Frank Miller’s RONIN

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Nothing was more instrumental in getting me back into comic books than Frank Miller’s RONIN from 1983– still in High School, I had moved into advanced art classes where I focused on Oil Painting, Silk Screening and Architecture. I fell in love with Perspective and it’s math based roots and had dismissed comics as “kiddie stuff”.

RONIN changed all that with innovative art and amazing color by Frank Miller and his longtime partner Lynn Varley.

Some 40 years later Miller did a sequel with artists Philip Tan, Daniel Henriques and others this time in a black and white Manga style which I took with me on the plane to Florida, determined after buying this almost two years ago to sit down and give it a read.

I’ll be honest with you, RONIN was such a deep concept it took me several read throughs and more than enough cliff notes to help me understand some of the bigger ideas in it.

With this sequel, those ideas are played out further and while I’d say the art is spectacular it’s far less innovative than Miller’s work from 1983- I also missed the beautiful colors of the original. But it stands on it’s own as a worthy sequel to the grand epic of the original.

Recommended.

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