{"id":39466,"date":"2026-08-11T22:45:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T17:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=39466"},"modified":"2026-08-11T22:45:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T17:45:26","slug":"frank-miller-on-brand-new-day-the-odyssey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=39466","title":{"rendered":"Frank Miller on Brand New Day, The Odyssey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div xmlns:default=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\">\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tIf <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/frank-miller\/\" id=\"auto-tag_frank-miller_1\" data-tag=\"frank-miller\">Frank Miller<\/a> seems everywhere this summer, it may be because he\u00a0<em>has<\/em>\u00a0been everywhere this summer. The comic book legend known for <em>Dark Knight Returns<\/em> and <em>Sin City<\/em> has been on a multi-hemisphere, multi-city book tour for his memoir\/creative manifesto, <em>Push the Wall: My Life, Writing, Drawing, and the Art of Storytelling,<\/em> sitting down in front of audiences for talks with collaborators Zack Snyder and Robert Rodriguez and fellow authors Scott Snyder and Joe Hill.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThe book, which received a starred review from <em>Publishers Weekly<\/em>, debuted in the top 15 on the <em>New York Times <\/em>best seller list and Miller has no plans on stopping his book tour just yet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tMiller was also at San Diego Comic-Con and then showed up to the premiere of <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/spider-man-brand-new-day\/\" id=\"auto-tag_spider-man-brand-new-day_1\" data-tag=\"spider-man-brand-new-day\">Spider-Man: Brand New Day<\/a><\/em> in Los Angeles. The movie features his ninja clan creation The Hand as one of Spidey\u2019s antagonists.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t\u201cIt was a hoot; they did a lot of clever stuff with it,\u201d he tells <em>The Hollywood Reporter <\/em>of the movie. Regarding the Hand sequences in the movie, he adds, \u201cthey\u00a0clearly had seen a lot of the Hong Kong movies that I\u2019d seen over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tMiller has also been catching up on his moviegoing, and had seen Christopher Nolan\u2019s <em>The Odyssey<\/em>, which he calls \u201cextravagant.\u201d The creator behind Spartan story <em>300<\/em> knows his way around an ancient Greek myth or two (he can easily slip into expounding on Corinthian style helmets and their influence on Sparta) and says the movie \u201creally did an awful lot right.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tTuesday sees the wide digital release of <em>Frank Miller: American Genius<\/em>, the documentary made by his creative partner Silenn Thomas, which doesn\u2019t just look at his career and work but, as he puts it, delves into \u201cthis wonderful subculture that we all share of comic book and how it celebrates itself all over the planet.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tBut this is no farewell tour. The 69-year old Miller no plans on slowing down and is pushing ahead on a new <em>Sin City<\/em> book as well as a few others. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m just now freely exploring where I wanna take this medium. There\u2019s no reason not to keep going,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tAmid his movie watching and globe-trotting, Miller hopped on the phone with <em>THR<\/em> to talk about the influence of mentor Neal Adams and Jim Shooter, why he didn\u2019t leave (but still left) Marvel in the 1980s, and why he\u2019s returning to Dark Horse for his latest book, <em>Invasive Species<\/em>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Your book is part memoir and part lessons in creativity. Why do it this way?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tI got my career started by calling up Neal Adams\u2019 office and getting a meeting with him. Neal Adams was the premier artist in comics at the time, and his art had a great effect on me as a child. And he was listed in the phone book. And I got to meet him that day, an hour after I called. And he looked over my drawings and told me they were terrible and sent me off. I redid them and I saw him again and again and again. And he was always a harsh critic, but every time he taught me more and more, sometimes doing drawings over them. And, and as the months went by, he got me my first job and he continued to be a sensei and an advisor to me on things professional and on how to deal with being an artist in the world and many other things. Years passed and I became successful. And one time, Neal and I were at a comic book convention and I just took him aside and I just said, \u201cNeal, how do I thank you for what you\u2019ve done for me? You\u2019ve never asked me for anything.\u201d And he said, \u201cOh, there\u2019s only one thing you can do. Do the same thing for the next guy.\u201d Well, this book really is my attempt to do the same thing for the next guy. And to commit to paper my experiences, my observations and, and the lessons learned in making comic books.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Speaking of mentors, Jim Shooter <em>(the wonderkid who became Marvel\u2019s polarizing editor-in-chief through the 1980s)<\/em> was also one. Do you remember the first time you met him?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tMy first memorable encounter with Jim was at the Marvel offices. I basically came in and was sort of selling my services. I\u2019d gotten some little job, doing some little three-pager of something like Doc Sampson and that had gotten his attention enough to want to keep me around. And, he gave me his lecture on storytelling. Everything was always storytelling with Jim because he felt comics had really lost track of their basic mission, which was to enchant and compel young readers with gripping stories.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tHe came in on a fairly loose pack of people who were all over the map creatively. And he worked to pull it all together into a more cohesive unit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>There were a lot of writer-editors and little fiefdoms at the time.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tRight. He focused more than ever on the concept of a Marvel universe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>How did you guys work together?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tHe was eager to change things and I was eager to learn. And we both had strong opinions. I think one of the reasons we got along was we were both up for a good argument. Arguments can be a very creative thing and a very good thing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>You left Marvel in a pretty high profile fashion twice. And I say high profile because your profile was very high and you were creatively cresting, twice with Daredevil. What caused you to leave that first time?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tWell, I didn\u2019t leave anybody. I chose to take a project to another publisher who was more amenable to kind of freedom I wanted to do it with. The message underneath all this was that it was important to demonstrate that talent is portable. Let me say that. When a publisher is releasing your work, that does not mean you\u2019re saying an oath of allegiance to a military operation. It\u2019s not a marriage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Well, you came back, proceeded to do <em>Born Again<\/em>, then left again.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tNo, no. I proceeded to do work that was not for Marvel Comics. (<em>Laughs<\/em>.) We can\u2019t keep on referring to me coming and going. I didn\u2019t come and go. I stayed exactly where I am. I didn\u2019t move where I lived. Nothing like that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>In any case, it was teased at the time that after <em>Born Again<\/em> there would be a Daredevil story with Walter Simonson.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tIt\u2019s taken us an awful long time to get that done, I\u2019ll admit to you. (<em>Laughs<\/em>.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Is that ever going to happen?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tWhy not?<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Uh, speaking of stories that never happened, what happened with the Doctor Strange run you were supposed to have with writer Roger Stern?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tOn that one, I really had come to realize that I was just dying to write my own material. And, I couldn\u2019t wait anymore. I had to start writing and drawing my own comics and, you know, start being a cartoonist rather than just an illustrator.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  \">\n<figure class=\"o-figure   size-large alignnone lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:1047px\">\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  \">\n<div class=\"lrv-a-crop-16x9\" style=\"padding-bottom:calc((1396\/1047)*100%);\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Frank-Miller-Brand-New-Day-Embed-2-2026.jpg?w=1047\" alt=\"\" data-lazy-srcset=\"\" data-lazy-sizes=\"\" height=\"1396\" width=\"1047\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div><figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-padding-tb-025\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"a-font-secondary-s lrv-u-margin-r-025\">Miller meeting director Destin Daniel Cretton at the premiere of <em>Spider-Man:<\/em> <em>Brand New Day<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<cite class=\"a-font-accent-uppercase-xs lrv-u-color-grey-dark\">Yvonne Bennett<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>In the \u201980s, with <em>Dark Knight<\/em> and <em>Batman: Year One<\/em>, you were elevated to art icon. You weren\u2019t just comic book famous, you were art world famous. How did you handle that kind of fame?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tAs well and as poorly as anybody. (<em>Laughs.<\/em>) I\u2019m not go into the long and gory biography of my life, but it does create all kinds of wonderful highs and dismal lows to go through that sort of thing. It transforms you.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>The time of <em>Dark Knight Returns<\/em> and <em>Watchmen<\/em> and <em>Maus<\/em> is looked at like a revolutionary era at this point where comics were reinvented. How healthy is the comic art form now? Is the wall still being pushed?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tSure it is. I mean, it\u2019s easy to look back on that time and say, \u201cWow, what a sunburst. That changed everything.\u201d But in fact, that was a pretty small amount of work that we\u2019re talking about that caused a big splash and that\u2019s what people remember at the time. Because people tend to remember the stuff that really made a splash when they think back on a given period. We certainly have a pretty wildly diverse amount of stuff coming out now.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>What do you like to read or what artist are you following?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tI tend to hunt down the people whose work I like so I can work with them. I\u2019m really, really excited by Peach Momoko\u2019s work.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>This year, there was upheaval at Dark Horse Entertainment, the home of your <em>Sin City<\/em> books. But you announced a new book that you\u2019re writing, <em>Invasive Species<\/em>, with them. How did you decide to stay at Dark Horse for the new book and not take it elsewhere?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tWell, the relationship was a good and strong one, and it served us all very well. I met with the people there. The philosophies of the company seemed to be close enough to what\u00a0I\u2019d always known them to be, and they certainly had the infrastructure to do a good job at it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Going back to <em>Sin City<\/em>, the only thing happening now is the Western that is being drawn by Milo Manara, right?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tRight now, yeah, but I\u2019ve got a dozen ideas for new ones. <em>Sin City<\/em> is my life\u2019s work, more than anything. Milo is well along. I just gotta teach him who to draw girls. (<em>Laughs<\/em>.)\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Last question: What\u2019s been your favorite character to write and draw after all this time?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tI fall in love with each of them. I really do. I mean, you have kids?<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Yes<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tWhich one\u2019s your favorite?<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Depends when you ask me.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tOkay. We\u2019ll go with that.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  \">\n<figure class=\"o-figure   size-large alignnone lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:1047px\">\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  \">\n<div class=\"lrv-a-crop-16x9\" style=\"padding-bottom:calc((589\/1047)*100%);\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Frank-Miller-American-Genius-Embed-2026.jpg?w=1047\" alt=\"\" data-lazy-srcset=\"\" data-lazy-sizes=\"\" height=\"589\" width=\"1047\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div><figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-padding-tb-025\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<cite class=\"a-font-accent-uppercase-xs lrv-u-color-grey-dark\">Courtesy of Subject<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If Frank Miller seems everywhere this summer, it may be because he\u00a0has\u00a0been everywhere this summer. The comic book legend known for Dark Knight Returns and Sin City has been on a multi-hemisphere, multi-city book tour for his memoir\/creative manifesto, Push the Wall: My Life, Writing, Drawing, and the Art of Storytelling, sitting down in front&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39467,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Frank-Miller-Brand-New-Day-Embed-2026.jpg?w=1047&h=590&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}