission to
protect Nancy. For Millers version of noir, the moral imperative to protect the innocent
becomes a ruling principle.
Hartigans motives are thus far simpler, in some obvious ways, than the ethical registers
that animate the actions of Chandlers Philip Marlowe. Critical discussions have noted that
noir narratives often confront their protagonists with difficult questions of ethics, placing
them at the intersection of different kinds of personal, social, and institutional obligations.12
For Marlowe, there is often a tension between his obligation to his clients and what he owes
to the strictures of the law. As Marlowe explains to a client in The High Window: Im working for you . . . now, this week, today. Next week Ill be working for somebody else, I hope.

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117

And the week after that for still somebody else. In order to do that I have to be on reasonably good terms with the police.They dont have to love me, but they have to be fairly sure
that Im not cheating on them.13 As this passage suggests, the complications Marlowe
encounters come not only from the intricacies of individual cases, but also from the larger
codes of justice, and networks of power, with which he must grapple from case to case. In
contrast to Marlowe, who must see his cases as a series that can only be extended if he is
able to meet conflicting obligations, Hartigan is focused solely on Nancy Callahan, often
repeating her name in his internal monologue to remind himself of what he must do next.
While Marlowe must grasp his work as an ongoing process of negotiation, Hartigan is ultimately able to simplify his course to a single, if suicidal, transaction: An old man dies, a
young woman lives. Fair trade (Color Plate 9a).14
On the way to Hartigans suicide, this simplicity creates a memorable intensity. In order to
defend Nancy, Hartigan must commit more and more brutal acts of violence (he shoots
Juniors genitals early in the story, and later tears them off with his bare hands) and suffer
more and more extreme tortures (repeated shootings and beatings, psychological humiliation, years of solitary confinement, hanging). Further, Nancy herself becomes a kind of
obstacle; attracted to Hartigan, she desires a romantic and sexual relationship with him,
despite an age gap of several decades. This plot development is typical of the way the Sin
City series operates; narrative and thematic entanglement (the uncomfortable attraction
between Hartigan and Nancy) is produced by a radical simplification (Hartigans goal of protecting Nancy at all costs). The cruelty of the tortures Hartigan endures, the brutality of the
violence he must commit, and the shock of Nancys attempt to seduce him have a recognizable noir lineage, but the shapes of the narrative elements are bolder and their proportions
are magnified. Again, this effect might be usefully contrasted with the more layered
approach to moral conflict evident in Chandler. Take for instance the opening of The Big
Sleep, in which Marlowe observes the dcor of the mansion in which his new clients reside:
Over the entrance doors . . . there was a broad stained-glass panel showing a
knight in dark armor rescuing a lady who was tied to a tree and didnt have any
clothes on but some very long and convenient hair.The knight had pushed the
vizor of his helmet back to be sociable, and he was fiddling with the knots on
the ropes that tied the lady to the tree and not getting anywhere. I stood there
and thought that if I lived in the house, I would sooner or later have to climb
up there and help him. He didnt seem to be really trying.15
This passage demonstrates the self-conscious quality of Marlowes thoughts on chivalry,
which he views with ironic contempt even as he affirms it as a mode of action he may be
obligated to follow. Further, the scene of rescue Marlowe is viewing foreshadows the quandaries he will face in his involvement with the two women who reside in the mansion (one
of whom turns out to be a psychotic killer, while the other lays claim to Marlowes help and
protection). In contrast to this kind of difficulty, the conflicts facing Hartigan, the knight in
blood-caked armor, are both more direct and more desperate.

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By reducing and intensifying the elements of noir, Miller creates a different kind of complexity, drawing a self-reflexive attention to the scripted quality of Hartigans story. This quality
is particularly evident in the characters use of language, and in the deliberately predictable
way that Miller uses words in combination with images. Hartigan reacts to forces that menace him with an invariably terse internal monologue. For example, he suffers from a heart
condition that repeatedly threatens to kill him, and his response to this danger is uninflected and monotonous. In the midst of his first rescue of Nancy at the beginning of the story,
he thinks: No. Not a heart attack. Not a heart attack. Angina.The doctor said itd be like this.
He gave you a pill.Take the pill he gave you. Not a heart attack. Get over it. Get over it. She
needs you. Nancy Callahan. Age eleven.16 Accompanying this largely monosyllabic utterance are four abstract and formalized panels. The first three signify suffering (Hartigan
kneels curled in a ball next to a pair of unconscious opponents; two inset images show his
face in close-up) and the fourth, on a facing page, signifies determination (Hartigan tries to
rise, one hand pressed against the ground and the other balled into a fist). The two pages
that follow show a facing pair of images: Hartigans face, stern with resolve, one hand
braced against the ground as he rises, and Hartigans upright figure, an outline marked by
very few details (brow and nose, mouth and chin, fist, revolver) and accompanied by these
words: No need to play it quiet. Not anymore.17 At the level of plot, the heart condition is
a source of vulnerability that threatens to destroy the hero, but the enactment of Hartigans
near-death experience on the page emphasizes its formulaic quality, signifying the constant
state of struggle that is a norm for Hartigan even more than for most of his noir predecessors. The suddenness both of the brush with death and of the return to action, and the
clichd quality of Hartigans monologue and of the images that accompany it (crouching,
then standing) eliminate suspense.The focus is less on what is happening or what will happen next than on the deliberate and familiar manner in which it happens. The meaning of
the event is further shaped by its place in a long series of obstacles Hartigan must surmount. He repeatedly experiences near-deaths, either physical or psychological, and repeatedly pulls himself back from the brink. Each of these experiences is naturally less surprising
than the one before, but even at the beginning of the narrative, there is a strong sense of
generic ritual (in this case, the ritual of a hero stumbling momentarily before rising again).
Thus, the texts extremes of physical and emotional violence emphasize the generic quality
and function of that violence.
Further, through a contrast between the extremity of Hartigans adventures and the familiar
mode of their portrayal, the text prompts reflection on the category of genre itself. No matter how brutal the tortures he endures and no matter how spectacular the violence he must
commit, Hartigan seems bound to enact a set of masculine stereotypes specific to Millers
version of noir (tight-lipped toughness, moral inflexibility) that amount to a generic kind of
fate. To the degree that Miller draws conscious attention to this function of genre, That
Yellow Bastard can be seen as an instance of postmodern aesthetics.The sense of scripted
repetition in Hartigans story recalls Linda Hutcheons description of postmodern parody as
repetition with critical distance that allows ironic signaling of difference at the very heart

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of similarity.18 In Hutcheons view, this form of parody uses imitation as a way to provoke
self-reflexive awareness and perhaps critique generic norms, and Millers procedure contains at least some impulses of this kind. By radicalizing the traditional content of noir while
remaining rigidly attached to its generic tendencies, Miller might be exposing the masochistic and sadistic subtext that underlies the genres conflicts between good and evil. Miller
himself has suggested this line of thinking by insisting that the genre of noir is meant to
convey an inner darkness, the fears and the self-hatred of characters.19 Millers rigid adherence to generic codes has a counter-impulse, however, one that normalizes Sin Citys violence and suffering. In a reversal of Hutcheons formulation, I suggest that the generic
predictability of the Sin City narratives ironically signals a similarity at the heart of difference. By rendering Hartigans story as if it is the same as more traditional examples of noir,
Miller performs a sustained feat of generic deadpan that does not clearly point toward a critical view of noirs masculine ideals, or of the violence that is crucial to Millers version of
those ideals. The potential for a critical impulse, which is central to Hutcheons concept of
parody, is restrained by the way Miller deploys genre as a set of inescapable norms.
The formal complexity of Sin City, which is genuinely innovative as a stylistic exercise, is
fully compatible with the texts commitment to generic laws. In fact, Millers innovations
highlight genre as a necessary component of interpretation. In That Yellow Bastard, this
dynamic is evident in a contrast between the relatively detailed and specific rendering of
characters and the much more abstract rendering of their settings. As I will discuss further
below, Hartigan is rendered in a dynamic manner that is far more detailed in some panels
than in others. Still, Hartigan and other characters are usually drawn with enough detail (or
at least sufficiently outlined) that they are immediately recognizable as themselves.
Settings, meanwhile, tend toward abstraction, sometimes approaching what Scott McCloud
calls the picture plane, that is, the realm of signs that do not clearly refer to any external
reality.20 This abstraction becomes more obvious as the narrative unfolds, and is particularly marked in Hartigans final confrontation with Junior, which takes place in a barn owned
by the Roarks. In a pair of images that show Hartigan, injured by a gunshot, approaching
his showdown with Junior,21 the side of the barn is represented as a series of lines that are
scarcely recognizable as signs of a physical structure. The same is true for the ladder, represented as a set of white bars, on which Junior and Nancy are situated inside the barn
door.22 Notwithstanding this visual uncertainty, these images are likely to provoke only the
most minor confusion because the generic valence of the images, indicated by Hartigans
broad, staggering figure and by the imminent confrontation with Junior, is sufficient to
determine its meaning.The abstraction of the backgrounds makes the mode of noir central
as a way of understanding Millers images and the relations among them.The fact that viewers will have momentary trouble identifying the objects and spaces that surround Hartigan
only draws more attention to the violent, chivalric figure who serves as the narrative focal
point.

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The category of noir also operates to stabilize the frequently uncertain relationship among
panels. Even when the panels in ThatYellow Bastard are clearly distinguishable, so that we
can see where one ends and another begins (which is not always the case), their canted and
scattered arrangements often make it difficult to establish exactly how they fit together as
a narrative.23 As with many European and American comics, a large number of transitions
are action-to-action, but a considerable percentage are either aspect-to-aspect or momentto-moment, depending on how readers choose to interpret them.24 For the most part, relationships among images in ThatYellow Bastard become more inexact precisely at moments
of crisis that are typical of Millers version of noir: moments of potential destruction, either
of the heros body or his psyche, and moments of moral challenge. This is particularly
noticeable in a sequence that shows Hartigan, just released from prison, encountering
Nancy, now a nineteen-year-old woman. She is working as an exotic dancer, and Miller displays her body (which has a narrow waist, rounded hips and prominent breasts after the
fashion of the pinup tradition, or after the fashion of contemporary pornography) in a series
of full-page images. Most of these panels position the viewer as an audience member looking up at Nancy (who is dancing onstage in a bar) and are temporally sequential (in particular three images that show Nancy flipping through the air).25 However, at least two images
seem to have no definite spatial or temporal connection to the narrative or to other pages
nearby.26 This pair of images seems unrelated to Nancys surroundings, or to the position
of a bystander. The viewer faces Nancy at identical height, and in one of the images she
seems to be looking directly at the viewer, not at the audience in the narrative.These images
seem addressed directly to an implicitly male and heterosexual viewer, quite apart from
their function in Hartigans story. It might be possible to recoup these images, narratively
speaking, as instances of Hartigans own fantasy. His typically inexpressive inner monologue (Skinny little Nancy Callahan. She grew up. She filled out . . . Nancy Callahan. Age
nineteen27) makes this reading plausible but not certain. What is certain is that Millers
command of genre lets some of his images attain a static and independent quality. These
images briefly suspend the flow of the narrative, creating iconic moments that emphasize
seemingly eternal attitudes in the universe of noirin this case, a come-hither attitude of
feminine seduction that is a source of both danger and attraction for the protagonist.28
The static quality of some images of Nancy, together with the fact that Millers portrayal
evokes a type of feminine desirability associated with pinups, suggests that Sin City is in
conversation not only with the tradition of noir, but also with the postmodern context of pop
art. A useful point of reference is the work of Roy Lichtenstein who, in his most famous period, used the gender stereotypes of comic strips as raw material for his canvases. Diane
Waldman argues that in depicting women in attitudes recognizable from comic book
romance, Lichtenstein created figures that are not heroines but supplicants to the male
ego.29 There is an obvious parallel here with the rendering of Nancy as offering herself
directly to the viewer, but the effect of Millers images is quite different. As Waldman argues,
Lichtensteins work achieves a sustained note of critique that succeeds in attacking social
and cultural stereotypes in . . . [an] understated and humorous way.30 Part of the power of

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Lichtenstein, I would argue, is the genuinely discrete quality of his canvases. By showing
only one panel, divorced from any ensuing or preceding narrative but clearly recognizable
as a cultural stereotype, Lichtenstein prompts a reflection on the power of popular icons to
evoke an entire structure of ideologies. The free-floating, iconic moments in Millers work,
by contrast, do not prompt this degree of reflection. The pinup panels in which Nancy is
transfixed and offered up to the viewers gaze quickly come to occupy positions in a narrative sequence, and in a generic structure. In that structure, Nancy is a source of struggle,
and of temptation, for the comics male protagonist. The critical question of how readers
might respond to Nancy as a clearly idealized fantasy of a sexually precocious woman is
replaced by the narrative question of how Hartigan will respond to Nancys advances.Thus,
the more critical, pop-art moments in the comic are ultimately neutralized; they are subject
to the same inflexible generic rubric that governs Hartigans fate.
Moments of aesthetic self-critique in ThatYellow Bastard are further bounded by the difference between Millers consistent method of drawing Nancy and the far more dynamic, multivalent representations of Hartigan. Of particular interest is the rendering of Hartigans face,
which oscillates between closely detailed and markedly iconic renderings. The more
detailed images contain age lines and other marks of surface and feature that tend, in
McClouds terms, toward the coordinate of reality (detailed realism of the kind associated with photography). Hartigans facial expression is created by a variety of markersthe
shape of the mouth, the positions of the brow and eyelids, the set of the jawbut the most
prominent feature of Hartigans face is an X-shaped scar on the right side of the brow that
tends toward the coordinate McCloud marks as meaning (simplified pictorial signs such
as a smiley face).The scar receives special emphasis in a number of images that erase most
of the details of Hartigans face but leave the X on the brow clearly visible. In more than half
a dozen instances, the lack of detail is total and the scar is Hartigans sole visible feature,
aside from his eyes and the outline of his head and body.31 Thus, Hartigan sometimes
appears as an icon, his scarred, hulking form symbolizing the category of the noir hero as
such, and sometimes appears in a more individualized way. The point of the variety of representations, I suggest, is to mark Hartigan as a male noir protagonist in the Chandler tradition, though again, this tradition has been simplified and intensified. Fred Pfiel argues that
Chandlers Marlowe is distinguished by a dynamic self-division. Although Marlowe
staunchly resists the moral and social dissolution that surrounds him, he is nonetheless
open to the very experiences of sensation, disorder, and play that signify dissolution.32
Miller makes Hartigan a nearly superhuman icon on some occasions (the scar a lone
reminder of human vulnerability) and an individual who is subject to desire, pain, and decay
on others.Thus, Miller suggests a division between two selves, one ideal and incorruptible,
the other vulnerable and open to disorder. Hartigan, like Marlowe, is liable to suffer and
enjoy the violation of precisely that hard-shell masculinity that must be defended at all
costs.33 As I have suggested, Millers version of this dynamic is radically stripped down; it
takes place outside any rules of institution or custom and is guided only by the moral conflict embodied in the heroic male self.

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The object that both organizes and disrupts this self is Nancy, who is consistently drawn in
the middle ground, typical of the pinup tradition, between reality and meaning. The eyecatching details of her hair, eyes, lips, and clothing are balanced by the iconic shape of her
body, which is given relatively little surface detail. Like the style of her representations, her
meaning is fixed and knowable: she is the object of Hartigans anxiety and of his desire.
Thus, the variety of ways Miller chooses to represent Hartigan is given stability by the
seductive female archetype represented by Nancy. The power of this arrangement manifests in its ability to accommodate figurative and metanarrative play in a number of images
that feature Nancy and Hartigan together. Particularly notable is a series of three images
during the moment when Nancy tries to seduce Hartigan that has an amusingly selfconscious quality.34 The furnishings of the scene recall mid-century art (a table and sofa
reminiscent of two or three different styles of the Eames era, a painting that seems like a
cross between Kandinsky and Mondrian), and the figures and the dialogue recall Lichtenstein, particularly a close-up image in which Nancy pleads, Sleep with me and Hartigan
responds, Stop it, Nancy.Youre talking crazy.35 Far from elevating this moment of potential seduction by furnishing it with allusions to respected traditions of art and design, this
scene functions as a neutralizing gesture. The banal, melodramatic quality of the dialogue
is made more humorous by Hartigans implicit assumption that the problem of Nancys
crazy desire will go away if she will simply stop talking about it. This suggests, rather
overtly, that Hartigan is attempting to displace the problem of his own desire onto its object.
As with the other self-reflexive features I have considered, this moment is integrated into a
narrative in which the moral temptation Nancy represents is quite real to the generically
determined male self who must protect her from danger, including the danger of his own
desire. Both Nancy and Hartigan are ultimately indifferent to the implications of their aesthetic context, which is made to serve as mere backdrop for their encounter.
The most obviously playful, metatextual element of Hartigans story, and the element most
challenging to my claim that it is governed by laws of genre, is Millers representation of
Junior, the titular Yellow Bastard who rapes and murders children. Early in the narrative,
Junior is drawn in the same heavily shadowed, black-and-white mode as the other characters. As discussed earlier, That Yellow Bastard s style is strongly iconic while accommodating a measure of realistic detail. This style, like Millers earlier work from the 1970s and
1980s, is clearly influenced by Japanese gekiga, in particular the work of Goseki Kojima.36
In Hartigans second encounter with Junior, Millers depiction of the latter departs radically
from this style, so that the contrast between good and evil is staged as a contrast in aesthetics. Miller shades Junior a bright yellow (this is the only color other than black and white
to appear in That Yellow Bastard), and gives him a bloated stomach, withered limbs and
neck, and bulbous facial features.The change in appearance is explained as a side effect of
the reconstructive surgery Junior has undergone since Hartigan maimed him.This explanation only draws attention to its own inadequacy; the change is clearly a stylistic choice
rather than a matter of plot. Millers rendering of Junior the Yellow Bastard suggests a perverse combination of Golden Age American cartooning and 1960s underground comix, both

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far from the tradition of Kojima. Thus, Junior becomes not only Hartigans moral opposite
but also his visual Other, an opposition underscored by the title That Yellow Bastard. The
choice of a demonstrative that, instead of the definite article the, points at Junior in a
way that marks and excludes. Further, the boldness of Millers stylistic switchto color, and
to a grotesquely cartoonish style of drawingcreates an excess of difference, and this
might prompt us to ask why there is a need for such excess. The obvious answer is that
Hartigans impulse to protect Nancy is threatened by desire for her. The uncertainty as to
where the threat lies (in Nancys sexuality or in Hartigan himself) points to a problem at the
core of Hartigans paternalistic protection of Nancy, which has either inspired her desire or
is an attempt to cover up Hartigans own. Juniors function is ostensibly to suppress this
dilemma, but in transforming his villain into a monstrous Other, Miller disrupts this function by a kind of overfulfillment.
Thus, Millers rendering of Junior actually foregrounds the problem from which it is officially supposed to distract us. As Laura Kipnis has pointed out, the figure of the child molester
or child murderer has often been deployed as a way of delimiting a normal social order over
and against a realm of perversity and violence (a symbolic move that has deep roots in the
noir tradition, extending all the way back to Fritz Langs M [1931]). In Kipniss words, this
move suggests that the powerfully monstrous bad thing is somewhere else . . . and most
crucially, that its other. Violence isnt here, its there. No, over there . . . not [in] the criminal
justice system, but in the psychopathic stranger37or, in Hartigans case, in That Yellow
Bastard. Through his altered rendering of Junior, Miller is momentarily calling the laws of
his own narrative universe into question, playing with the convention of the monstrous
Other in order to draw attention to the way it props up the heros virtue.This view of Junior
suggests a way to interpret the comics conclusion, in which Hartigan shoots himself in the
head after dispatching his enemy. Through his internal monologue, Hartigan explains that
Senator Roark will seek revenge for Juniors death, and the only way to protect Nancy from
reprisal is suicide. Hartigan does not suggest that he must protect Nancy from his own
desire, but the hand in which he holds his gun is notably spotted with the bright yellow of
Juniors blooda visual mark with an inescapable symbolic connotation (Color Plate 9a).38
It suggests that Hartigans very need to oppose Junior is driven by a fear that the two characters are similar. Obviously, they share a focus on Nancy as the object who must be dominated (either by rape and murder, or by protecting her against desire, including her own
desire) in order for the masculine hero to assert his identity. In staining Hartigan yellow,
Miller goes further than this and implies that Hartigan has the same violent appetites as his
counterpart.
By turning Junior into That Yellow Bastard and creating an uneasy parallel between him
and Hartigan, Miller suggests, at least momentarily, that the generic rules he has been following and the selves they govern are contingent, unstable arrangements. Other aspects of
the work, however, assert that the cosmos of noir has fixed and permanent codes for understanding virtue, gender, and identity. By ending the text with Hartigans suicide, Miller ultimately normalizes the codes he has adapted from noir rather than abandoning them.

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Hartigan gives his life to demonstrate his difference from his enemy, but as with the visual
rendering of Junior, the suicide overfulfills its function. The radically violent nature of
Hartigans denial highlights (in yellow, no less) the heros violent impulses in the very gesture of snuffing them out. Particularly ambiguous is the actual moment of the suicide.
Although That Yellow Bastard puts every variety of violence on display, at the moment
Hartigan pulls the trigger, Miller chooses not to show the shooting directly. Instead, he
shows the sound of the gun translated into the language of print: the word BOOM in white
capitals against a black background (Color Plate 9b).This BOOM takes up two facing pages,
emphasizing the deliberation with which Miller chooses to provide a verbal sign of
Hartigans suicide rather than a pictorial one.39 This decision points to the way that sound
effects, in the realm of comics, tend to blur the distinction between pictorial and verbal
signsthat is, they represent a moment when images cross over into the realm of language.40 The BOOM renders Hartigans ultimate sacrifice as a moment that takes place outside visual reality, and this rendering is profoundly ambiguous.The suicide is, on the one
hand, invisible. This seems an admission that the distinction between Hartigan and Junior
can never fully be shown, and thus that the generic laws guaranteeing their difference cannot be stabilized. On the other hand, by momentarily shifting to a different area of the language of comics (the sound effect in particular and the category of print in general), Miller
suggests that this kind of substitution is literally readable, and thus normal.
In Sin City in general and That Yellow Bastard in particular, Miller perfects a noir aesthetic,
one specific to the medium of comics, that rehearses its own generic limitations while still
confirming the genre itself, and the medium through which it is expressed, as sufficient. In
Millers work, the point of such confirmation has less to do with any particular genre than
with a commitment to popular genres in general, and the medium of comics in particular,
as adequate modes for aesthetic achievement. Miller has claimed: Im a cartoonist. Im not
an illustrator, and theres serious distinction there. I use my lines to evoke more than to represent.41 The distinction between evocation and representation is, I suggest, Millers way of
discussing the difference between his own work and the work of more literary comics
artists who sees the rules of popular genre as constraints to be overcome.42 In ThatYellow
Bastard, Miller manages to subject noir to self-reflexive critique while still remaining
entirely within the rules of the genre; he seems to introduce nothing that is foreign to it.
He evokes the features of noir, fully participating in it, more than he represents its values
in a mediated fashion. Thus, Millers work stands as an example of one way that graphic
novels have developed in recent decades, namely by staying committed to the dynamics
of various popular genres (whether concerned with hard-boiled cops or superheroes or
samurai) rather than by attempting to transcend or redeem them.
Given the dynamics of Millers work as a whole, and of the Sin City series in particular,
scholars should not be surprised to find that in the realm of American comics, notions of
genre, of aesthetic complexity, and of intertextual or intermedia dialogue can work quite differently than traditional literary models of such concepts might ordinarily lead us to expect.

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Even the most forward-thinking of comics scholars sometimes create categorical expectations that, while perhaps valid for literature (and sometimes useful for comics as well), have
little applicability to work like Millers. In his recent book Alternative Comics, Charles
Hatfield states:
[S]tatus anxiety may drive scholars to import traditional literary standards to
comics without respect for the comics unique origins and nature . . . [M]y own
earliest writings on the subject favored nuts n bolts formalism, almost New
Critical in character, as a self-conscious corrective to sweeping content analysis. I wanted formal rigor to displace sociological maxims about popular culture; I wanted readers to appreciate the complexities of the art form . . . Such
an approach allows one to appreciate the layered complexities and ironies of
the most challenging comics but falsifies the comics reading experience . . . it
soft-pedals the essential role of popular genre comics in establishing both a
public taste and the scholars own passion for the form . . . and . . . it does not
allow one to recognize the seminal achievements of popular comics creators
from the past.43
Although Hatfields intent, clearly an admirable one, is to free comics scholarship from the
need to prize aesthetic integrity above all other considerations, he inadvertently affirms a
New Critical maxim that formal rigor and popular culture tend to be mutually exclusive.
Hatfield assumes that the work of popular comics creators from the past is actually less
technically sophisticated than the most challenging comics of today (which is true in
some cases but not others), and he also assumes that artists, like those who study them,
are destined to outgrow the constraints of popular genre comics if their work is to achieve
layered complexities and ironies. If we follow this assumption, what is surprising, even
scandalous, about That Yellow Bastard is that the need an attentive reader will feel to
address details of form (visual characterizations, panel arrangements, etc.) is directly
prompted by the way that Miller engages with popular narrative materials of noir film and
fiction. The technical sophistication of the work is inseparable from his commitment to a
stock of conventions, both visual and narrative, that have little to do with notions of high art
or literature. When Miller does engage with more culturally respected aesthetic traditions
(especially in his evocation of pop art), he ultimately subordinates the latter to serve the
interests of the genre to which he is committed, integrating self-reflexive, Lichtensteinian
images into a sequential visual languagethat is, into a language of comicscommitted to
fixed norms of virtue and of gender. In a move that many scholarly readers are likely to
experience as contradictory, Miller arrives at a kind of aesthetic autonomynotably one
of the core values of the modernist vision of artby asserting the sufficiency of the popular generic materials he has adapted, and the popular art form in which he deploys them,
over and against the values of the more respected traditions he occasionally cites. Any
aesthetic, whether modern or postmodern, slanted toward the idea that the popular gains
ground by imitation of or alignment with the high or the literary will be confounded by
the self-affirming and self-sealing aesthetic procedures of Sin City.44

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English Language Notes 46.2 Fall / Winter 2008

These procedures can justly be viewed as limiting, since they seem leery of continuing dialogue with other media (at least within the work itselfobviously Millers recent willingness
to use his comics for film is a different consideration).There is a confining quality to Millers
work in Sin City that distinguishes it from the tendencies of more recent efforts in the graphic novel. As comics gain increasingly public status, and literary respect, both in mainstream media and in academic discussion, it is possible to see a change towards visual and
narrative styles that are far less generically determined, or that combine various generic
and aesthetic energies in more heterogeneous ways. A variety of comics artists and writers
with roots similar to Millers (notably Alan Moore) have been part of this change, as have
newer artists without any particular loyalties to genre (such as CraigThompson). In this context, Sin City may seem to express a nostalgic commitment to popular genre for its own
sake.45 At the same time, the stylistic complexity and strength of Millers work is a reminder
that whatever is meant by literary comics may often have as much to do with popular
genres, in a variety of media, as it will with traditional notions of the literary. Recognizing
the way that some comics connect what we think of as popular (in terms of genre) with
what we think of as literary (in terms of technical sophistication) will mean avoiding two
fallacies. On the one hand, we should not assume that comics rooted in popular genres will
not reward close formal attention; this will obscure the way such works actually function as
sequential art. On the other hand, we cannot simply reverse previous cultural judgments of
popular comics, elevating them as literary objects worthy of the critical attention formerly reserved for literature or high art; this will obscure the particular ways comics express
the cultural values to which they are sometimes attached. To make either of these errors is
to miss the way that issues of cultural legitimacy have shaped comics, both as aesthetic
objects and as systems of value.
Christopher Pizzino
University of Georgia

NOTES
1 I use the term comics in preference to the more specific category of graphic novels. The latter term
is helpful as a descriptive for certain kinds of long-form comics. Further, in academic discussion, it obviously works to legitimize comics as objects of study. Part of the purpose of this essay is to reflect on the
problem of comics cultural legitimacy. Millers comics provide a particularly useful opportunity to examine this problem, and I believe that avoiding the term comics misrepresents Millers particular way of
addressing it.

Among films derived from comics, the most visible are based on American superhero series. Recent
commercial successes include Iron Man, dir. Jon Favreau, Paramount, 2008; and The Dark Knight, dir.
Christopher Nolan, Warner Bros., 2008. A number of critically appreciated films not concerned with
superheroes have also been adapted from comics, including Road to Perdition, dir. Sam Mendes, Dream
Works, 2002; and A History of Violence, dir. David Cronenberg, New Line, 2005. The most well known
instance of the influence of comics in contemporary American literature is Michael Chabon, The Amazing
Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (NewYork: Random House, 2000); see also Jonathan Lethem, The Fortress

Christopher Pizzino

127

of Solitude (NewYork: Doubleday, 2003) and Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (NewYork:
Riverhead, 2007).
3 For evidence of Millers aversion to film, see Frank Miller, interview with Elvis Mitchell, KCRWs The
Treatment, Natl. Public Radio, KCRW, Santa Monica, 14 Aug. 2002, KCRW.com., 30 June 2008 <http://
www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/tt/tt020814frank_miller>; the film in which he eventually participated is Sin
City, dir. Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller, Dimension, 2005.

For a typical positive review see Peter Travers, rev. of Sin City, 31 March 2005, RollingStone.com, 30
June 2008 <http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/movie/6824548/review/7232512/sin_city>; for a typical
negative review see Carina Chocano, rev. of Sin City, 1 April 2005, LATimes.com, 30 June 2008 <http://
www.calendarlive.com/movies/chocano/cl-et-sincity1apr01,0,4258832.story>.

Interview with Elvis Mitchell, KCRWsTheTreatment, Natl. Public Radio, KCRW, Santa Monica, 30 March
2005, KCRW.com., 30 June 2008 <http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/tt/tt050330frank_miller>.

6 See Eisner/Miller, interview conducted by Charles Brownstein (Milwaukie: Dark Horse, 2005) 15455,
16266, 168, 17173, 178, 183, 188, 191, 202, 318.
7 That Yellow Bastard was initially published by Dark Horse Books in six issues from February to July
1996. All citations are taken from Sin City: That Yellow Bastard, 2nd ed. (Milwaukie: Dark Horse Books,
2005).
8

James Naremore, More Than Night: Film Noir in Its Contexts (Berkeley: U of California P, 1998) 255.

JohnT. Irwin, Unless theThreat of Death Is BehindThem: Hard-Boiled Fiction and Film Noir (Baltimore:
The Johns Hopkins UP, 2006) 209.
9

10

See the 30 March 2005 KCRW interview.

Raymond Chandler, The Simple Art of Murder, The Simple Art of Murder (New York: Vintage, 1978)
18.
11

12 See Irwin, and also Fred Pfiel, White Guys: Studies in Postmodern Domination & Difference (London:
Verso, 1995) chapter 4.
13

The High Window (1942, New York: Random House, 1992) 159.

14

That Yellow Bastard 219.

15

The Big Sleep (1939, New York: Random House, 1992) 34.

16

That Yellow Bastard 3031.

17

That Yellow Bastard 3233.

18

A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction (New York: Routledge, 1988) 26.

19

See the 30 March 2005 KCRW interview.

Here and later in my discussion, I am indebted to Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics (New York:
HarperCollins, 1993). For a discussion of the triangular coordinates McCloud uses to map types of
images in comics, see chapter 2, particularly 4957.

20

21

That Yellow Bastard 204205, 206-207.

22

That Yellow Bastard 209.

Miller has made clear that his experimentation with panels is part of a strategy of deliberate difficulty: [A] huge amount of my job is trying to fight that old nemesis time . . . A film director, for instance
. . . can control how long you sit in your seat staring at his image. Whereas a comic book technically can
be read in 510 minuteseven a rather thick one, you can technically read it in a very short period of
time. My job is to find ways to deceive, cheat, and charm your eye so that you stay longer, not by loading it so much with words . . . but by making my drawings either just delightful enough, or when Im
really on my game, slightly confusing so you take a few extra seconds to study them. Interview with
23

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English Language Notes 46.2 Fall / Winter 2008

Elvis Mitchell, 22 Feb. 2002, KCRWsTheTreatment, Natl. Public Radio, KCRW, Santa Monica, KCRW.com,
30 June 2008 <http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/tt/tt020222frank_miller>.
24

See McClouds discussion of types of transitions, 7077.

25

That Yellow Bastard 13035.

26

That Yellow Bastard 13839.

27

That Yellow Bastard 128, 136.

For a recent treatment of the figure of the femme fatales role vis--vis the male protagonists of noir,
see Kelly Olivier and Benigno Trigo, Noir Anxiety (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2003).
28

29

Roy Lichtenstein (New York: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1993) 113.

30 Waldman

121.

31

See That Yellow Bastard 17, 19, 35, 38, 156, 185, 193.

32

Pfeil 116.

33

Pfeil 117.

34

That Yellow Bastard 15859.

35

That Yellow Bastard 158, Millers bold.

Millers affinity for Kojima is well-known.The latters influence was noticeable in Millers early work on
Daredevil (NewYork: Marvel, 19791983) and even more clearly visible in the graphic novel Ronin (1983
1984, NewYork: DC, 1987), which features a minor character named Kojima.The character of Miho, who
appears in a number of Sin City narratives, is a further tribute to Kojima. Miller also drew several covers for the first English translations of Koike and Kojimas Kozure Okami (Lone Wolf and Cub); these covers are currently available in the first twelve volumes of complete reprints; see Kazuo Koike and Goseji
Kojima, Lone Wolf and Cub, 19701976, trans. Dana Lewis (Milwaukie: Dark Horse, 200001).
36

37 Laura Kipnis, Bound and Gagged: Pornography and the Politics of Fantasy in America (1996, Durham:
Duke UP, 1999) 7.
38

That Yellow Bastard 218219, 22223.

39

That Yellow Bastard 22021.

40

See McCloud 53, particularly note 78.

41

See the KCRW interview 22 Feb. 2002.

An obvious point of contrast with Millers work is Alan Moore, Watchmen (New York: DC, 198687),
which features a variety of artistic and literary devices intended to break down the generic limitations of
superhero comics.

42

43

Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature (Jackson, MS: U of Mississippi P, 2005) xiixiii.

In this discussion of how high artistic forms are valued against low ones in modern and postmodern aesthetics, I am indebted to Samuel Delany, whose discussion of this question in a different context,
namely science fiction, has informed my view of Miller. See Samuel Delany, Afterword, Stars in My
Pocket Like Grains of Sand (1984, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 2004) 34956.
44

It is interesting to note that in a series of conversations with Miller, Will Eisner repeatedly challenges
him concerning the popular nature of his work. Eisner asks Miller to state his vision of how comics
should change, and of how Miller himself might participate in the changes; further, Eisner suggests that
Millers commitment to popular genres is a limitation to the development of the form. Millers replies to
Eisner are sometimes fragmentary and evasive, but it is clear that Miller does not see his own commitments as limitations. See Eisner/Miller 68, 9697, 162, 17879, 183, 255, 257.

45