Retro-view
FRANK MILLER’S 300: THIS AIN’T DAD’S CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED
REV. ROBERT J. MURRAY
When I was just a lad we went to my grandparents’ farm in Prince Edward Island every summer. On the first rainy day my brother and I would go rooting under the eaves in the farmhouse attic for a smelly old cardboard box full of comic books, our father’s comics from his childhood. There were lots of Westerns: Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers, and Lash Larue. There was some early CanCon, Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, crappy kids’ comics like Casper the Friendly Ghost and Donald Duck, and even a horror comic or two.
A mongst the riff-raff in that smelly cardboard box were some comics that were obviously used to travelling in different circles. Classics Illustrated were thick and stolidly literal renderings of great novels like Robinson Crusoe and A Tale of Two Cities. They were intended to “improve” the little reprobates who commonly read comics by exposing them to the great themes of classic literature. I read them (when I had read everything else), and some of the scenes have stuck with me. “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done”: that’s pretty heady stuff for comics.
I have never lost my love for comic books and the recent comic renaissance has been a real joy. I don’t believe that comics have ever enjoyed better writing, better art and more serious devotion to the craft than they do now. Last year I joined our local public library’s book selection committee and I’ve been trying to stretch the committee’s definition of “book” to include fun stuff like comics, which I have disingenuously presented to them as “graphic novels.”
Recently, the committee accepted my suggestion that we purchase Frank Miller’s 300. The title refers to the 300 Spartans who fought to their deaths in 480 BC against a Persian Army of over 400,000 soldiers in the narrow mountain pass of Thermopylae, the “Hot Gates.” I told the committee that it was based on Herodotus’ Histories and that it might even “improve” the sorts of people who commonly read comics.
Published in 1999, 300 has been overshadowed by Miller’s Sin City and some outstanding series for DC’s Batman industry. The subject matter is perfectly suited to Miller’s writing and art. Nothing brings out the muse in Miller like a brutal story of pitiless slaughter. He didn’t even have to make this one up. The superb work of Miller’s ex, colourist Lynn Varley, reinforces the gore and builds the atmosphere with subtle and beautiful painterly effects. Every panel of this epic story is a colour two-page spread. Collected into hardcover, and printed without gutters on nice stock, the panoramic pages are succulent. This ain’t dad’s Classics Illustrated though; a profusion of penises — Spartans didn’t bother much about fashion or clothes — pages gorily bestrewn with body parts, impaling, slashing, hacking, and other ugliness will ensure that this one ends up in the “adult” section of the library.
I did have a few quibbles with some of Miller’s artistic and literary choices. Xerxes and the Persians look like they just drifted in from Burning Man with their eyebrow piercings and funky asymmetric scifi haberdashery. Miller also decided to exercise his prodigious monsterdrawing skills by inventing a back story for the traitor Ephialtes, the man who showed the Persians the back door that resulted in Spartan defeat. With no evidence from the historical record, the traitor has become a misshapen cripple who betrayed his own people because he couldn’t measure up to the Greek ideal of the perfect body. There’s also a little too much naked manly posturing in front of overly effeminate Persians. They’re Greek. Who are they trying to fool? I shouldn’t end with criticism though; I thoroughly enjoyed this wellproduced, beautifully paced, story. A mini-bibliography on the last page can’t disguise the facts: this isn’t “improving” literature, it‘s a ripping good yarn wonderfully illustrated.
