Will Eisner: Well, you have to resist the temptation of having a movie made.
(from Eisner/Miller: A One-on-One Interview Conducted by Charles Brownstein, Dark Horse Books, 2005)
So far as Frank Miller goes, I’m in the camp that feels that his hard-boiled macho self-parody stopped being funny around the time of his second or third Sin City story. So, despite his friendship with Will Eisner, the news that he was to direct a Spirit movie was not altogether welcome.
And yes, this is old news. But I’ve just reminded myself that Miller has done creative work on The Spirit before. Back in 1981, when he was still the hot young writer/artist on Daredevil, he took part in “The Spirit Jam” that I mentioned yesterday, pencilling two pages to a Denny O’Neil script.
Just as Miller borrowed from Eisner’s Spirit for Daredevil, he has here borrowed what looks a lot like Josie’s bar from Daredevil and put it in The Spirit. The big plate glass window is doomed, of course.
“The Spirit Jam” pages were basically just a brief bit of slapstick done for the fun of it. But I still prefer them to the brutal mess used to promote the movie as if it was part of the Sin City franchise.
Panels and pictures
Panels by Denny O’Neil (writer), Frank Miller (penciller) and Terry Austin (inker) from “The Spirit Jam”, Will Eisner’s The Spirit issue 30 by Will Eisner, Kitchen Sink Comix, July 1981
Promotional poster by Frank Miller for the film Will Eisner’s The Spirit, 2006
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