Frank Miller is a comic book artist, writer, and movie director who is known for his edgy
storytelling.
He is one of the very few creators who has worked on major projects for both Marvel and
DC Comics.
Some of his most popular works are Daredevil, Sin City, 300, and Batman: The Dark Knight.
While you may have seen his name on the cover of a comic book or in the movie credits, few
people know the story of how Frank Miller went from being a comic book fan growing up
a small town in Vermont to someone who has gained international fame and fortune.
Early Life and Career
Frank Miller was born in Olney, Maryland on January 27, 1957 into a large Irish Catholic
family.
His mother was a nurse, and his father was ran his own business as an electrician and
carpenter.
Frank’s family moved to Montpelier, Vermont, where he grew up with his six siblings.
When he was six years old, Frank Miller bought his first Batman comic book.
He loved reading that comic so much, that he began drawing Batman on pieces of scrap
paper.
He took some of his parent’s typewriter paper so he could fold and staple the pages
together into a small comic book.
He then drew his first comic, and presented it to his mother, saying that this was what
we was going to do when he grew up.
His father became a traveling salesman, and he would drive back and forth between Vermont
and New York City.
Frank would go with him for these road trips, just so he could look through the big comic
book stores in New York and buy all of the different titles that he couldn’t get in
his small town in Vermont.
For the rest of his young life, he would read comics and practice drawing in hopes that
he could make that dream come true.
Growing up, his favorite movies to watch were the film noir, like Touch of Evil, and Chinatown.
These stories always had a lot of action, with corrupt detectives and beautiful femme
fatales.
He especially loved the movies that were in black and white, because of the drama that
filmmakers were able to achieve with all of the dark shadows on the screen.
Over the years, he read every comic he could get his hands on.
He wasn’t just enjoying the stories as a fan.
He was analyzing both the writing and the artwork, absorbing every little detail.
He would read every new character published by Marvel Comics, including one called The
Cat: Claws of the Cat, which premiered in November, 1972.
When he was 16 years old, he wrote a fan letter to Marvel Comics soon after reading this new
comic.
The letter was published in issue number #3.
He wrote, “Wonderful!
At last, a woman character with character.
I, for one, am sick of the helpless female-types which have cluttered up comics for so long.”
This character Frank Miller was talking about would go on to be renamed Tigra.
And while not many people have heard of his superhero today, she would be his inspiration
for how he portrayed his female characters in the future.
Even though they had only responded to his fan letter, it was still so exhilarating to
see his name in print.
Since he always knew what he wanted to draw comics for the rest of his life, he felt ready
to leave his parent’s house.
On one of those long road trips with his father, he packed a few extra bags with the intention
of moving to New York City when he was only 17.
All his life, Frank Miller dreamed of permanently getting out of the countryside, and he was
exhilarated to be surrounded by the city he was so in love with.
One of the fist things he did was visit the Empire State Building.
At the time, there were no screens up to prevent people from falling over the edge if they
went to the very top.
So Miller was able to swing his legs over the side of the building with his sketchbook,
and began drawing the city skyline.
He continued sitting on rooftops to get a sense of the city from those angles, which
would eventually end up in his later comics.
Miller lived in a tiny studio apartment, and he was able to use the carpentry skills he
learned by working at his father’s business to find gigs that would help him pay his rent.
The apartment was very small and old, with cockroaches and water bugs crawling all over
the place.
He was motivated to work for a better life, and try to start his career.
So he started making appointments and taking his drawing portfolio to various comic book
publishers around New York.
He met with Joe Orlando at DC Comics, who told Miller that he was not good enough to
work for them, and never may be.
His portfolio was held together with string, and bugs had crawled inside at some point.
Miller recalled the day he met with Joe Orlando, “As we were talking, one of these pests
crawled out of my portfolio, into my lap, and I could do nothing but cup my little friend
during the interview as it squirmed and desperately fought for its life….It was not the brightest
day of my life.”
Needless to say, he didn't get the job.
That level of constant humiliation would have been enough for some people to pack their
bags and move back home.
And for a while, it truly did seem as if Miller’s dream would never become a reality, but he
never gave up.
With every rejection, he kept trying to improve, and he went on more interviews.
Frank Miller’s favorite artist, by far, was Neal Adams, whose Batman and Green Lantern
comics had made him a superstar..
He had a background in advertising, so his pictures had an element of photo-realism,
with accurate anatomy.He was always looking for more of Adam’s work, and trying to aspire
to be like him.
When he went on an interview at Marvel Comics, he actually got to meet Neal Adams, and he
let him know how much he admired his work.
Adams credits his daughter with his decision to give Miller a chance.
“Obviously she felt sorry for him because he was a skinny kid who looked like Ichabod
Crane,” he says.
Miller’s portfolio was “awful,” he says, laughing.
“It was so bad.
My heart sunk, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, one of these guys.’”
Even though he harshly criticized his work too, he graciously called up one of his friends
to help Frank Miller get a job as a storyboard artist at an advertising firm.
The artwork that was required for these kinds of jobs did not need to be as realistic as
a Marvel comic book, and this way, Miller was able to get professional experience, and
get tips from co-workers on a daily basis.
Now that Frank Miller was a working artist, he no longer had to struggle to find carpentry
work to pay the bills.
He was drawing for a living, and was getting better during that process.
But he still wanted to do comics.
Every time Miller thought that maybe he had improved his art enough, he would go to Neal
Adams and apply to work at Marvel again.
It took him a very long time to truly understand how to improve.
Adams would take Miller's drawing, and place a piece of tracing paper over top so that
he could draw his own version, showing how to properly re-draw the same image.
He then pushed the copy paper towards Miller, as if to say, “try again”.
After watching Neal Adams so many times, he began to study anatomy textbooks to get a
good feel for drawing the human body.
He realized that his biggest problem was creating accurate proportions, and understanding how
muscles and bones move.
He would practice these tips that Adams gave him, and came back again, and again.
Finally, one day, Neal Adams looked at the drawings, and picked up the phone to call
one of his connections to get him a job with Gold Key Comics.
Adams said, “Whatever you do, don’t say that I’m responsible for Frank Miller, I’ve
done the same thing for a hundred guys and nobody responded the way Frank did.
Nobody advanced that quickly.
And I made it hard for him!
If you’d gone through it, you’d have gone home crying.”
They were publishing the comic book version of The Twilight Zone.
There were very few copies made, because it wasn't an incredibly popular comic, but Frank
Miller was still over the moon, because this was his chance to get his foot in the door
of the industry.
He was so still nervous about doing a good job with his first paid gig, that it took
him three weeks just to complete three pages.
But it was just the beginning of his career as a comic book artist.
After this, he started getting small gigs like this at both DC and Marvel, and he began
his journey on the road to success.
Marvel Comics As time went on, Frank Miller had enough professional
experience under his belt to be hired as a full-time artist and writer at Marvel Comics,
for the series Daredevil.
Stan Lee and artist Bill Everett had created Daredevil, but Frank Miller is responsible
for the dark and gritty hard edge that defined the character.
He was able to explore New Yorks’ Hell’s Kitchen first-hand, and accurately capture
the essence of the area.
Since Miller was raised Irish Catholic, he was also able to bring a lot to the internal
struggles felt by Daredevil’s secret identity, Matt Murdock, whose religious beliefs stop
him from killing the bad guys.
At that time, Frank Miller had no aspirations to make original characters.
He was just thrilled to finally have a steady job working in the comic book industry.
But it was clear that he had a unique artistic style and point of view.
He was constantly researching by reading comics from all over the world, and he thought a
lot about how he could draw a scene to make the reader slow down and really take their
time on each page by giving them a visually interesting world.
He eventually created the character Elektra.
During an interview, he explained that his motivations for creating her were simple;
“Daredevil had a lot of girlfriends, but what about one who can kick his butt?”
She became the first female character who was like the femme fatale of the old film
noir movies he loved so much.
She was beautiful, and yet she could not be trusted.
She was an assassin, but her love for Matthew Murdock created feeling of guilt.
Sorry to spoil it for those of you who don’t know, but we need to mention that Frank Miller
made the decision that Elektra had to die for her crimes which she did at the hands
of the villain Bullseye.
Nothing like this had ever been done in comics before, especially with such a popular character.
Before this, most characters continued to live on forever, even if they were villains.
It was dark, and showed that he was gearing the series towards adult readers.
This also really showed that Frank cared more about the storytelling than popularity.
Plenty of fans were upset by the death of Elektra, but Frank Miller put the story first,
without worrying too much about public opinion.
He was writing the story in a way that makes sense for the life and growth of the characters.
He knew that Matt Murdock would never be able to settle down and have a happy-ever-after
with Elektra, but they were too in love to ever leave each other.
So the only way for him to move on and be with someone else would be if Elektra died.
DC Comics In 1983, he left Marvel Comics to work for
DC.
He published a series called Ronin, which was about a samurai warrior.
Frank Miller had been inspired by French comics and Japanese Manga, and he borrowed from the
styles that he discovered from both countries.
Specifically, he credits Lone Wolf and Cub by Kazuo Koike as being his biggest influence,
as well as the work of Jean Giraud, who goes by the pen name Moebius.
Frank Miller began working together with an artist at DC Comics named Lynn Varley, who
inked and colored the drawings of Ronin.
They worked really well together, and they were both excited about their working, bouncing
ideas off of one another.
She continued to do the inking on all of his future work.
They fell in love, and eventually got married.
Sadly, they divorced in 2005.
DC loved his work so much, they asked him to write and draw a new Batman series.
At first, he actually said “no”, because he respected Batman as a character so much.
After all, it was the very first comic he ever read, and he knew that the character
meant just as much to millions of people around the world as it did to him.
Even though he was working full-time in the comic book industry, those feelings of self-doubt
were still there.
He was afraid that he wasn’t good enough, and that he may ruin Batman.
However, he kept the thought in the back of his mind.
For years, the character of Batman never ages.
He was permanently 29 years old, and Robin was always his teenage sidekick.
So when Frank Miller turned 29, he suddenly realized that once he turned 30, he would
be older than Batman.
He thought to himself, “I’ll be damned if I’m older than Batman.”
He had a lightbulb moment.
He imagined Batman in his 50’s.
He is older, disillusioned, and grizzled.
And, for a man who continues to put on a costume of a bat for so many years, he would clearly
have some psychological issues, as well.
His story of Batman is far darker than any other version had been before.
This was Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.
This became a huge success, and it especially resonated with fans who had grown up with
the character.
The movie adaptation of Miller’s story with The Dark Knight in 2008 became one of the
most successful superhero stories of all time, and is arguably the best portrayal of Batman
that has ever been made.
During an interview at the Kubert School of Media, Frank Miller was asked if he preferred
Daredevil, or Batman.
He very quickly said that Batman will always be #1 in his heart, because his motivations
behind his character are “beautifully simple”.
Batman is trying to restore order to world where there is none, while The Joker is trying
to create chaos.
Because of that, the story will stand the test of time.
Life In Tinsel Town After seeing success in the comic book industry,
Frank Miller decided that he wanted to move to a warmer climate, so he left New York and
moved to Los Angeles.
He had no intention of getting into the movie business, but one day, he got a phone call
from a movie producer who wanted to work with him on Robocop 2 and 3.
Since he loved the first movie, he agreed to work on the projects.
However, the director was constantly changing Frank Miller’s script.
During Robocop 2, he was on set every day, wanting to be involved.
But by Robocop 3, he got so angry at the movie-making process, he decided to leave and never came
back to set again.
During an interview, he said, “Don’t be the writer.
The director’s got power.
The screenplay is a fire hydrant with a row of dogs waiting around the block for it.”
Miller played small cameo roles in Robocop 2 and 3, and he dies in both films.
After getting these small screen credits, he made cameos in some other movies, too.
In 1994, both Frank Miller and Stan Lee played themselves in a movie called Jugular Wine:
A Vampire Odyssey.
There is even a scene where Stan Lee gets to kill Frank Miller.
So, while he got to enjoy having fun in a campy horror film, he still began to feel
jaded, and he didn’t feel the same passion for his career that he had back in New York.
He had not drawn anything in two years, so he wasn’t doing what he actually loved.
He began to feel a lot of angst towards Los Angeles.
This is what inspired him to write Sin City in 1991.
He was inspired to make the story by a black and white comic called Johnny Hazard by Frank
Robbins, and all of the film noir he watched as a kid.
He sold the idea to Dark Horse Comics.
He decided to not hold back, and just pour everything that he wanted in a comic- “Tough
guys, beautiful women, and vintage cars.”
Sin City was released in a series of graphic novels that are stand-alone stories, but they
all exist in the same universe.
He continued to work on Sin City for the next few years, because it was what he truly enjoyed
doing, and he was totally satisfied with that being his one and only project.
In 2003, a Daredevil movie was released, starring Ben Affleck.
Since the character rights belonged to Marvel, there was nothing that Frank Miller could
to give any creative input on the film.
Many fans feel that this movie did not capture the true essence of the Daredevil comics,
and they wouldn’t get what they were looking for until Netflix created the original series
in 2015, starring Charlie Cox.
However, in an interview in 2017, Miller said that he had not even bothered to watch the
Netflix series, so he doesn’t give any comment about what he personally thinks about those
adaptations.
Ironically, even though he created the Sin City comic after venting his frustrations
with Hollywood, and he really did not enjoy watching adaptations of his work, all of that
would circle back in 2005, when he got the opportunity to write and direct the Sin City
movie with Robert Rodriguez.
At first, Miller said “no” to the project, because Sin City was like his baby, and he
had seen what Hollywood had done to his work in the past.
But Rodriguez truly was a fan, and he understood how important it was to portray the stories
accurately.
Rodriguez also gave Frank Miller complete creative control so that he could recreate
his comics panel-by-panel and frame-by-frame.
They worked on showing these screen tests to several different actors, and they were
surprised and impressed by the work.
He was able to attract a star-studded cast, and even Quentin Tarantino helped to direct
the fight scenes in the movie.
During an interview about Sin City, he said that he was shocked at how much he enjoyed
working together with the actors.
He said, “I expected the worst, and I got the best.”
In the behind-the-scenes clips, the feeling seems to be mutual.
All of the actors were really happy that they could ask Frank Miller questions about the
character’s motivations, as well as getting more depth about the overall story.
Since then, more of Frank Miller’s stories have been adapted to both the small and big
screens.
He continues to publish new comics on a regular basis.
At 62 years old, he is far from retiring anytime soon.
In 2018, Netflix ordered his series called Cursed, which is a dark re-imagining of the
King Arthur legend.
Even though he is still making new material, he has already reached legendary status.
In a lot of ways, his images define a generation.
Today, his work has been on display in a number of art museums, including the Norman Rockwell
Museum, and even The Louvre in Paris.
The work of the young man who was told that he wasn’t good enough is now next to some
of the greatest artists in the world.
The cherry on top of all of this success is that Frank Miller has made quite a lot of
money, too.
He has an estimated net worth of $45 million.
He earned his fortune by doing what he loved, and doing it extremely well.