The Sin City movie trailer has hit the web this week, and the general reaction seems to be "Holy shit, that looks cool." I know that was my reaction, and seeing how beautifully Miller and Rodriguez seem to have translated the comic to film has reinvigorated my interest in reading the comics again. If you're like me in this respect, but unlike me in that you don't already have the trade paperbacks or hardcovers in your possession, than you might consider giving a gander at The Art of Sin City, the first in Dark Horse's "Art Of" series and a stunning tribute to the stylish, lurid, violent artwork that is Frank Miller's Sin City. It doesn't hold a candle, in my opinion, to the amazing Art of Hellboy that followed it, but it is still an amazingly well-designed deluxe hardcover wrapped around some of the best artwork of Frank Miller's career, and if the trailer whetted your appetite for the movie, the "Art Of" book will do the same for the comics.
I have to confess, I've become a little jaded because I own all of the Sin City material, either in collected editions or single issues. That means that the sequentials, the covers, in fact most of the material in this book, I've seen already. There are some pieces that are new to me, including collector cards, retailer pin-ups and bonus tip-in art from deluxe hardcover editions, but these gems are few and far between, and the majority of the work is just repeating things that I have seen before. It is this, more than anything else, that makes Art of Sin City pale beside Art of Hellboy for me.
However, and this is an important however, the end result is still jaw-dropping. Frank Miller's pages reproduce beautifully in this oversize format, and given that the sensibility of Sin City has always been "larger than life," it's fitting that the presentation in this art book has just that sort of appeal. The sexy women are even more beautiful, the period cars even cooler, the violence louder and faster and the those unique shadow designs just play across the page like they're never going to end. When you're looking at Sin City as a comic, you're seeing the sequential pages and the story and you may appreciate the art as being pretty damn good, but the focus is on following the story. In this context, every single page is presented as a standalone piece of art, and you can see that Miller puts a lot of work into his panel designs and character designs that pays off in the almost subliminal ability to take the reader into the violent, lurid world of Sin City.
To be honest, I would have killed for a little actual commentary from Miller, rather than simply letting the art do the talking, but we do get some insight into his creative process. The bluelines (or, more accurately, redlines) that show his layouts for the characters reveal that Miller does not start out in this shadowy, silhouetted form, but instead he details all the anatomy to make sure it's right before going in and adding the minimalist style. It might be this that helps Sin City be more than just style and flash, that gives it a sense of stylized reality rather than just stylized fantasy, because the detail is there from the start, it's just hidden by shadows and rain.
The book is divided into several loose sections. Rather than giving them categories, though, like "Tough Guy Heroes" or "Beautiful Dames" or even "Flashy Cars," Diana Schutz and Cary Grazzini give us red chapter pages with beautiful gray pencils and a memorable line from the series that sets the tone for that chapter. A line like "The Ladies are the law here. Beautiful and merciless" is the entryway to Miller's astounding sensual (and astonishingly naked) array of femme fatales, and "Is this yours? I mean, did you paint it?" gives way to the last chapter, beautiful colored pieces with colors by Lynn Varley, representing both covers and color interiors from Hell and Back, the last Sin City tale to date.
In reading the Art of Sin City, I'm struck by the beauty of the artwork and by the simple yet true in tone design and organization of the book. This is a beautiful volume that really highlights the visual strength of the series and serves as a nice reminder of some of Frank Miller's best work in the industry. 9/10
