Sin City

FRANK MILLER/DARK HORSE COMICS

     If you want to experience the consummate vision of the most important creator in comics today, the man who brought gritty realism to violence and crime in comics, then SIN CITY is required reading.

     As breathtaking as the action is in the corrupt, black and white rendered world of SIN CITY, it is the motives for the various protagonists incredible displays of lethal violence that make this comics one of the flat-out best in the history of the medium.  Miller spares nothing in his depiction of a decadent, urban wasteland saturated with corrupt authorities and a rampant criminal element, and so much the better.  We appreciate the moral choices of his jaded characters all the more.  They are killers all by nature, but bound by codes of honor that refuse to allow them to leave their friends and loved ones in the lurch.  While all are tainted in some way or another by the corrupting influences of “The Town Without Pity,” they choose to focus the violence that consumes them toward eye for an eye type justice and the protection of those they love and are loyal to.  Yet, these characters are not knights in shining armor; they are as much a part of the world of SIN CITY as the evil they combat.  Living with their own regrets, sins, and failings, but still striving to fight on the side of love, loyalty, and merciless justice.

     In our real world of sterile, asphyxiating political correctness, in which the humorless, the phony, and the corrupt always seem to win out, the protagonists of SIN CITY are a lungful of fresh air.  They are often weak, corrupt, horrifying, and mean as hell.  The average person would not want to live in their world, but they are on the front lines between us and the truly evil, and they can’t help but get a little dirty.  They are the true good guys, and it’s nice to know that somewhere, even if it’s only in fiction, the good guys win a few, or at least take as many of the bastards with them as they can.

     The SIN CITY saga is available in a series of tradepaperbacks from Dark Horse Comics.