It’s the early nineties. Legendary comic book artist Frank Miller had just broken away from the major publishers, after creating titles like Daredevil: Born Again, Ronin, and The Dark Knight Returns. He was now working with the then-young Dark Horse Comics, when he decided to take his baby there – a comic he had planned to do for years: a crime story in black and white. Sin City.
So, Frank got to work. After creating a first round of drawings, he showed them to Dick Giordano, a comic book artist and editor at DC Comics. Giordano studied the pages and said: “I’m looking at the stuff you’re doing and I’m thinking about one of the old guys […] and he was doing stuff kinda like yours. Only, eventually, he started laying in all the black areas first and put the lines in later – and he found that he didn’t need so many lines.”
Frank Miller went home, and the real look of Sin City was born. Stark, high-contrast, with bold blacks dominating the page and minimal linework.
And he worked that way ever since.
Imagine, Frank hadn’t asked.
He could have kept his head down, working away on his own. He could have worried about bruising his ego or getting an answer he didn’t like. Instead, he sought out someone whose opinion he valued and genuinely listened to the answer.
Asking for feedback is one thing. Being truly open to the answer is another. It requires something uncomfortable: the willingness to challenge your own assumptions about what’s working, what’s good enough, what’s right. That’s why sometimes, asking someone what they think of your work can feel daunting. You have to be open for whatever the answer will be. But this is also where growth is.
Frank Millers work is characterised by constant growth. His style constantly evolved as he let in new influences, from Mœbius to the way Japanese comics work with time and movement. And that’s because he was always ready to change direction, to kill his darlings, to question what he thought he knew.
At the end of a wonderful conversation with Tim Ferris, Frank Miller was asked what message he would put on a billboard seen by billions of people. His answer revealed the philosophy behind moments like that meeting with Dick Giordano:
”Ask every question.”
and
“Challenge. When you are confronted with things that everybody says, be ready to challenge some things.”
Sometimes, that also means challenging the voice in your head that says, “this is fine as it is.” The one that resists asking for feedback because you might have to admit you were wrong.
Frank Miller’s Sin City – and his signature style going forward – exists because he was willing to be wrong about his first draft. What exists in your first draft that you are ready to challenge?
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This is post 18 of Blogtober 2025.
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