Frank Miller

The Hard Goodbye (Sin City, Book 1: Second Edition)

Sin City, Vol. 4

Nicole Dykeman

This graphic novel is the definition of toxic masculinity. If I could give it negative stars, I would.

Brianna Best

First reaction after finishing:  


Alright, sit down my little fish guppies and let me tell you a think about this first volume of Sin City. If you're into antiheroes, a fair amount of murder and blood, huge hulking men who would go bat-shit crazy over the death of a very kind prostitute and then the ensuing murder spree, this graphic novel is for you. Not only does it have all of that, plus a lesbian parole officer who looks pretty buff in some of the panels. 
 

Now for some pretty important thing my beautiful butterflies: I want you to go forth and prosper, enjoying this lovely piece of artistic and literature ass but I do not want you to go forth if there might be something in it that would put you in a bit of a frenzy so I'm going to list some things that you might wanna watch out for because I just want you all to be little safe blanket burritos while indulging in the luscious pastime that is reading. If I miss one, you're welcome to point it out in a friendly manner and I will be more than happy to amend but the trigger warnings that I noticed could/might be: nudity, sex, blood, murder, cannibalism, lesbian slur, a fuckton of blood, and more death. So little book lovers, if any of these might be prone to making you uncomfortable, you might want to do a little more research on the content or decide this just isn't for you, which is also fine!

After finishing it, my initial reaction was to give this a 4.5 out of 5 because of how much the story drew me in and affected me, which does count for something, but after calming down a bit, I think this is more a 4 out of 5 for me. I don't say that at all because it's not as good as I initially thought, but just because the excitement of finishing it doused everything in the warm afterglow (even though the ending isn't terribly warm) of finishing a wonderful story. There are some things that could have bumped it up to five stars, but we'll get to that later, don't you worry. I did really enjoy this though, and I will be picking up the second one as soon as I can justify spending more money on graphic novels. That's it for the non-spoilery part! Goodbye non-spoilerly friends! And those who have read it or if you want to be spoiled, I don't know your life, see you below.
 

 Let's take this book apart like those beautifully made wedding cakes you just want to dive right into. First: the outside. 
 LOOK AT THIS COVER? This cover is a white and black gorgeous minimalistic piece of cake right here that I just wanted to devour it the moment I saw it. Maybe some people can honestly say that the outside of a book doesn't influence the way they perceive a book, and I wish I could be like you if you're one of those people, but I am mostly certainly not. This cover, however, made me want to read it. And then! THEN! All of the story is in black and white!


 Look at how beautiful this! It really adds to the noir atmosphere and I honestly don't think that the story would have been the same without that aura to really push the reader into the mood. You just take one look at the page, and you know instantly what to expect and how you should feel about it. It's interesting to note, too, that in Sin City, everything is presented as black and white. Hm? Hm???????????
 

Now on TOP of that, can we talk about the actual writing? Maybe it's because I have not read a very wide range of comics/graphic novels and don't have a huge lexicon of knowledge to compare it to, but something I instantly noticed about the writing is how profound it is. We'll get to characters later, and while I may not have liked Marv's choice of words all the time ("dyke" comes quickly to mind), his voice was irrefutable. Even though sometimes he was thinking/narrating the most profound things, it was him still, and that, my lovely bookies, is good writing. Some of my favourite pages/examples of this below:
 
 
I just can't get over how good the writing is, and the voice inside the writing. And Marv may not be my favourite character of all time, but that is what's great about fiction. You don't have to want to be friends with someone to love them or their voice in fiction, even if I did find him problematic when he called Lucille a dyke, and kept going on about how he didn't understand why she was gay because she had such good hardware. I find that a tad sexist, but thankfully I, personally, don't get the vibe that it's Frank Miller's view. It could very well be, but those type of thoughts seem so in tune with who Marv is that it's hard to point to the entire comic and say that it's sexist. And I don't think it is. Other people might find the way he treats the women throughout the novel more problematic than I did, but all in all I was very pleasantly surprised. There's even representation! Lucille is gay! And the hookers aren't blamed or demonized! I am so happy about this fact, y'all. There was only one thing I actually found myself squinting at like "I can't believe this" and that's this panel:


 No woman looks like this when she's sleeping and/or dead. Goldie most likely would not have been in this position while she was sleeping, so if Kevin had snuck up on her and killed her without her even waking up, this wouldn't be plausible. If he had woken her up, albeit quietly, she would have struggled. Women do not preen like this almost ever, in my experience (as a woman and as friends of them; if you do, yay! Good for you! I'm happy for you; I wish I had the body to preen like that.) But this is unrealistic. Please stop fucking sexualizing everything a god damn woman does, including dying. We're going to ignore the fact that this story was based off man-pain because of the amount of female characters in it that were, I think, well-rounded and well-portrayed. Except that they're almost always naked or in risque clothing. I understand the prostitutes clothing choices, and the parole officer sleeping naked maybe because they're in a desert, but I sincerely wish this panel hadn't been included. There is nothing sexual about a woman dying, even a prostitute, and I don't mean to rain on any parade's here, but it is exhausting to enjoy something so much and still be met with these unrealistic, harmful depictions of women. Do not romanticise something like this. Do not sexualise it. It's also frankly ridiculous. That was my biggest problem with this book. 

That said, all the characters seem to be very much their own person, for which I'm grateful. The things that could have bumped this up to a five were: more depth into the other characters (will probably happen in later volumes I am holding out hope) and the exclusion of that one panel. Ew. BUT A SOLID FOUR STAR BOOK. I'm so happy I read this.

A Dame to Kill For (Sin City, Book 2: Second Edition)

Erin 

I read this for a film class, so I don't feel like its completely fair to rip into it, because I am well aware it isn't something I would pick up on my own. I will say this, however - graphic novels require some serious skill in the drawing department, even if the dialogue and storyline are sub-par.

The Hard Goodbye (Sin City, Book 1: Second Edition)

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