Hard Boiled

Product Information

White illustrated wrappers with black titles display only mild wear, light rubbing, corners straight. More on that to come, because I suppose it is here that I should discuss what the book is about, although there’s not much of a plot to speak of.

The first issue picks up during Carl's previous tenure as a municipal tax collector, who is on his latest pursuit of a tax evader through an urban hell. Taking a cue from Ridley Scott's cinematic Blade Runner (using an smog-choked Los Angeles in the not-too-distant future, with a fair percentage of the overpopulation dressed like they're outcasts from a punk rock group), Hard Boiled presents a colorful but disturbing 'androids disguised as humans' sci-fi / action graphic novel.I don’t see much of Miller’s work these days (Xerxes was the last one I read), but this was a fun book to pore into.

It’s a musical thing – melodies and rhythms that push the narrative against the pull of the heavy visual bludgeoning. As the two parties battle each other, the old woman is injured and revealed to be a robot, which Carl seemingly destroys with a large grenade just as the police converge on the area. Hard Boiled has a post- Blade Runner human-like robots and consciousness plot, which might not be the most original of tales but is treated with maximum style and panache by Miller's sparing pen. The sequence ends with Carl's apprehension of his target, though the physical demands of the hunt leave his life in the balance. ps I think the only things I missed from the movie list were A Few Good Men (I was in the military, it’s a Hollywood idea of the military…pass) and The Bodyguard, which I skipped for the obvious reasons (bad writing, bad acting, bad singing).

So with a head full of painkillers and limited mobility I was in a unique state of mind to spend time in Geof Darrow’s hyper brutal and elaborately dense drawings. Of the 8 that are violent, only 2 ( Ghost and Dances With Wolves) take the violence remotely seriously. Frank Miller said that he had to change his whole approach to writing the book when seeing the first three pages from Darrow. The film will be a co-production between Solipsist Films and Hollywood Gang, produced by Stephen L’Heureux, Bernie Goldmann and Gianni Nunnari. Still, the main reason to look at this is to examine the artwork, and then only if you have a strong stomach.

The wire is wrapped around his body and head, shards of glass protrude from his scalp and face, and the fingers of his left hand (the right still clutches a gun) are bent at unnatural angles. As we re-read it in its entirety (which we couldn’t do for a long time when the book was coming out, as the third issue was so delayed), we can see that Miller and Darrow were creating a marvelous satire, one that pulls no punches and lets none of us off the hook, which is what the best satire does.In retrospect, it was a good decision on my part to go from “Ghost in the Shell” and the future worlds of Moebius to this three issue series by Frank Miller and Geof Darrow.