Frank Miller, Comic Book Legend — Creative Process, The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City, 300, & More

1. 0:00 – 0:32

   Preview.

   1. TFTim Ferriss0:00

      How do you tell if something is working or not working?

   2. FMFrank Miller0:03

      Whether you wanna get out of bed and do it or not.

   3. TFTim Ferriss0:04

      [laughs] Yeah.

   4. FMFrank Miller0:05

      I mean, it's not really a problem I have had-

   5. TFTim Ferriss0:08

      Mm-hmm

   6. FMFrank Miller0:08

      ... in so long I can't remember.

   7. TFTim Ferriss0:09

      How do you decide when it's time to cut your losses or get rid of something?

   8. FMFrank Miller0:13

      When I feel I'm walking down, like, a familiar road-

   9. TFTim Ferriss0:17

      Hmm

   10. FMFrank Miller0:17

       ... or somebody else's road.

   11. TFTim Ferriss0:19

       Yeah

   12. FMFrank Miller0:19

       You know? It's like when it doesn't get me out of bed. It's that simple, really.

   13. TFTim Ferriss0:23

       It's that simple.

   14. FMFrank Miller0:24

       This is my primary function on earth.

   15. TFTim Ferriss0:26

       Mm-hmm.

   16. FMFrank Miller0:27

       If I'm not enjoying it, then, then there's no reason to do it.

2. 0:32 – 1:21

   Aristotle's definition of happiness: Devotion to excellence.

   1. TFTim Ferriss0:32

      Frank, so nice to see you.

   2. FMFrank Miller0:33

      Good to see you.

   3. TFTim Ferriss0:34

      [laughs] And just got off the phone with our mutual friend, Robert Rodriguez. I'm sure that name is gonna come up again.

   4. FMFrank Miller0:41

      I heard him, yeah.

   5. TFTim Ferriss0:42

      [laughs] I'm sure that's gonna come up again.

   6. FMFrank Miller0:44

      [laughs]

   7. TFTim Ferriss0:45

      And before we even get close to Robert, thank you, Robert, for the introduction, I want to pick up on something we were chatting about briefly before we started recording, and this is Aristotle.

   8. FMFrank Miller0:57

      Yes.

   9. TFTim Ferriss0:58

      All right. Why did Aristotle come into the conversation?

   10. FMFrank Miller1:01

       Aristotle's definition of happiness was a devotion of all of one's energies along lines of excellence. And I, I believe that that is a general application that in an ideal life would apply to every moment you have. But it, it is a guiding principle to a creative life.

3. 1:21 – 3:12

   Tools of the trade: Blackwing pencils, India ink, liquid frisket.

   1. TFTim Ferriss1:21

      So let's then take maybe some of my, my props that we have here. And I'm gonna go to my phone because I was reading an early copy of Push the Wall: My Life Writing, Drawing, and the Art of Storytelling. And I took a lot of highlights, and I had to take photographs of my, my, the PDF on my Kindle to look at some of them. And I wanted to go through a little list. This might seem strange, but I tend to obsess on the specifics. These are some of the tools of your trade. Blackwing graphite pencils, white paint, India black ink, liquid frisket, erasers, and sable brushes. And then it goes through a description of a lot more. Winsor & Newton Series 7, mostly sizes three to 12, et cetera. A few questions that I wanna ask about.

   2. FMFrank Miller2:12

      [laughs]

   3. TFTim Ferriss2:13

      Uh, including the toothbrush, my trusty spla- [laughs] spatter maker.

   4. FMFrank Miller2:18

      Yeah.

   5. TFTim Ferriss2:19

      What is liquid frisket?

   6. FMFrank Miller2:22

      Liquid frisket is essentially glue.

   7. TFTim Ferriss2:25

      Okay.

   8. FMFrank Miller2:26

      It's, it, it, but it was first called that and used by oil painters-

   9. TFTim Ferriss2:33

      Mm-hmm

   10. FMFrank Miller2:33

       ... to, to create highlights. What the painter would do would, he would lay down strokes of this glue across the paint, then paint across it.

   11. TFTim Ferriss2:45

       Mm-hmm.

   12. FMFrank Miller2:46

       And then before kind declaring the painting finished, he or she would then, would then wipe up the frisket.

   13. TFTim Ferriss2:56

       Mm-hmm.

   14. FMFrank Miller2:57

       And you would have, you would have this sparkling, you know, p- piece of the underpainting showing through. And so it, it creates a very dramatic highlight.

   15. TFTim Ferriss3:06

       [laughs] Okay.

   16. FMFrank Miller3:07

       I like to use it with ink because it creates a, creates an element of chaos.

   17. TFTim Ferriss3:11

       An element

4. 3:12 – 6:32

   Sin City's physical creation at "twice up" size.

   1. TFTim Ferriss3:12

      of chaos. So you seem to be a, in a sense, someone who th- who, who thrives in chaos or by creating certain types of chaos. And this monster that I'm holding, for those who are listening and not watching, I'm, I'm holding something in my lap that feels like it's 20 to 35 pounds. I was carrying it around, walking through New York City, getting a lot of odd looks because it's, it's a rectangle about the size of an X-ray plate you would use to take a, a, a X-ray of both lungs. It's gigantic.

   2. FMFrank Miller3:45

      [laughs]

   3. TFTim Ferriss3:45

      Then [laughs] this is Frank Miller's Sin City: The Hard Goodbye. And I wanna just open this up, and I'm gonna read something from right inside. This is from Jim Lee, another legend in the space, another hero of mine for another time. I used to have his job at the same college as graphic editor of The Princeton Tiger.

   4. FMFrank Miller4:08

      Wow.

   5. TFTim Ferriss4:09

      [laughs] Found some old sketches of his in one of the desks, in fact.

   6. FMFrank Miller4:12

      [laughs]

   7. TFTim Ferriss4:12

      But here's his quote. "Even after 25 years, Frank Miller's Sin City: The Hard Goodbye showcases the full potential of the comics medium. A stark, brilliant chiaroscuro, it remains a defiantly timeless, handcrafted love letter to the days of old in an increasingly slick and digital world." And I segued from the tools because when I look at some of these pages, and I'll, uh, provide some of these as B-roll and so on. You know, looking at something like this.

   8. FMFrank Miller4:43

      Yeah.

   9. TFTim Ferriss4:43

      I'll just show that to the... I mean-

   10. FMFrank Miller4:45

       Mm. [laughs]

   11. TFTim Ferriss4:45

       ... it is a masterpiece. I mean, any one of these could be on a wall by itself. But this is sequential storytelling. And I have many questions, but one of them is about kind of aliveness and that channeling all of your energies into excellence because, and I think this came up in the documentary about you as well, American Genius, that you kind of attack the page. Like, there seems to be a real [laughs] kinetic channeling of energy-

   12. FMFrank Miller5:18

       Right

   13. TFTim Ferriss5:18

       ... into the page, which you can see in this particular version, the curator's collection. What did it feel like when you were making this that I'm holding?

   14. FMFrank Miller5:26

       Very physical.

   15. TFTim Ferriss5:28

       Very physical?

   16. FMFrank Miller5:29

       Yes. Sin City was a real breakthrough that way, 'cause it was the first time I decided to work so damn big.

   17. TFTim Ferriss5:34

       [laughs]

   18. FMFrank Miller5:36

       The book you're holding is the actual size of the pages I did.

   19. TFTim Ferriss5:39

       And so what is the size?

   20. FMFrank Miller5:41

       It, it's called twice up. It's four times the size of the published-

   21. TFTim Ferriss5:44

       I mean, that is-

   22. FMFrank Miller5:45

       ... comic book

   23. TFTim Ferriss5:45

       ... it covers my entire body on video. [laughs]

   24. FMFrank Miller5:48

       [laughs] Only about half of it. But that is the size that comic books were originally drawn-

   25. TFTim Ferriss5:53

       Mm-hmm

   26. FMFrank Miller5:53

       ... back like in the 1940s.

   27. TFTim Ferriss5:55

       Mm-hmm.

   28. FMFrank Miller5:56

       And over time, in order to pick up s- the speed of production-

   29. TFTim Ferriss6:01

       Mm-hmm

   30. FMFrank Miller6:01

       ... and just to lower the price of making comics They made them smaller and smaller and smaller until finally they decided they ought to fit into an 11 by 17-
5. 6:32 – 7:55

   The toothbrush spatter technique.

   1. TFTim Ferriss6:32

      That's [laughs] amazing. And toothbrush-

   2. FMFrank Miller6:36

      Yes

   3. TFTim Ferriss6:36

      ... I mention this at the end of your list. How do you use the toothbrush? Because I feel like this, at least in my mind, is one of the hallmark signatures in the minds of many-

   4. FMFrank Miller6:49

      [laughs]

   5. TFTim Ferriss6:50

      ... of, of some Frank Miller artwork is-

   6. FMFrank Miller6:53

      Yeah

   7. TFTim Ferriss6:53

      ... this particular element. So how do you use the toothbrush?

   8. FMFrank Miller6:56

      Well, what I do is the lid of a bottle of India ink has a little squirter thing on it.

   9. TFTim Ferriss7:02

      Mm-hmm.

   10. FMFrank Miller7:02

       And I squirt some of that onto the, the bristles of a toothbrush, run my thumb across that toothbrush, and, and it, it splatters across, an effect that could be texture on a wall, texture in the sky, splurting blood, whatever you choose to make it.

   11. TFTim Ferriss7:20

       You just kind of dragging your thumb-

   12. FMFrank Miller7:22

       Yes

   13. TFTim Ferriss7:22

       ... across the bristles.

   14. FMFrank Miller7:23

       Spraying it like you, as you would, as a child would.

   15. TFTim Ferriss7:25

       Yep.

   16. FMFrank Miller7:25

       What I love is that it, it gives you that lovely element of chaos across a picture.

   17. TFTim Ferriss7:30

       Mm-hmm.

   18. FMFrank Miller7:31

       A- across time, I, I would combine or replace that with simply snapping a brush across my wrist-

   19. TFTim Ferriss7:41

       Mm-hmm

   20. FMFrank Miller7:41

       ... which would create more of an elongated, stretchy-

   21. TFTim Ferriss7:46

       Sort of a slash?

   22. FMFrank Miller7:47

       It creates, again, something that's unpredictable but very organic.

   23. TFTim Ferriss7:52

       Mm-hmm.

   24. FMFrank Miller7:52

       That's just playing with the materials.

   25. TFTim Ferriss7:54

       Mm-hmm.

   26. FMFrank Miller7:54

       The,

6. 7:55 – 9:03

   Channeling impatience, anger, and violence into dramatic creative work.

   1. FMFrank Miller7:55

      you know.

   2. TFTim Ferriss7:55

      What was your motto, this is from the book as well, your senior year of high school? I think it was correct me if I'm getting it-

   3. FMFrank Miller8:03

      Get the hell out of my way

   4. TFTim Ferriss8:04

      ... get the hell out of my way.

   5. FMFrank Miller8:06

      I was impatient to leave school and get to work.

   6. TFTim Ferriss8:08

      Yeah [laughs] well, I mean, I don't know if the impatience ended there. So I say that as someone who's also very impatient.

   7. FMFrank Miller8:13

      Yeah, yeah.

   8. TFTim Ferriss8:14

      And it ha- it has pros and cons. And I'm wondering the visceral violence that is channeled into creating, say, what we see on the page in Sin City, the kinetic aspect of it is so palpable. How do you relate to anger? Using it, the right dose, if there is a right dose, v- channeling it versus being controlled by it. How, how do you think about that fire, maybe is a better way to put it, within?

   9. FMFrank Miller8:42

      I mean, anger is a good word too. It's an important and powerful component of drama.

   10. TFTim Ferriss8:47

       Mm-hmm.

   11. FMFrank Miller8:48

       I mean, drama is essentially conflict. If you go all the way back to, like, the Norse myths, but you can take it all the way from the Norse myths through to, like, Terms of Endearment or whatever else-

   12. TFTim Ferriss8:59

       Mm-hmm

   13. FMFrank Miller8:59

       ... those are all full of storm and dran.

   14. TFTim Ferriss9:01

       [laughs] Right.

   15. FMFrank Miller9:02

       And

7. 9:03 – 10:23

   What Jack Kirby knew about making comics competitive with cinema's spectacle.

   1. FMFrank Miller9:03

      comics are a purely visual medium, and also a not very on the face of it powerful.

   2. TFTim Ferriss9:13

      Mm-hmm.

   3. FMFrank Miller9:14

      Could, no way a comic book compete with the sheer spectacular firepower of cinema.

   4. TFTim Ferriss9:22

      Mm-hmm.

   5. FMFrank Miller9:23

      Cinema completely involves so many of your senses, and it involves images that are perceptibly real.

   6. TFTim Ferriss9:30

      Mm-hmm.

   7. FMFrank Miller9:31

      And real people expressing these emotions at you. And then when they want to do spectacle, they started proving it, you know, way back with D.W. Griffith, and se- again, sealed the deal with Star Wars.

   8. TFTim Ferriss9:44

      Mm-hmm.

   9. FMFrank Miller9:44

      Nobody can touch them.

   10. TFTim Ferriss9:46

       Yeah.

   11. FMFrank Miller9:46

       And they, they can outdo anything in stage-

   12. TFTim Ferriss9:49

       Mm-hmm

   13. FMFrank Miller9:49

       ... in any other form. So comics had to come out with, like, little Jack Kirby swinging and-

   14. TFTim Ferriss9:56

       Mm-hmm

   15. FMFrank Miller9:57

       ... just showing, "Okay, you know, we can't really do that, so we're gonna go even more crazy."

   16. TFTim Ferriss10:05

       Mm-hmm.

   17. FMFrank Miller10:05

       And, you know, he made up characters who could eat planets. In the case of what I've been after with my comics is to have the drawing itself be so emotional and extreme.

   18. TFTim Ferriss10:16

       Mm-hmm.

   19. FMFrank Miller10:17

       I'm trying to make it outact an actor.

   20. TFTim Ferriss10:19

       Mm-hmm. What I love about your comics

8. 10:23 – 11:55

   Will Eisner and The Spirit's influence on the US market where writer-artist duality is rare.

   1. TFTim Ferriss10:23

      is, first of all, I should just point out to people that don't know anything about this world. You seem to me to be an outlier on a number of different levels. One of which is that you're very well known for your art, and you are very well known for your writing. How common is that in the, in the US comic world?

   2. FMFrank Miller10:46

      It's not-

   3. TFTim Ferriss10:46

      In Japan, it's a little more f-

   4. FMFrank Miller10:47

      ... that common. It's-

   5. TFTim Ferriss10:48

      It's a little more typical. But in the US, where would you...?

   6. FMFrank Miller10:51

      It's more common than it used to be because it used to be almost not allowed.

   7. TFTim Ferriss10:57

      Mm-hmm.

   8. FMFrank Miller10:58

      There were a few exceptions. You know, there was Will Eisner, for instance-

   9. TFTim Ferriss11:01

      Mm-hmm

   10. FMFrank Miller11:01

       ... who was really outstanding in that he clearly ran the whole show.

   11. TFTim Ferriss11:06

       For people who have no context whatsoever, why is Eisner such an important figure?

   12. FMFrank Miller11:11

       I mean, he's one of the founding fathers, for one thing. Because he could do the entire thing. But other people could as well, but he decided to keep doing the entire thing rather than just becoming part of a factory. Of course, he ran his own factory, but that's a whole 'nother story. But ultimately, he settled on doing his one series, The Spirit-

   13. TFTim Ferriss11:33

       Mm-hmm

   14. FMFrank Miller11:33

       ... which was known as The Will Eisner's The Spirit. And even though he employed other people along the way, he always ran the show and supervised it completely. And as he got older, he started doing work that he did inch, top to bottom by himself-

   15. TFTim Ferriss11:49

       Mm-hmm

   16. FMFrank Miller11:49

       ... that was of much more personal nature, where he once again turned comics in a new direction.

9. 11:55 – 14:06

   How Jack Kirby blasted apart the panel grid (and a young Frank's mind).

   1. TFTim Ferriss11:55

      Let's explore other figures who have helped showcase the potential of this medium.

   2. FMFrank Miller12:04

      Mm-hmm.

   3. TFTim Ferriss12:06

      Through innovating, because I love this terrain because people listening may not be comic lovers.

   4. FMFrank Miller12:15

      Right.

   5. TFTim Ferriss12:15

      But there's some medium-

   6. FMFrank Miller12:16

      Mm-hmm

   7. TFTim Ferriss12:16

      ... that they're fascinated by.

   8. FMFrank Miller12:18

      Right.

   9. TFTim Ferriss12:18

      And whether it's in the realm of fiction and let's just say novels, whether it's in film, whether it's in comics, there are things that we might take for granted now that were not at all obvious a decade or two ago. And seems like a good time to maybe talk about Jack Kirby and how he impacted the world of comics. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was reading, and this is straight from your book, that for a long time comics were set panels, in a sense.

   10. FMFrank Miller12:57

       Mm-hmm.

   11. TFTim Ferriss12:57

       Right? And you kind of filled in the blanks to the extent that artists would sometimes get sort of pre [laughs] I don't want to say cut, but sort of outlined pages within which to place their artwork.

   12. FMFrank Miller13:10

       Well, they, they, there were a lot of various ways they restricted. I mean, it's, in various ways, and a lot of this happened before I was around, so I don't know. But I think the reason you bring Kirby up in this respect was he was the guy who came in when comics were all had either a nine panel grid or a six panel grid.

   13. TFTim Ferriss13:29

       Mm-hmm.

   14. FMFrank Miller13:29

       They were all panels on the same page. And more than anybody, he blasted that to pieces.

   15. TFTim Ferriss13:37

       Mm-hmm.

   16. FMFrank Miller13:37

       He was like our D.W. Griffith. He just ripped the camera off the floor and, and all of a sudden he would use two pages for a single image.

   17. TFTim Ferriss13:44

       [laughs]

   18. FMFrank Miller13:45

       For a kid like me, it was mind expanding. This one guy just kept coming back decade after decade after decade. I mean, he started way before I was born. I mean, he served in World War II with my parents, not side by side, but you know. He had several comebacks, and each time he seemed to reinvent, reinvent the whole

10. 14:06 – 15:40

    Push the wall and defy the code.

    1. FMFrank Miller14:06

       magilla.

    2. TFTim Ferriss14:07

       You have, seems like a few different guiding phrases. We have one, of course, from the book title itself, Push the Wall.

    3. FMFrank Miller14:18

       Mm.

    4. TFTim Ferriss14:18

       Another one that comes to mind is defy the code.

    5. FMFrank Miller14:21

       [laughs]

    6. TFTim Ferriss14:22

       Can you expand on both of these, please? Why these two?

    7. FMFrank Miller14:27

       The pushing the wall, or pushing the walls, is just comics have always been, been this strangely schizophrenic field where on the one hand you have artists and cartoonists, writers or such people who want to explore and try new things. The n- nature of these fantasies is, is exploratory.

    8. TFTim Ferriss14:54

       Mm-hmm.

    9. FMFrank Miller14:55

       But the business has always been very conservative. People who grew up on comics became themselves very tradition-bound. They would fret over things like what we call continuity.

    10. TFTim Ferriss15:09

        Mm.

    11. FMFrank Miller15:09

        Worrying about you're working on issue number 385 of Spider-Man, you can't contradict something that was done in issue 14.

    12. TFTim Ferriss15:17

        Mm-hmm.

    13. FMFrank Miller15:18

        Which is on the face of it absurd, because the character would be 85 if it had been around that long. And so you had this hidebound on one side, and this, this like enthusiastic experimental field on the other. I've always just wanted to push more toward to people looking for a future and for, and for, and for trying out

11. 15:40 – 20:27

    The ruthless mentorship of Neal Adams.

    1. FMFrank Miller15:40

       new stuff.

    2. TFTim Ferriss15:41

       How did you, and we're gonna jump around chronologically of course-

    3. FMFrank Miller15:44

       All right

    4. TFTim Ferriss15:44

       ... but let me see if I can find this particular paragraph from your book. It relates to a name that you will recognize, and that is, uh, Neal Adams. So [laughs] Neal was a hard taskmaster, utterly ruthless in his criticism. He was a godsend. I just want to read another paragraph. We'll get into the description of who this is, but you cold called his office. Is that right?

    5. FMFrank Miller16:11

       Yes.

    6. TFTim Ferriss16:11

       Okay. Cold called his office. This is when no one knows who you are, and then ultimately I think it was his daughter who answered the phone. She says, "This is Dad, we got another one."

    7. FMFrank Miller16:21

       Yeah.

    8. TFTim Ferriss16:21

       [laughs] Somehow you ended up in the office. You show him your work, and then, and I'll quote here, "He told me just how awful my stuff was-

    9. FMFrank Miller16:29

       Mm-hmm

    10. TFTim Ferriss16:29

        ... and didn't bother with using any sugarcoating either. 'Where'd you say you were from? Vermont? Go back to Vermont. Pump gas. Get married. You're no good, and you never will be.'"

    11. FMFrank Miller16:37

        Yep.

    12. TFTim Ferriss16:37

        End quote. "I gulped," this is referring to you, "and then asked, 'Can I fix it and show you again tomorrow?'" To which Neal responds, "'Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow,' he growled."

    13. FMFrank Miller16:45

        Yeah.

    14. TFTim Ferriss16:45

        [laughs] Okay. Who is Neal and why did you reach out to him?

    15. FMFrank Miller16:49

        Oh, that's Neal Adams.

    16. TFTim Ferriss16:50

        Yeah. Who is he?

    17. FMFrank Miller16:51

        He was in a way a one-man generation, because there was a long period where nobody entered the comics business because it didn't pay well.

    18. TFTim Ferriss16:59

        Mm-hmm.

    19. FMFrank Miller16:59

        And believe me, the common wisdom was it'd be out of business soon.

    20. TFTim Ferriss17:03

        Mm-hmm.

    21. FMFrank Miller17:04

        We'd just been through the horrors of the Comics Code-

    22. TFTim Ferriss17:07

        Mm

    23. FMFrank Miller17:07

        ... and the public humiliation and the, uh, self-censorship of that time.

    24. TFTim Ferriss17:13

        Mm-hmm.

    25. FMFrank Miller17:14

        And been disgraced going from a, a mass medium and being turned into a, a punchline. You know, a dirty punchline.

    26. TFTim Ferriss17:22

        Yeah.

    27. FMFrank Miller17:22

        And there were just a few people keeping the light alive and still doing these old titles like The Flash and so on.

    28. TFTim Ferriss17:31

        Mm-hmm.

    29. FMFrank Miller17:31

        But the books were looking pretty crummy.

    30. TFTim Ferriss17:34

        Mm-hmm.
12. 20:27 – 23:36

    The genesis of the Elektra and Daredevil "soap opera."

    1. TFTim Ferriss20:27

       Yeah. We're gonna hop around a little bit, but people need to read the book. They need to see the doc. But I know a lot of people have covered certain aspects of your bio. You first gained notoriety in the late '70s for your transformative work on Daredevil.

    2. FMFrank Miller20:44

       [laughs]

    3. TFTim Ferriss20:44

       Right? Now, I also, and this is pulling from the book, read a bit, and this is, I'm putting a character you'll have to explain, but Elektra in kind of brackets 'cause I'm inserting that, but now I'm quoting you, "Was the true genesis of my career in comic books." Could you speak to that chapter of your life that involved Elektra and what the significance-

    4. FMFrank Miller21:08

       [laughs]

    5. TFTim Ferriss21:09

       ... of that was?

    6. FMFrank Miller21:09

       Oh, I think that was because [laughs] I didn't come in as the writer on Daredevil. I just simply came in as a, as a, as an artist for hire.

    7. TFTim Ferriss21:17

       Mm-hmm.

    8. FMFrank Miller21:18

       And realized fairly early on that, that this was no way to do it.

    9. TFTim Ferriss21:24

       Why not?

    10. FMFrank Miller21:25

        Because the pictures and the words are one thing.

    11. TFTim Ferriss21:28

        Mm-hmm.

    12. FMFrank Miller21:29

        The words were obvious once I drew the pictures.

    13. TFTim Ferriss21:31

        Mm-hmm.

    14. FMFrank Miller21:31

        And, and I very quickly took over plotting the stories and so on. I felt that a, that Daredevil needed a, a counterpoint.

    15. TFTim Ferriss21:39

        Mm-hmm.

    16. FMFrank Miller21:40

        A, a femme fatale, and I came up with Elektra, but I realized I was gonna hold her back until I was writing the book myself.

    17. TFTim Ferriss21:49

        Mm-hmm.

    18. FMFrank Miller21:50

        And I did it that way.

    19. TFTim Ferriss21:52

        I suppose what I'm trying to unpack is, and maybe I'm overstating the importance, but was that sort of introduction of Elektra an important inflection point for you in some way?

    20. FMFrank Miller22:05

        Yes. Yeah.

    21. TFTim Ferriss22:06

        In what way was it important?

    22. FMFrank Miller22:07

        Well, if you look at those old comics, that's when, in a way, I started understanding what a Marvel comic was.

    23. TFTim Ferriss22:17

        Hmm.

    24. FMFrank Miller22:18

        And a, and Marvel comic isn't a story every month.

    25. TFTim Ferriss22:22

        Mm-hmm.

    26. FMFrank Miller22:23

        A Marvel comic is an ongoing soap opera that you're following.

    27. TFTim Ferriss22:27

        Mm-hmm.

    28. FMFrank Miller22:28

        And as soon as, you know, with my first issue that I wrote, it was called Elektra, and it was all about them. From then on, the whole thing becomes one sprawling, and I mean sprawling in both good and bad ways-

    29. TFTim Ferriss22:43

        Mm-hmm

    30. FMFrank Miller22:43

        ... sort of epic where characters come and characters go, but it's focused around a fairly small cast.
13. 23:36 – 24:49

    Story structure: Start late, end early.

    1. TFTim Ferriss23:36

       S- so for folks who don't have any familiarity, and also because I want to better understand it, I mean, there are different approaches to making a comic.

    2. FMFrank Miller23:45

       Yeah.

    3. TFTim Ferriss23:45

       And also crafting a story, right?

    4. FMFrank Miller23:48

       Mm-hmm.

    5. TFTim Ferriss23:48

       And so I wanna pull up something that I have here, and it's gonna take me a second to read, but I'd love you to walk people through this after I read at least some of it. All right. Everything starts with and proceeds from story. Some simple story rules. Number one, start your story as late into the action as possible. End it as early into the action as possible. Two, get your hero into trouble fast. That or give the hero a pressing problem to solve. "I work on the spine of the story." That's a phrase that I'd love for you to define. "Work on the spine of the story and figure out how it starts and ends, and then roughly plot the in between." And I'll just read one more sentence and then I'll, I'll let you-

    6. FMFrank Miller24:27

       Okay

    7. TFTim Ferriss24:27

       ... kind of fill. "To do this, I make notes and create scenes that will advance the storyline but allow room for digressions and narrative side streets." And then you talk about preliminary sketches and so on. Can you expand on this and just maybe give an example of how you would do that, whether it's with a book like Sin City or any other that comes

14. 24:49 – 26:58

    Trusting the muse over rigid methodology.

    1. TFTim Ferriss24:49

       to mind?

    2. FMFrank Miller24:49

       How I do what?

    3. TFTim Ferriss24:50

       How you actually start from step one in creating a story.

    4. FMFrank Miller24:56

       Uh-huh.

    5. TFTim Ferriss24:57

       Then proceed through that. Seems like also in the introduction that having a very good idea of where your story ends is a critical piece of that.

    6. FMFrank Miller25:05

       I knew at the beginning of Sin City that Marv would die.

    7. TFTim Ferriss25:08

       Yeah.

    8. FMFrank Miller25:08

       For instance. It's very important. Of course, that's, when I started Dark Knight, I thought Batman was gonna die, but-

    9. TFTim Ferriss25:14

       [laughs]

    10. FMFrank Miller25:15

        ... you know, it didn't work out that way. [laughs]

    11. TFTim Ferriss25:16

        Yeah. [laughs]

    12. FMFrank Miller25:18

        My methodology has changed over time. It used to be more rigid than what you just read.

    13. TFTim Ferriss25:23

        Mm-hmm.

    14. FMFrank Miller25:24

        I mean, I used to really believe there was a way and I was seeking the way to do it.

    15. TFTim Ferriss25:28

        Mm-hmm.

    16. FMFrank Miller25:29

        Now I do believe in letting a story nudge me in another direction.

    17. TFTim Ferriss25:34

        Mm-hmm.

    18. FMFrank Miller25:35

        I believe in trusting the muse more than I used to.

    19. TFTim Ferriss25:38

        How does that show up then in practice? Do you have, you know the starting point, you know the end of the story, you have characters in a situation. Do you draw your way through and then figure out kind of the narrative arc?

    20. FMFrank Miller25:52

        Well, yes.

    21. TFTim Ferriss25:52

        What is the proper blend for you now of-

    22. FMFrank Miller25:54

        Well, the, the thing is, is to-

    23. TFTim Ferriss25:56

        ... of structure and serendipity

    24. FMFrank Miller25:57

        ... come in and think of yourself as being the generator of the story, surely.

    25. TFTim Ferriss26:01

        Mm-hmm.

    26. FMFrank Miller26:01

        And saying that these are the pieces of, these are the pieces of clay and this is what I wanna do with them. But to realize that the artistic process-

    27. TFTim Ferriss26:14

        Mm-hmm

    28. FMFrank Miller26:14

        ... is not at its best when it's an egomaniacal process, and sometimes the characters talk back.

    29. TFTim Ferriss26:20

        Right.

    30. FMFrank Miller26:20

        And sometimes they know more than you do.
15. 26:58 – 28:32

    European invasion: Moebius and Forbidden Planet.

    1. FMFrank Miller26:58

       it.

    2. TFTim Ferriss26:58

       [laughs] Well, let's talk about picking and choosing, and specifically would love to hear, I lived in Japan as an exchange student and learned to read and speak Japanese largely from reading comic books.

    3. FMFrank Miller27:14

       Oh, so Kozure Okami must have kept you busy.

    4. TFTim Ferriss27:17

       I mean, I was busy reading all sorts of comic books with my little electronic dictionary.

    5. FMFrank Miller27:22

       I would love to read Kozure Okami in Japanese.

    6. TFTim Ferriss27:24

       Oh, yeah. It's, it's a different experience, of course.

    7. FMFrank Miller27:27

       I'll bet.

    8. TFTim Ferriss27:28

       How did you first get exposed to, for instance, Moebius-

    9. FMFrank Miller27:33

       Mm-hmm

    10. TFTim Ferriss27:33

        ... Otomo, any others you want to-

    11. FMFrank Miller27:35

        Yeah

    12. TFTim Ferriss27:35

        ... mention. How did you get exposed to those influences and who were or who are they?

    13. FMFrank Miller27:40

        The two main invasions-

    14. TFTim Ferriss27:42

        Yep

    15. FMFrank Miller27:42

        ... in America. Well, three. There was three, actually. The first was the English.

    16. TFTim Ferriss27:48

        Mm-hmm.

    17. FMFrank Miller27:48

        Because DC Comics started publishing Brian Bolland and Mike McMahon and all the rest, but they were the easiest for everybody to see because they were all American comics fans and, you know, the language was the same and everything. It started getting a lot wilder when Forbidden Planet Comics opened- [laughs]

    18. TFTim Ferriss28:07

        Man, do I love-

    19. FMFrank Miller28:07

        ... in New York

    20. TFTim Ferriss28:07

        ... Forbidden Planet.

    21. FMFrank Miller28:09

        Yeah. And when Marvel started publishing Moebius.

    22. TFTim Ferriss28:12

        Mm-hmm.

    23. FMFrank Miller28:13

        And then the floodgates opened because it was Europe just knocked everybody's socks off. It was Moebius, Moebius, Moebius, Moebius, Moebius. But there are the other guys too that nobody's paying attention to.

    24. TFTim Ferriss28:25

        Yeah.

    25. FMFrank Miller28:26

        Moebius obviously was a tidal wave that swept through culture.

    26. TFTim Ferriss28:29

        Yeah.

    27. FMFrank Miller28:30

        And he's affected cinema, you know, and so on.

16. 28:32 – 30:03

    Japanese influence: Lone Wolf and Cub's impact.

    1. FMFrank Miller28:32

       And for me, the other event was I had a girlfriend, and her father was a businessman who did a lot of business in Japan, and she tossed me a just, like, phone book that was a Japanese comic.

    2. TFTim Ferriss28:48

       [laughs]

    3. FMFrank Miller28:48

       And it was Kozure Okami.

    4. TFTim Ferriss28:49

       [laughs]

    5. FMFrank Miller28:50

       And I opened it and studied it and fell in and-

    6. TFTim Ferriss28:53

       Yeah

    7. FMFrank Miller28:53

       ... and, like, Ronin was born that day. And my storytelling style changed everything. And from that, I, I als- I helped bring the, the title over and helped with the Asian invasion. Seeing it all become so much more international has just been fascinating. And with the Asian stuff, you've got just a completely different sense of time-

    8. TFTim Ferriss29:15

       Yes

    9. FMFrank Miller29:15

       ... and, and space. It is the dead opposite of the European.

    10. TFTim Ferriss29:19

        When was Moebius sort of at his, his peak of influence? What, what would've been the timing roughly on that?

    11. FMFrank Miller29:27

        Oh, geez. I couldn't name the exact date. Certainly-

    12. TFTim Ferriss29:30

        Just decades

    13. FMFrank Miller29:32

        ... he's up there with Jack Kirby in terms of-

    14. TFTim Ferriss29:34

        Yeah

    15. FMFrank Miller29:34

        ... being one of those people who... It's like if you're listing Beethoven and Mahler and all that, it's, it's-

    16. TFTim Ferriss29:38

        I'm trying to figure out if the timing is such, 'cause I've, I've looked at tons of Moebius artwork, that Moebius could have-

    17. FMFrank Miller29:45

        When did Alien come out?

    18. TFTim Ferriss29:46

        When did?

    19. FMFrank Miller29:47

        Alien come out.

    20. TFTim Ferriss29:48

        Oh, Alien. Good question. I mean, it would've been post Star Wars. I was just trying to think 'cause, like, Moebius also a lot of his artwork makes me think of, like, Tatooine and some of these things in Star Wars, so I'm wondering what the directionality is.

    21. FMFrank Miller30:01

        Well, Moebius' influence on Star Wars is huge.

17. 30:03 – 32:16

    Cultural differences in depicting violence and motion.

    1. TFTim Ferriss30:03

       Yeah. Okay, great.

    2. FMFrank Miller30:03

       Without question.

    3. TFTim Ferriss30:03

       That's what I was trying to answer for myself-

    4. FMFrank Miller30:05

       Yeah, yeah

    5. TFTim Ferriss30:05

       ... because it seems so obvious when you look at it.

    6. FMFrank Miller30:09

       Oh, yeah.

    7. TFTim Ferriss30:09

       And to come back to the Japanese, the, the comic book that I use, it's m- it's not a well-known title. Certainly outside of Japan, even within Japan, a lot of Japanese people kinda scratch their head when I tell them what [laughs] it's called Rokudenashi Blues, which is, uh, Rokudenashi Blues, which is about high school gangs, which aren't really a thing, but they pretend like it is.

    8. FMFrank Miller30:33

       Uh-uh.

    9. TFTim Ferriss30:33

       And, you know, the bad kids wear different types of uniforms called chodan or, like-

    10. FMFrank Miller30:38

        Okay. Yeah, yeah

    11. TFTim Ferriss30:39

        ... anyway, and it's, it, but it's a hyper-violent, there are a lot of fight scenes in this-

    12. FMFrank Miller30:43

        Mm-hmm

    13. TFTim Ferriss30:43

        ... which made it a little less intimidating for someone who couldn't yet really read Japanese, right?

    14. FMFrank Miller30:49

        Right, right.

    15. TFTim Ferriss30:50

        So, so my translating burden was lower with this comic, and the art was spectacular. And what blew my mind, because I had read comics all the way through my childhood up to that point, and I was 15 when I got to Japan, like you said, it was how time and space and speed and motion-

    16. FMFrank Miller31:07

        Yes

    17. TFTim Ferriss31:08

        ... were depicted so differently, and how they captured, say, the swing of a leg or-

    18. FMFrank Miller31:15

        Mm

    19. TFTim Ferriss31:15

        ... or created the effect of blur-

    20. FMFrank Miller31:19

        Yeah

    21. TFTim Ferriss31:19

        ... was so captivating to me. It was unlike anything I had seen.

    22. FMFrank Miller31:23

        They could draw people relaxed so well.

    23. TFTim Ferriss31:25

        Mm.

    24. FMFrank Miller31:25

        You know? So much of the drawing in Lone Wolf and Cub-

    25. TFTim Ferriss31:29

        Mm-hmm

    26. FMFrank Miller31:30

        ... people aren't lazing around and stuff.

    27. TFTim Ferriss31:33

        Mm-hmm.

    28. FMFrank Miller31:34

        And even in combat, what they're capturing is the fluidity and grace of the movement. I mean, it's the opposite of Kirby, where everything is angles and, and force.

    29. TFTim Ferriss31:44

        Mm-hmm.

    30. FMFrank Miller31:45

        It's a very Asian violence, and in Europe you'll often see a very elegant, you know... Moebius's violence, when he went, when he went really violent-
18. 32:16 – 33:01

    Ronin: Shameless imitation and rebirth.

    1. FMFrank Miller32:16

       fascinating.

    2. TFTim Ferriss32:17

       How did the European and Japanese styles, uh, sort of that would incorporate Lone Wolf and Cub, influence then how your approach changed after that?

    3. FMFrank Miller32:30

       I was very young. I was in my 20s, and so I sat down and I did a book that imitated them shamelessly in Ronin.

    4. TFTim Ferriss32:42

       Mm-hmm.

    5. FMFrank Miller32:43

       I did Kojima with the samurai scenes. I did Moebius with the science fiction scenes.

    6. TFTim Ferriss32:48

       Mm-hmm.

    7. FMFrank Miller32:49

       Then I discovered Aki 食 用 and did him all over the place, and, you know.

    8. TFTim Ferriss32:53

       What was that experience like for you in doing that?

    9. FMFrank Miller32:56

       Oh, it was great.

    10. TFTim Ferriss32:56

        Did you find it energizing?

    11. FMFrank Miller32:57

        Oh, it was great. It was like any transition that big is a rebirth.

19. 33:01 – 35:01

    How does Frank know if something is working (or not working)?

    1. TFTim Ferriss33:01

       All right. I'm gonna ask you a lot more about Ronin, which I have-

    2. FMFrank Miller33:07

       Mm

    3. TFTim Ferriss33:07

       ... in my suitcase back at my hotel.

    4. FMFrank Miller33:09

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    5. TFTim Ferriss33:10

       But before we get there, I wanna talk about, because I believe I saw this in the book as well, like, effectively, if you're boring yourself, or if you're bored, you're gonna bore your audience.

    6. FMFrank Miller33:19

       Yeah.

    7. TFTim Ferriss33:19

       And, like, throw it out and start over.

    8. FMFrank Miller33:21

       Yeah.

    9. TFTim Ferriss33:22

       When do you know if something is working? And I'll, I'll pull out an example of what seems like something that was working. And a- what was the name of the colorist? Is it Glynis? Is that how you say her name?

    10. FMFrank Miller33:33

        Yeah, Glynis is, Oliver Glynis Wein.

    11. TFTim Ferriss33:35

        Right. So during some of the work on Daredevil, would call you up and say how excited she was-

    12. FMFrank Miller33:41

        Yes, yes

    13. TFTim Ferriss33:41

        ... working on it.

    14. FMFrank Miller33:42

        Yeah.

    15. TFTim Ferriss33:43

        That seems like a signature of something working.

    16. FMFrank Miller33:48

        Yeah.

    17. TFTim Ferriss33:48

        How do you tell if something is working or not working?

    18. FMFrank Miller33:51

        Whether you wanna get out of bed and do it or not.

    19. TFTim Ferriss33:53

        [laughs] Yeah.

    20. FMFrank Miller33:54

        I mean, it's not really a problem I have had-

    21. TFTim Ferriss33:56

        Mm-hmm

    22. FMFrank Miller33:57

        ... in so long I can't remember.

    23. TFTim Ferriss33:58

        If you look back at what you've ended up being happiest with or less happy with-

    24. FMFrank Miller34:04

        Yeah

    25. TFTim Ferriss34:04

        ... with hindsight 20/20, this doesn't necessarily mean audience response, right? Not talking about market response.

    26. FMFrank Miller34:10

        Right, right. No, I understand. Okay.

    27. TFTim Ferriss34:11

        Just, like, intrinsic working for you.

    28. FMFrank Miller34:14

        Yeah.

    29. TFTim Ferriss34:14

        I suppose what I'm looking for is just any thoughts for folks who have trouble throwing things away because they just have a high default level of excitement, so they get wedded to something and they're like, "I'm not gonna throw this away," and they have trouble killing their darlings or murdering their darlings-

    30. FMFrank Miller34:28

        Right, right
20. 35:01 – 37:57

    The critical reception of Ronin as a "broken nose."

    1. TFTim Ferriss35:01

       Ronin seemed like such an all-in-

    2. FMFrank Miller35:05

       Yeah

    3. TFTim Ferriss35:06

       ... bold adventure on a lot of levels.

    4. FMFrank Miller35:08

       Yeah, yeah.

    5. TFTim Ferriss35:10

       And this is lesson six in your, in your book, The Dark Knight Cometh: Smash Expectations. But here's, here's where it starts, and there's a quote from, uh, Rudyard Kipling, which is, "If you can meet Triumph and Disaster-

    6. FMFrank Miller35:23

       Treat those two impostors

    7. TFTim Ferriss35:23

       ... and treat those two impostors just the same." Now, here's the first part [laughs] that I wanted to quote, and I won't do the whole thing, but, "There's nothing like a broken nose to clarify the mind. As a creative experience, Ronin was a fascinating, exhilarating exploration."

    8. FMFrank Miller35:38

       [laughs]

    9. TFTim Ferriss35:38

       And it goes on. Why was Ronin a broken nose?

    10. FMFrank Miller35:42

        Because I got excoriated for it.

    11. TFTim Ferriss35:44

        [laughs]

    12. FMFrank Miller35:46

        I, I had an angry audience.

    13. TFTim Ferriss35:47

        Mm-hmm.

    14. FMFrank Miller35:48

        You know, people who wanted it to be like Daredevil.

    15. TFTim Ferriss35:50

        Yep. They wanted more of, more of the same from you.

    16. FMFrank Miller35:52

        Yeah. Yeah.

    17. TFTim Ferriss35:53

        Mm-hmm.

    18. FMFrank Miller35:54

        After initial high sales, they dropped.

    19. TFTim Ferriss35:56

        Mm-hmm.

    20. FMFrank Miller35:57

        And it was not the reception DC wanted.

    21. TFTim Ferriss36:00

        Mm-hmm.

    22. FMFrank Miller36:01

        Yeah, they were playing funeral music-

    23. TFTim Ferriss36:02

        [laughs]

    24. FMFrank Miller36:03

        ... and, and it went on. [laughs] And I'd had nothing but a run of successes before.

    25. TFTim Ferriss36:08

        Mm-hmm.

    26. FMFrank Miller36:08

        So it's...

    27. TFTim Ferriss36:09

        How did you feel after that? I mean, I've, I've, I'm not comparing my, my books to anything you've done. These are iconic pieces of, of work that, that you've produced. But I remember having my first two books succeed.

    28. FMFrank Miller36:21

        Yeah.

    29. TFTim Ferriss36:22

        Expectations for the third sky high.

    30. FMFrank Miller36:24

        Yeah, yeah.
21. 37:57 – 38:47

    The ruthless structure of The Dark Knight Returns.

    1. TFTim Ferriss37:57

       You lick your wounds. It's the end of the world for a little while, but then you do a postmortem.

    2. FMFrank Miller38:02

       Yeah. [laughs]

    3. TFTim Ferriss38:03

       And-

    4. FMFrank Miller38:04

       And you come out of it a better, you, yeah

    5. TFTim Ferriss38:06

       ... and you come out of it.

    6. FMFrank Miller38:07

       Yeah.

    7. TFTim Ferriss38:08

       And then moving into The Dark Knight Returns.

    8. FMFrank Miller38:12

       Mm-hmm.

    9. TFTim Ferriss38:12

       How are you thinking about getting back in the ring and working with this? You mentioned the structure as-

    10. FMFrank Miller38:19

        Yeah

    11. TFTim Ferriss38:19

        ... one aspect of it. Anything else that was important for you to keep in mind personally as you moved into working on that particular project?

    12. FMFrank Miller38:29

        I was into it. The complexity of it was something I had never attempted before.

    13. TFTim Ferriss38:34

        Mm-hmm.

    14. FMFrank Miller38:34

        There's so many goddamn characters in that thing.

    15. TFTim Ferriss38:37

        Mm-hmm.

    16. FMFrank Miller38:38

        And they're all moving in 18 directions at once. [laughs]

    17. TFTim Ferriss38:40

        Yeah.

    18. FMFrank Miller38:41

        And then once I was into it, I was into it. I wasn't thinking about Ronin or anything else.

    19. TFTim Ferriss38:46

        Mm-hmm.

22. 38:47 – 42:19

    Mutual elevation with "smartest fan" Alan Moore.

    1. TFTim Ferriss38:47

       I mean, it's a hell of a all-consuming scope, right?

    2. FMFrank Miller38:50

       Yeah, yeah

    3. TFTim Ferriss38:50

       So it's like you have to keep your hand on the wheel and-

    4. FMFrank Miller38:52

       Yeah

    5. TFTim Ferriss38:52

       ... pay attention.

    6. FMFrank Miller38:53

       Yeah.

    7. TFTim Ferriss38:53

       [laughs] Am I getting the, the timeline right that you were working on The Dark Knight Returns at the same time that Alan Moore was working on Watchmen, or am I getting that timeline off?

    8. FMFrank Miller39:06

       No, it, it was a little before, but they overlapped.

    9. TFTim Ferriss39:08

       They overlapped because that, they-

    10. FMFrank Miller39:10

        Yeah, they overlapped. I think they started affecting each other in subtle ways.

    11. TFTim Ferriss39:13

        In what types of ways?

    12. FMFrank Miller39:14

        I don't know exactly because Alan and I knew each other.

    13. TFTim Ferriss39:18

        Yeah.

    14. FMFrank Miller39:18

        We met while we were doing those two books. I had launched Dark Knight, and he was boiling over with Watchmen.

    15. TFTim Ferriss39:26

        Mm-hmm.

    16. FMFrank Miller39:26

        And his British stuff, it's just all over the place, and it was all part of this whole, I don't know what you could call what we did to the superhero, but it was-

    17. TFTim Ferriss39:35

        [laughs] Yeah

    18. FMFrank Miller39:36

        ... reconstruction, deconstruction, you know-

    19. TFTim Ferriss39:38

        Yeah

    20. FMFrank Miller39:38

        ... whatever it was. His approach seemed more to really go at the underbelly of it-

    21. TFTim Ferriss39:43

        Mm-hmm

    22. FMFrank Miller39:43

        ... and, and mine was to reconstitute, in an uglier world, to reconstitute the-

    23. TFTim Ferriss39:48

        The hero

    24. FMFrank Miller39:48

        ... basic, just the hero. Yeah.

    25. TFTim Ferriss39:51

        I know why this came to mind for me, and to give, give credit again where credit's due, Frank Miller, American genius, Silenn Thomas sitting about 15 feet away-

    26. FMFrank Miller40:02

        Glouring

    27. TFTim Ferriss40:02

        ... always, uh, always [laughs] making amazing things happen.

    28. FMFrank Miller40:05

        Glouring at us.

    29. TFTim Ferriss40:06

        [laughs]

    30. FMFrank Miller40:07

        Making ugly faces.
23. 42:19 – 43:24

    Robert Rodriguez: Angel of goodwill and generosity.

    1. FMFrank Miller42:19

       he showed up.

    2. TFTim Ferriss42:20

       I promised I would bring back Robert at some point.

    3. FMFrank Miller42:23

       Sure.

    4. TFTim Ferriss42:24

       And, and feel free if, if there's anything you'd like to dive into that I'm bouncing around and, and not-

    5. FMFrank Miller42:30

       [laughs]

    6. TFTim Ferriss42:31

       ... not hitting, let me know. But you described Robert as, as an angel of sorts. Why is that? Robert Rodriguez

    7. FMFrank Miller42:40

       Well, for one thing, is he's, to be around him, you're around a, a man of constant goodwill-

    8. TFTim Ferriss42:46

       Yeah. Very much so

    9. FMFrank Miller42:47

       ... and of generous energy.

    10. TFTim Ferriss42:49

        He's very generous. Just a quick [laughs] sorry to interrupt, but-

    11. FMFrank Miller42:52

        Oh

    12. TFTim Ferriss42:52

        ... people might find this funny. When I moved to Austin in 2017, the very first person I had over for dinner at my house, and I was very excited about it, was Robert, who I'd known for a while. And invited him over. He was on his way, and then I realized, "Wait a second, I have no plates and I have no silverware." [laughs] And so he brought over two plates from his house, plus silverware, which I still have to this day. So that's, that's Robert.

    13. FMFrank Miller43:17

        Oh, class. Class.

    14. TFTim Ferriss43:18

        That's, that's Robert.

    15. FMFrank Miller43:18

        Classy man.

    16. TFTim Ferriss43:18

        He's like, he's like, "Keep the plates and the silverware. I think you're gonna need it next time." [laughs]

    17. FMFrank Miller43:22

        Oh, my God.

24. 43:24 – 44:25

    Sin City film: Co-directing and the Director's Guild sacrifice.

    1. TFTim Ferriss43:24

       So Frank, you were mentioning Robert's generous spirit.

    2. FMFrank Miller43:28

       Yes.

    3. TFTim Ferriss43:29

       And I wanted to underscore something that I only learned after watching the documentary, which is that Rodriguez, as I understand it, quit the Director's Guild-

    4. FMFrank Miller43:41

       Mm-hmm

    5. TFTim Ferriss43:41

       ... so that you could receive co-director credit. I had no idea.

    6. FMFrank Miller43:45

       Mm-hmm.

    7. TFTim Ferriss43:45

       That seems wild.

    8. FMFrank Miller43:45

       I remember the day he did it. Yeah, yeah.

    9. TFTim Ferriss43:47

       Can you describe what happened on that day? What was it like?

    10. FMFrank Miller43:50

        No, he just told me he just did it.

    11. TFTim Ferriss43:52

        Yeah. [laughs]

    12. FMFrank Miller43:52

        They said you didn't have the, uh, what was the word for it?

    13. TFTim Ferriss43:55

        What, the credentials or?

    14. FMFrank Miller43:57

        It wasn't credentials. It was something along those lines, but he just grinned and said, "So I quit." [laughs] Because he didn't want anything to stand in the way of us just, just moving ahead. He knew that I needed the authority-

    15. TFTim Ferriss44:10

        Mm-hmm

    16. FMFrank Miller44:10

        ... on the set because they were his people.

    17. TFTim Ferriss44:13

        Mm-hmm.

    18. FMFrank Miller44:14

        And everybody there was, you, they, they were so, they were so loyal to him that he'd need to be able to bequeath that to me for things to really work the way both of us needed them to.

25. 44:25 – 49:09

    Working as a "two-headed beast" with Rodriguez.

    1. TFTim Ferriss44:25

       Mm-hmm. What was it like working on that film with Robert? How do you, how did you divide or mesh your duties?

    2. FMFrank Miller44:34

       [laughs] At one point, somebody in production made this ridiculous poster of the two of us as a, as a two-headed beast-

    3. TFTim Ferriss44:46

       [laughs]

    4. FMFrank Miller44:48

       ... because we were working right on top of each other the whole time. There was another point where we were shooting orders right past each other.

    5. TFTim Ferriss44:56

       Mm-hmm.

    6. FMFrank Miller44:57

       Although we were almost always saying the same thing. But there was one point where we weren't saying exactly the same thing, and there was Brittany Murphy-

    7. TFTim Ferriss45:06

       Mm-hmm

    8. FMFrank Miller45:06

       ... in the middle of her scene.

    9. TFTim Ferriss45:08

       One of the act- one of the actors. Mm-hmm.

    10. FMFrank Miller45:09

        Yeah, and, and there she was in a, as a scantily clad barmaid.

    11. TFTim Ferriss45:14

        Mm-hmm.

    12. FMFrank Miller45:14

        And she just tossed up her, I think she tossed her tray in the air and says, "There's two of them."

    13. TFTim Ferriss45:21

        [laughs]

    14. FMFrank Miller45:23

        But generally it was just, it was just a dream.

    15. TFTim Ferriss45:25

        Mm-hmm.

    16. FMFrank Miller45:26

        After a while, they tended to know which one to go to-

    17. TFTim Ferriss45:30

        Mm-hmm

    18. FMFrank Miller45:30

        ... for which kind of problem.

    19. TFTim Ferriss45:32

        The actors did?

    20. FMFrank Miller45:33

        Yeah. Oh, yeah.

    21. TFTim Ferriss45:34

        Mm-hmm.

    22. FMFrank Miller45:34

        And so did production.

    23. TFTim Ferriss45:36

        What were those different types of problems? I'm so curious.

    24. FMFrank Miller45:38

        Well, certainly anything to do with really the mechanics of making the movie was Robert.

    25. TFTim Ferriss45:44

        Robert, right.

    26. FMFrank Miller45:45

        But when it came to the internal workings of the characters-

    27. TFTim Ferriss45:47

        The motivations of the characters

    28. FMFrank Miller45:48

        ... the histories, or if they wanted to try something out, I could fairly quickly tell whether it was in character or not.

    29. TFTim Ferriss45:54

        Mm-hmm.

    30. FMFrank Miller45:55

        We would often just get together, the two of us, go over a bunch of stuff.
26. 49:09 – 52:12

    Favorite films.

    1. TFTim Ferriss49:10

       What are some of your, outside of the films you've been involved with, what are some of your favorite films, whether they are scripted, documentary or otherwise?

    2. FMFrank Miller49:21

       Mm. Ay-ya-yai.

    3. TFTim Ferriss49:23

       [laughs] Take your time. We're not in a rush.

    4. FMFrank Miller49:27

       I'm a big fan of old black and whites.

    5. TFTim Ferriss49:30

       Mm-hmm.

    6. FMFrank Miller49:30

       It's no secret, you know?

    7. TFTim Ferriss49:31

       Yeah. [laughs] Right.

    8. FMFrank Miller49:32

       But that's not just the, all of film noir. I could give you chapter and verse on film noir, but that's all over the book and everywhere else.

    9. TFTim Ferriss49:39

       Mm-hmm.

    10. FMFrank Miller49:40

        But occasionally I'll see an absolute masterpiece. Like, The Caine Mutiny comes to mind. [laughs]

    11. TFTim Ferriss49:46

        I'm not familiar with it. What is The Caine Mutiny?

    12. FMFrank Miller49:48

        Caine Mutiny is a World War II story featuring an absolutely brilliant Humphrey Bogart playing exactly the opposite of the kind of character you'd expect him to play. He plays an almost Richard Nixonian figure of a World War II destroyer minesweeper pilot who is completely paranoid.

    13. TFTim Ferriss50:08

        Hmm.

    14. FMFrank Miller50:08

        Fred MacMurray plays a character you would never expect him to play. This is not My Three Sons. This is Fred MacMurray as a very serious actor playing a-

    15. TFTim Ferriss50:15

        Mm-hmm

    16. FMFrank Miller50:16

        ... military lawyer.

    17. TFTim Ferriss50:17

        Mm-hmm.

    18. FMFrank Miller50:18

        And it's a study in paranoia on the high seas.

    19. TFTim Ferriss50:22

        What appeals to you about the movie? Or do you just get swept on it? Is it that these actors are, are doing what seems diametrically opposed to what people associate them with? Is it something else?

    20. FMFrank Miller50:31

        No, not partic- I just love high drama.

    21. TFTim Ferriss50:33

        Yeah.

    22. FMFrank Miller50:34

        And, and I, and I often do love to see an actor like Bogart play a character who, that you don't expect. Maltese Falcon typecast him-

    23. TFTim Ferriss50:46

        Mm-hmm

    24. FMFrank Miller50:46

        ... for the rest of his career. Before that, he played many, many roles which were often shifty, nasty little men. He played a paranoid killer once in an, in an adaptation, I believe, of a James M. Cain novel.

    25. TFTim Ferriss51:01

        Mm-hmm.

    26. FMFrank Miller51:01

        I love to see the actors when they aren't trapped by the audience's expectations.

    27. TFTim Ferriss51:06

        Mm-hmm.

    28. FMFrank Miller51:07

        The things that Robert Mitchum was capable of.

    29. TFTim Ferriss51:10

        Mm-hmm.

    30. FMFrank Miller51:11

        He was pretty extraordinary. But also, I like to see the movies that, that really were discovering what they could do.
27. 52:12 – 52:56

    Books and ancient history inspiring 300.

    1. TFTim Ferriss52:13

       [laughs] What artists or art forms have influenced the work that you do outside of comics themselves?

    2. FMFrank Miller52:21

       Well, movies.

    3. TFTim Ferriss52:22

       Mm-hmm.

    4. FMFrank Miller52:22

       A lot. And lots of books I've read. You know, that's me.

    5. TFTim Ferriss52:26

       Lots of books.

    6. FMFrank Miller52:28

       Yeah.

    7. TFTim Ferriss52:28

       What types of books?

    8. FMFrank Miller52:28

       Oh. Come on. I grew up reading Mickey Spillane novels.

    9. TFTim Ferriss52:32

       Mm-hmm.

    10. FMFrank Miller52:32

        And from that, you know all the other crime stuff.

    11. TFTim Ferriss52:35

        Mm-hmm.

    12. FMFrank Miller52:36

        And somewhere along the line, I fell in love with, like, ancient history.

    13. TFTim Ferriss52:39

        Mm-hmm.

    14. FMFrank Miller52:40

        And, and, you know, that's where I got 300 and all of that.

    15. TFTim Ferriss52:42

        300, right.

    16. FMFrank Miller52:44

        History is just, it's endless wealth. It's like everywhere you turn, there's more and more to get.

    17. TFTim Ferriss52:49

        Mm-hmm. [laughs]

    18. FMFrank Miller52:50

        It's ve- very breathtaking. You know, when I was a kid, I watched a lot of TV, but I don't now.

    19. TFTim Ferriss52:55

        Yeah. [laughs]

28. 52:56 – 55:13

    Hollywood lessons: The importance of working with the right people.

    1. TFTim Ferriss52:56

       Well, let's, let's come back to 300 and your other adventures in Hollywood.

    2. FMFrank Miller53:05

       Okay, yeah.

    3. TFTim Ferriss53:05

       What have you learned? Because I ask this selfishly. When I work on my stuff, I'm a control freak.

    4. FMFrank Miller53:12

       Mm-hmm.

    5. TFTim Ferriss53:12

       Complete control freak. And a lot of my friends are control freaks, and I've just seen a, a number of different train wrecks when Hollywood and the structures in Hollywood collide with a creative who has a story or something [laughs] that they view as their baby.

    6. FMFrank Miller53:29

       Man.

    7. TFTim Ferriss53:29

       I've just seen a lot of messes, and I'm wondering what you have learned about working in entertainment or Hollywood.

    8. FMFrank Miller53:36

       Yeah. Right. Oh. Well, I've got one overriding thing.

    9. TFTim Ferriss53:40

       Okay.

    10. FMFrank Miller53:40

        More important than anything else is the right people.

    11. TFTim Ferriss53:45

        Mm-hmm.

    12. FMFrank Miller53:45

        You know, the right people. It's like, when I've worked with the right people, the results have been, the experiences have been wonderful and the results have been wonderful.

    13. TFTim Ferriss53:54

        How do you know, for you, who the right people are? Because there are just so many slick folks in LA.

    14. FMFrank Miller53:59

        I know.

    15. TFTim Ferriss53:59

        No offense to anyone in LA.

    16. FMFrank Miller54:01

        I know.

    17. TFTim Ferriss54:01

        But man, do you get told what you wanna hear.

    18. FMFrank Miller54:04

        Uh-huh.

    19. TFTim Ferriss54:05

        And I'd love to know how you identify, having spent some time in the trenches.

    20. FMFrank Miller54:10

        I don't know, man. All I can tell you is that, is that I've been exceedingly lucky once, and I've been unspeakably lucky the other time.

    21. TFTim Ferriss54:21

        Mm-hmm.

    22. FMFrank Miller54:22

        I was exceedingly lucky with Zack Snyder.

    23. TFTim Ferriss54:24

        Mm-hmm.

    24. FMFrank Miller54:25

        Because in his case, it was, he was taking control. He was gonna do it. Okay? And he did a brilliant job.

    25. TFTim Ferriss54:32

        Mm-hmm.

    26. FMFrank Miller54:33

        In the case of Robert Rodriguez, that was heaven because it was the adventure of a lifetime.

    27. TFTim Ferriss54:40

        Mm-hmm.

    28. FMFrank Miller54:41

        When it's been more distant than that, it's been bye bye baby more. You know? It's been, hasn't been the same thing.

    29. TFTim Ferriss54:49

        More distant meaning?

    30. FMFrank Miller54:51

        That it just happens.
29. 55:13 – 56:02

    The partnership and guidance of Silenn Thomas.

    1. FMFrank Miller55:13

       exciting.

    2. TFTim Ferriss55:13

       So if, let's just say you created a masterpiece in the next 12 months that everyone in Hollywood's fighting over, how do you make some of the important decisions about who to work with? Do you call Robert and you're like, "Hey, what do you think about these people?" Do you call Zack Snyder and ask him-

    3. FMFrank Miller55:31

       The answer's right across the room.

    4. TFTim Ferriss55:33

       Okay.

    5. FMFrank Miller55:34

       I mean, Silenn Thomas runs my company, and she really knows what she's doing. And before I really hear about anything, she already knows all these people and what they're doing and everything.

    6. TFTim Ferriss55:45

       Right. Yeah. Good hire.

    7. FMFrank Miller55:48

       I wouldn't even call it a hire.

    8. TFTim Ferriss55:49

       Yeah.

    9. FMFrank Miller55:49

       It's a, it's a partnership.

    10. TFTim Ferriss55:51

        Yeah. [laughs] Well said, man. [laughs] All roads lead to Silenn.

    11. FMFrank Miller55:55

        Yeah.

    12. TFTim Ferriss55:55

        She's bowing in the background. [laughs]

    13. FMFrank Miller55:58

        She's waving us away.

    14. TFTim Ferriss56:00

        [laughs]

30. 56:02 – 59:12

    The clarity and creative rejuvenation of getting sober from alcohol.

    1. TFTim Ferriss56:02

       I wanna ask about alcohol.

    2. FMFrank Miller56:04

       Yeah.

    3. TFTim Ferriss56:04

       What is your relationship to alcohol? What has it done for or against you?

    4. FMFrank Miller56:10

       Oh, that's, I wouldn't call it an easy question, but it's a simple enough one.

    5. TFTim Ferriss56:15

       Mm-hmm.

    6. FMFrank Miller56:17

       Especially the way you phrased it.

    7. TFTim Ferriss56:19

       Mm-hmm.

    8. FMFrank Miller56:20

       Simple answer, against me a lot. For me, nothing.

    9. TFTim Ferriss56:26

       Nothing?

    10. FMFrank Miller56:27

        Nothing.

    11. TFTim Ferriss56:27

        Mm-hmm.

    12. FMFrank Miller56:30

        It's taken a long time to come to that conclusion.

    13. TFTim Ferriss56:32

        Mm-hmm.

    14. FMFrank Miller56:34

        You know, it's a, a big old aspect of my life. It, again, it's a genetic condition-

    15. TFTim Ferriss56:42

        Mm-hmm

    16. FMFrank Miller56:43

        ... that I allowed to get out of control. I would say I did use it to disinhibit me, and probably worked very, very productively because of it, and did stuff that was inspired, occasionally reckless. But the deleterious effects and the ways it's affected other parts of my life, no, it hasn't done me a goddamn bit of good.

    17. TFTim Ferriss57:15

        How did you stop?

    18. FMFrank Miller57:18

        I was coerced to stop. Silenn and others decided I was gonna die, and they arranged for me to be put in a place and watched.

    19. TFTim Ferriss57:29

        Mm-hmm.

    20. FMFrank Miller57:30

        And, you know, the time had to pass and, and, you know, medicines given and that sort of thing.

    21. TFTim Ferriss57:36

        Mm-hmm.

    22. FMFrank Miller57:37

        You know, takes a while.

    23. TFTim Ferriss57:39

        Yeah.

    24. FMFrank Miller57:40

        I will tell you this in all sincerity. This is not posturing a bit for either one of you. I'm having the time of my life in that respect. I mean, creatively, this is like, "Okay, now I can get serious. Okay."

    25. TFTim Ferriss57:55

        Yeah.

    26. FMFrank Miller57:55

        For one thing is what happens when you get off the sauce-

    27. TFTim Ferriss57:59

        Mm

    28. FMFrank Miller57:59

        ... I imagine any addiction's like this. You don't realize how much anger that i- it's been bottled up in it. [laughs]

    29. TFTim Ferriss58:08

        Hmm.

    30. FMFrank Miller58:09

        And how what you thought was fuel-
31. 59:12 – 1:00:46

    Advice for aspiring comic artists: Story, story, story.

    1. TFTim Ferriss59:12

       What advice would you give to a dedicated novice who's looking to get into comics? And this-

    2. FMFrank Miller59:23

       [laughs] I thought you were, look, looking to get into drinking.

    3. TFTim Ferriss59:25

       Looking to get into drinking. Where, where should they... What's your favorite cocktail? Uh, no. Comics.

    4. FMFrank Miller59:30

       Yeah.

    5. TFTim Ferriss59:30

       And they're a student of the craft, they're obsessed, they're dedicated.

    6. FMFrank Miller59:34

       Yeah.

    7. TFTim Ferriss59:35

       They have the raw ingredients that maybe Neal saw in you.

    8. FMFrank Miller59:39

       Mm-hmm.

    9. TFTim Ferriss59:39

       Right? What advice would you give to them?

    10. FMFrank Miller59:42

        Part, it's what I said in the book, which is story, story, story.

    11. TFTim Ferriss59:46

        Mm-hmm.

    12. FMFrank Miller59:47

        First, think of it as one craft.

    13. TFTim Ferriss59:49

        Mm-hmm.

    14. FMFrank Miller59:50

        Think of writing and drawing as one thing, and it will become clear what it is. But beyond that, it's, cartooning is taking things that are complicated and making them quite simple.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:00:05

        Mm-hmm.

    16. FMFrank Miller1:00:06

        That's where your mind should be going more than anywhere else.

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:00:09

        Mm-hmm.

    18. FMFrank Miller1:00:10

        At this stage, complication is not your friend.

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:00:14

        Mm-hmm.

    20. FMFrank Miller1:00:15

        Convey information, but then learn that, I mean, pick up Scott McCloud's book on Understanding Comics, for instance.

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:00:22

        I have it.

    22. FMFrank Miller1:00:22

        And see how he breaks down-

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:00:24

        Mm-hmm

    24. FMFrank Miller1:00:25

        ... how comics work.

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:00:26

        Mm-hmm.

    26. FMFrank Miller1:00:27

        At the same time, pick up Syd Field's book on screenplays.

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:00:31

        Yeah. Good advice.

    28. FMFrank Miller1:00:32

        Get a good sense for a simple approach to three-act storytelling. You'll use it for a year or two, and then, you know, and then you won't be using it anymore.

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:00:40

        Mm-hmm.

    30. FMFrank Miller1:00:40

        But it gets you somewhere.
32. 1:00:46 – 1:02:31

    Learning to draw: Bridgman and Loomis books.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:00:46

       How do you learn how to draw? I, I think this is, I think this is in the book, [laughs] but Neal Adams- Telling you to go out and buy some toy cars so you can learn how to draw cars correctly.

    2. FMFrank Miller1:00:56

       That was great advice.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:00:57

       Great advice, right? What great advice. So what a simple solve. What a simple solution. How does someone learn to draw-

    4. FMFrank Miller1:01:04

       Learn how to draw

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:01:05

       Yeah. Let's-

    6. FMFrank Miller1:01:05

       Like humans. That's the ... Humans are the big problem.

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:01:09

       Mm-hmm.

    8. FMFrank Miller1:01:09

       You know? And oh, man, every dirty trick there is.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:01:13

       Mm-hmm.

    10. FMFrank Miller1:01:14

        I mean, I can give you some names of some books.

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:01:17

        Yeah, that'd be great. Please.

    12. FMFrank Miller1:01:18

        Okay. Let's see. Uh, George Bridgman.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:01:22

        George Bridgman.

    14. FMFrank Miller1:01:23

        Yeah. Okay.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:01:25

        Okay.

    16. FMFrank Miller1:01:25

        There's no E in it, in Bridgman.

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:01:27

        All right.

    18. FMFrank Miller1:01:28

        There is an, an E in George, but no George E-

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:01:30

        [laughs]

    20. FMFrank Miller1:01:31

        ... in Bridgman. And it's the complete guide to drawing from life. It's only about the figure.

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:01:37

        Why do you like that book? There's so many books on drawing. Why do you like this one?

    22. FMFrank Miller1:01:40

        Because he's at heart a cartoonist. He treats the body like a machine, so it's easier to understand.

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:01:46

        Mm-hmm.

    24. FMFrank Miller1:01:46

        You do get the gesture, but you'll have to bring that yourself anyway.

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:01:49

        Mm-hmm.

    26. FMFrank Miller1:01:50

        Stuff's completely non-photographic.

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:01:52

        Mm-hmm.

    28. FMFrank Miller1:01:53

        It's somewhere between the thinking of Michelangelo and the thinking of a comic book artist.

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:01:59

        Mm-hmm. That's cool.

    30. FMFrank Miller1:02:01

        You know?
33. 1:02:31 – 1:05:20

    Perspective as a mathematical trick and lie.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:02:31

       How did you learn perspective structures? How did you learn how to work with perspective?

    2. FMFrank Miller1:02:41

       The trick to perspective-

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:02:43

       Mm-hmm

    4. FMFrank Miller1:02:43

       ... is realizing it is a trick.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:02:44

       Mm-hmm.

    6. FMFrank Miller1:02:45

       It's a co- complete lie.

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:02:47

       Okay.

    8. FMFrank Miller1:02:47

       Perspective does not exist.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:02:49

       Mm-hmm.

    10. FMFrank Miller1:02:50

        I mean, it's an invention by mathematicians, so do keep that in mind when you hear about perspective.

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:02:55

        Mm-hmm.

    12. FMFrank Miller1:02:56

        So it's a device that you apply to a drawing.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:02:59

        Mm-hmm.

    14. FMFrank Miller1:03:00

        But you know that when you look at, down this, this room, that lines seem to converge and so on.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:03:06

        Right. Mm-hmm.

    16. FMFrank Miller1:03:07

        So what you do is you, you rough out the basic shape of what you think something is.

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:03:12

        Mm-hmm.

    18. FMFrank Miller1:03:13

        And then you converge a couple of those lines.

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:03:16

        Mm-hmm.

    20. FMFrank Miller1:03:16

        And they, they hit at a point, and that becomes the horizontal. And you can keep your vertical straight up, or you can give it a, an upper-

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:03:24

        Tilt

    22. FMFrank Miller1:03:24

        ... or a lower tilt-

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:03:25

        Mm-hmm

    24. FMFrank Miller1:03:26

        ... and so on. There are books on perspective too. I just don't know the names of them.

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:03:30

        Mm-hmm. But how did you de- develop your abilities with perspective?

    26. FMFrank Miller1:03:34

        Imitating other comic book artists.

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:03:36

        Yeah. [laughs] You know, I have to say, and hopefully this doesn't sound strange, but looking at this gigantic-

    28. FMFrank Miller1:03:47

        Yeah [laughs]

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:03:48

        ... beast here

    30. FMFrank Miller1:03:48

        The backpacker.
34. 1:05:20 – 1:08:06

    Dick Giordano's advice: Lay in blacks first.

    1. FMFrank Miller1:05:20

       Yeah.

    2. TFTim Ferriss1:05:20

       Uh, but this seems to access something different, and I'm, I'm wondering how you developed the economy of sort of elegant line use and use of negative space, like this use-

    3. FMFrank Miller1:05:35

       Mm-hmm

    4. TFTim Ferriss1:05:35

       ... of black and white. Because part of the reason I asked about the perspective is I noticed, which is something you can only really notice in something that's large format and produced this way, is all of the perspective lines that have been erased, right?

    5. FMFrank Miller1:05:48

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    6. TFTim Ferriss1:05:48

       There's a, there's a million perspective lines that have been erased-

    7. FMFrank Miller1:05:52

       Yeah. Yeah

    8. TFTim Ferriss1:05:52

       ... in this.

    9. FMFrank Miller1:05:54

       But the thing is that makes you feel the-

    10. TFTim Ferriss1:05:56

        Exactly

    11. FMFrank Miller1:05:57

        ... the way-

    12. TFTim Ferriss1:05:57

        And then, then you have something like this here.

    13. FMFrank Miller1:06:01

        Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    14. TFTim Ferriss1:06:01

        Right? And this, oh, if you can see this one I'm hitting with my knee.

    15. FMFrank Miller1:06:06

        Now we see how I got those arms.

    16. TFTim Ferriss1:06:08

        Yeah. Where you see [laughs] your mind is creating all the perspective you need to make sense of this as a three-dimensional experience in your brain. But it looks like probably 40, 50, 60 lines of perspective have all been erased. How did you develop this style?

    17. FMFrank Miller1:06:27

        I was early on in Sin City, and I was talking with, um, Dick Giordano. You know who he was?

    18. TFTim Ferriss1:06:34

        I know the name.

    19. FMFrank Miller1:06:35

        Yeah, he was a, a comic book artist for a long time.

    20. TFTim Ferriss1:06:37

        Mm-hmm.

    21. FMFrank Miller1:06:37

        Mostly known, known as being an associate of Neal Adams.

    22. TFTim Ferriss1:06:41

        Mm-hmm.

    23. FMFrank Miller1:06:42

        And he was looking at the early Sin City stuff. And you notice the early Sin City work has much more line work in it than the later stuff. And he was, like, the best teacher in comics, okay? He was ... I mean, he was a, he was a good artist and everything, but he was, he was a great editor.

    24. TFTim Ferriss1:06:59

        Mm-hmm.

    25. FMFrank Miller1:07:00

        He mentored Klaus Janson, for instance, and was a terrific influence over a lot of people. He said, "Frank." You know, real, real New York Italian all the way, this guy. He said, "Frank, I'm looking at this Sin City you're doing." And he said, "And I'm thinking about some of the old guys. And I'm thinking there was this old guy." Name's on my camera right now. And he said, "And he was doing stuff kind of like yours, only eventually he just started laying in all the black areas first, put the lines in later, and he found out he didn't need so many lines."

    26. TFTim Ferriss1:07:44

        [laughs] That's interesting.

    27. FMFrank Miller1:07:47

        I went home, and the real look of Sin City was born.

    28. TFTim Ferriss1:07:51

        Mm.

    29. FMFrank Miller1:07:51

        Because once the black was down, I went, "Hey, I'm more than halfway home. [laughs] I'm there, you know? I'll just add a few little things here and there."

    30. TFTim Ferriss1:08:00

        Yeah.
35. 1:08:06 – 1:10:02

    Sin City workflow innovation: Batch processing stages.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:08:06

       At what point did you also, it seems like, innovate with the, as I understand it, kind of start to finish, first to last page batch processing, where instead of doing-

    2. FMFrank Miller1:08:16

       Oh, yeah

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:08:16

       ... the penciling, the lettering, the inking, the coloring on a per page basis-

    4. FMFrank Miller1:08:22

       Yeah

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:08:22

       ... you're basically doing the penciling for the entire book.

    6. FMFrank Miller1:08:26

       That was Sin City as well.

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:08:27

       That was Sin City as well?

    8. FMFrank Miller1:08:29

       Yeah.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:08:29

       It's just so mind-blowing. Like, it seems to me, I guess in retrospect, that that makes, it makes so much sense to do it the way that you did it.

    10. FMFrank Miller1:08:38

        Yeah, I decided I'd do all the tissue layouts.

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:08:41

        Mm-hmm.

    12. FMFrank Miller1:08:41

        Trace them all off into pencil drawings.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:08:44

        Mm-hmm.

    14. FMFrank Miller1:08:45

        Then do all the panel borders.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:08:47

        Mm-hmm.

    16. FMFrank Miller1:08:48

        You don't wanna be around me on those days.

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:08:50

        [laughs]

    18. FMFrank Miller1:08:51

        And then lay on all the flat black areas.

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:08:53

        Mm-hmm.

    20. FMFrank Miller1:08:54

        What this would, did was it made it more fun every step of the way.

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:08:57

        Mm-hmm.

    22. FMFrank Miller1:08:58

        And it sped the whole thing up like crazy.

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:09:00

        It must have sped it up.

    24. FMFrank Miller1:09:01

        And it made the work so much better. It was idiotic. By the end of it, the line work was so spontaneous. Man.

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:09:11

        What is that first step that you mentioned with tissue?

    26. FMFrank Miller1:09:14

        I solved the basic compositional and drawing issues on a separate piece of tissue.

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:09:18

        Mm-hmm. Which is just a type of paper, the, the tissue.

    28. FMFrank Miller1:09:21

        Well, it's vellum.

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:09:22

        Yeah. Mm-hmm.

    30. FMFrank Miller1:09:22

        It's, it's, um, you know, it's not really a tissue. It's stronger than that.
36. 1:10:02 – 1:11:42

    Dark Horse Comics and creative freedom.

    1. FMFrank Miller1:10:02

       of work.

    2. TFTim Ferriss1:10:02

       Why did so much coalesce during Sin City in that way?

    3. FMFrank Miller1:10:08

       Well, therein lies a tale. [laughs]

    4. TFTim Ferriss1:10:11

       I love tales.

    5. FMFrank Miller1:10:13

       Because everything was happening. I had broken away from the major publishers.

    6. TFTim Ferriss1:10:18

       Mm-hmm.

    7. FMFrank Miller1:10:19

       Was working with the then young Dark Horse Comics.

    8. TFTim Ferriss1:10:22

       Mm-hmm.

    9. FMFrank Miller1:10:23

       And we tested the waters with each other with the Martha Washington series.

    10. TFTim Ferriss1:10:26

        Mm-hmm.

    11. FMFrank Miller1:10:27

        And with Hard Boiled. And I decided I was gonna take my baby there. And so I just decided, "Okay, it's time to reinvent the wheel."

    12. TFTim Ferriss1:10:37

        Mm-hmm.

    13. FMFrank Miller1:10:37

        Apply the stuff I've been told. 'Cause I said to Mike Richardson, I said, "Look, we've done two science fiction series, and I know everything is either superheroes or science fiction. I wanna do a crime comic, and in black and white."

    14. TFTim Ferriss1:10:54

        Mm-hmm.

    15. FMFrank Miller1:10:55

        And he didn't flinch, and so we were, you know, we were rolling with that.

    16. TFTim Ferriss1:10:58

        [laughs] So was it the ability to take that creative leap that seems like had been building inside you for a very long time?

    17. FMFrank Miller1:11:09

        Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    18. TFTim Ferriss1:11:10

        Is that the kind of inner creative unlock that then led to these various innovations? Is that, is that the way that you would think about it? Or was it other-

    19. FMFrank Miller1:11:20

        Well, one thing does lead to another, but mostly it's, most of creative work is problem-solving.

    20. TFTim Ferriss1:11:26

        Right.

    21. FMFrank Miller1:11:26

        It's not, like, you know, "God is speaking to me." It's, you know-

    22. TFTim Ferriss1:11:30

        Problem-solving

    23. FMFrank Miller1:11:31

        ... "How do I, how do I get that nose to look right?" You know?

    24. TFTim Ferriss1:11:33

        Right. [laughs]

    25. FMFrank Miller1:11:34

        It's that sort of thing.

    26. TFTim Ferriss1:11:35

        Yeah.

    27. FMFrank Miller1:11:35

        And in this case, it was how to get the look I'm after as efficiently as possible.

37. 1:11:42 – 1:15:03

    Economy of line work and elegant minimalism.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:11:42

       Yeah. I mean, the, I won't show it again, but I can pull it up [laughs] on the screen as, as B roll. But that right-hand page in particular of that female figure.

    2. FMFrank Miller1:11:52

       Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:11:53

       And the black kind of left portion of the torso, which is framed with black lining.

    4. FMFrank Miller1:11:59

       Uh-huh.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:12:00

       And the right side, from our perspective, framed with the white. I mean, just the economy, the amount of meaning that is transmitted with such a relatively small amount-

    6. FMFrank Miller1:12:11

       [laughs]

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:12:12

       ... of ink. I know it's, in some cases, a lot of black in the background.

    8. FMFrank Miller1:12:15

       I mean, a lot of ink. Yeah.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:12:15

       It's a lot of ink. I, I know. It's, but in terms of line work, that is sort of the latticework of the perception. It's just so incredible.

    10. FMFrank Miller1:12:22

        And in the early pages in Sin City, there was a lot of line work underneath all that.

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:12:29

        Yeah.

    12. FMFrank Miller1:12:30

        Towards the end, it was clicking along. Just that was what it was gonna be from the birth.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:12:35

        Yeah. Also something that, you know, it comes to mind, at least for me, in the, in the Japanese way of doing things, and there's a lot of variability, of course, among Japanese artists and so on, but it's very interesting how they apply detail, right?

    14. FMFrank Miller1:12:55

        Mm-hmm.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:12:55

        You might see a ton of detail in a small portion of a panel.

    16. FMFrank Miller1:12:59

        Yes, yes.

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:12:59

        And then very little on the rest. You might see-

    18. FMFrank Miller1:13:02

        I love that.

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:13:02

        Right? Or you might see a page.

    20. FMFrank Miller1:13:03

        It's like the Morimi approach too.

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:13:05

        Yeah.

    22. FMFrank Miller1:13:06

        Yeah.

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:13:06

        Exactly. And then you might have a page where It's very h- fast-paced. It's, the line work's pretty sparse, and then there's one panel that has a lot of detail.

    24. FMFrank Miller1:13:17

        Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:13:18

        And the beauty, and this comes also up in Understanding Comics with McCloud-

    26. FMFrank Miller1:13:24

        Mm-hmm

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:13:24

        ... is how much work the brain does really effortlessly between the panels, right? And how-

    28. FMFrank Miller1:13:30

        Well, it's where, all this also to where McCloud was applying-

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:13:33

        Mm-hmm

    30. FMFrank Miller1:13:33

        ... um, McLuhan, 'cause there, there's a lot of McLuhan thinking in McCloud.
38. 1:15:03 – 1:19:42

    On collaborating with Bill Sienkiewicz on Elektra.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:15:03

       fun. You know, I, I have to also mention, and I've wanted you to pronounce this name for me, I never thought I would meet you, but when, since I was a little kid, the Elektra that you did that I wanna say it was a lot of watercolor w- artwork. Bill, how do you say his last name?

    2. FMFrank Miller1:15:22

       Sienkiewicz.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:15:23

       Sienkiewicz. Sienkiewicz?

    4. FMFrank Miller1:15:25

       Sienkiewicz.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:15:26

       Sienkiewicz.

    6. FMFrank Miller1:15:27

       No. Sienkiewicz.

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:15:31

       Sienkiewicz. Okay, ish.

    8. FMFrank Miller1:15:33

       Sienkiewicz.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:15:34

       [laughs] Sienkiewicz. Exactly.

    10. FMFrank Miller1:15:35

        Think Russian. Pretend you're Russian.

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:15:37

        [laughs]

    12. FMFrank Miller1:15:38

        Pretend you're Russian.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:15:39

        That is a beautiful piece of work. I mean, I-

    14. FMFrank Miller1:15:42

        Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Pretty amazing

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:15:44

        ... it's amazing. And I don't-

    16. FMFrank Miller1:15:45

        And it was a berserk experience for both of us.

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:15:50

        Tell me, because that thing-

    18. FMFrank Miller1:15:51

        We had such a time.

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:15:52

        Such time? A good time.

    20. FMFrank Miller1:15:53

        Oh, we were like two 12-year-olds just making a crazy comic.

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:15:58

        What was the experience like, and why did you work well together? Maybe that's worth digging into a little bit 'cause-

    22. FMFrank Miller1:16:03

        Well, first of all, we like each other a lot, okay?

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:16:06

        That's a great starting point.

    24. FMFrank Miller1:16:08

        And it was one of those times that happened that y- you know, you live for, in that, in that comics had been very restrictive for a very long time.

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:16:16

        Mm-hmm.

    26. FMFrank Miller1:16:17

        Things like Dark Knight had started busting things open.

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:16:21

        Mm-hmm.

    28. FMFrank Miller1:16:21

        You know, Watchmen was out, and so on. And Bill had gone from being the guy who draws like Neal Adams to being more and more a guy who was pulling in Ralph Steadman and-

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:16:34

        Mm

    30. FMFrank Miller1:16:34

        ... doing all this stuff, and really becoming his own man.
39. 1:19:42 – 1:21:13

    Billboard wisdom: "Ask every question," and "Why?"

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:19:42

       Let me ask you a question. It may go no- this may be a dead end of a question, but I'm gonna ask you anyway. And this is, this is a question I often ask as we start to kind of wind towards landing the plane here.

    2. FMFrank Miller1:19:54

       [laughs]

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:19:55

       [laughs] If you had a billboard on which you could put anything non-commercial, right? Uh, metaphorically to get a message or something in front of billions of people, could be a statement, a quote, a word, an image, combination, what might you put on that billboard? Does anything come to mind?

    4. FMFrank Miller1:20:17

       Whoa.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:20:17

       A motto, a mantra, anything.

    6. FMFrank Miller1:20:21

       Okay, I'm gonna go very broad on this.

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:20:23

       Okay.

    8. FMFrank Miller1:20:23

       And just say, "Ask every question."

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:20:26

       Ask every question.

    10. FMFrank Miller1:20:27

        Yeah.

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:20:28

        What does that mean to you?

    12. FMFrank Miller1:20:29

        Just means that we live in a time for silence.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:20:33

        Mm.

    14. FMFrank Miller1:20:35

        People are leaving things unquestioned and unspoken.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:20:38

        Mm-hmm.

    16. FMFrank Miller1:20:39

        It's not a good line. I can't come up with a good one, it seems.

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:20:42

        I think ask every question is pretty good. We can take a couple s- bites at the apple if you like.

    18. FMFrank Miller1:20:47

        Yeah. How about just challenge?

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:20:50

        Challenge?

    20. FMFrank Miller1:20:51

        Yeah.

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:20:52

        Okay. What does that mean to you?

    22. FMFrank Miller1:20:54

        When you are confronted with things that everybody says-

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:20:58

        Mm-hmm

    24. FMFrank Miller1:20:59

        ... be ready to challenge something.

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:21:01

        Challenge. Challenge, push the wall, defy the code. If everybody says do X, if everybody says you must do Y-

    26. FMFrank Miller1:21:11

        Please say Y.

40. 1:21:13 – 1:21:54

    Challenging pathological conformity.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:21:14

       Y.

    2. FMFrank Miller1:21:14

       Y is a pretty good one too, if you wanna go with that.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:21:17

       Y is a good one.

    4. FMFrank Miller1:21:18

       It's just Y.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:21:18

       I guess they go together. Both of them go together pretty well.

    6. FMFrank Miller1:21:20

       Why don't you go Y?

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:21:21

       [laughs] Okay.

    8. FMFrank Miller1:21:22

       With the question mark.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:21:24

       Y, question mark. Ask... Where's the camera? There it is.

    10. FMFrank Miller1:21:28

        Or why's it gotta be that way?

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:21:30

        Ask. [laughs]

    12. FMFrank Miller1:21:30

        Why's it gotta be that way?

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:21:30

        Yeah, why's it gotta be that way? They all converge sort of in the same theme.

    14. FMFrank Miller1:21:35

        Just trying to go against an age of, of pathological conformity.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:21:40

        Yes. Yes. Often subconscious, too. Pathological conformity.

    16. FMFrank Miller1:21:46

        Yeah.

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:21:47

        Ask why. Why does it have to be this way? Also, with your own thinking. It applies everywhere.

    18. FMFrank Miller1:21:52

        Everywhere.

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:21:53

        Everywhere.

41. 1:21:54 – 1:22:57

    Parting thoughts and where to find Frank's work.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:21:54

       Frank, thank you so much. It's great to see you again.

    2. FMFrank Miller1:21:56

       Oh, this has been a real pleasure, man.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:21:57

       And everybody, you can find Frank on Instagram @frankmillerofficial. The website is frankmillerink, I-N-K, .com. And you can now pre-order, so absolutely check out Push the Wall: My Life Writing, Drawing, and the Art of Storytelling. I've been reading it. I'm gonna finish it over the next couple of days. Have really been taking a lot of notes. I also took a bunch of notes from this conversation. And we will have links to everything that we talked about in the show notes, as per usual, at tim.blog/podcast. Frank Miller will be the only Frank Miller. [laughs] If you search by name for guest, you will find this episode. And until next time, be just a bit kinder than is necessary to others, but also to yourself, and ask why, why, why. Thanks for tuning in, everybody.

    4. FMFrank Miller1:22:54

       [laughs] All right. [laughs]

Episode duration: 1:23:17