Reviews

Absolute Ronin by Lynn Varley, Jenette Kahn, Frank Miller

darylnash's review

4.0

As I started to re-read this after some twenty-mumble years, I wasn't sure that it could stand up to Miller's later work, or to comparison with comics that have come since, but it turns out to be really good after all. The artwork is very unrefined, nothing like the smooth lines of Sin City, but many of his later hallmarks are here in their infancy--in fact, much of the techniques that would come to dominate mainstream comics are here--the splashpages and rapidfire movie-like editing without caption boxes, driven mostly by dialogue. Of course, Miller stole this from manga, but that doesn't take away from him introducing it to a Western audience. The story itself is a bit sketchy, but really, who reads Miller for deep prose? There are enough twists to keep one interested, and it's fun and action-packed, and that's enough.

krismoon's review

4.0

I'm just going to go ahead and assume that all of the plot points of Ronin have already been shared in other reviews, so I can just jump right in to the good stuff.

Ronin is classic Frank Miller in two ways: 1. Great story with some twists, and 2. The hero constantly gets the shit beat out of him. Personally, I thought the middle dragged a bit, but the end of the story makes everything worth it.

If I may make a suggestion: read the biggest (I mean largest surface area) copy of this you can find. While I very much appreciate Frank Miller's style, it can just look like a mess on a couple of the smaller panels, and I honestly couldn't make out what they were suppose to be.