Frank Miller's Sin City Volume 7: Hell and Back 3rd Edition

Yes, it's a Frank Miller/Sin City joint. It's a graphic novel about Wallace, a painter who is very very good at hurting people, and Esther, an aspiring actress who has just been targeted by a vast conspiracy of white slavers. She ends up kidnapped, and Wallace ends up on a quest to rescue her, by any means. Like any distillation of a Frank Miller graphic novel, that doesn't do it justice in any way, shape, or form. We meet a lot of tangential Sin City characters in here--most notably Delia, the assassin in blue, and the leopard-print Mariah who works for the notorious Wallenquist. Miller seems to excel at portraying dangerous, dangerous women with breasts that make Pamela Anderson green with envy. But it's in his heroes that Miller really shines, heroes with serious honor complexes and hair-trigger reflexes. Heroes seemingly just designed for a punk babe's heart. I'm always a sucker for a love story, and Wallace, with his Converse high-tops and habit of being very dangerous (as well as sensitive, let's not forget sensitive) seems expressly designed for honorable-antihero status. The impetus for his war against Sin City's worst flesh merchants is Esther, who for some reason Miller drew with a distinct resemblance to Rick James. But that's okay, because it works, even if for half the story the reader can't figure out what Wallace sees in this aspiring actress. This is the longest of the Sin City novels, and in a way the most difficult, since it slides away from the territory of grit and pulp the other Sin City books cover with such devastating grace. It works best as a retelling of a fairy tale: princess kidnapped by dastardly orcs, the prince surmounting obstacles to rescue his lady love with bullets, brains, brawn, and sheer sickening endurance. Prince and princess ride off into the sunset, having escaped the stronghold of the orcs. Who knew Miller, the master of black-and-white had it in him to write what is at heart a rather gentle romance? Of all the Sin City stories, this one is my favorite. It seems that people either love it or hate it, and I'm firmly on the "love it" side of the spectrum. Yummy.

Sin City: Hell and back, in my opinion is frank Millers best sin city story yet. The story builds new characters and takes you into the minds of different people. Wallace, the main man in the 7th graphic novel is an artist, who basically sketches photos of nude woman. One night while driving his cool car around sin city Wallace saves an african american woman from jumping off a cliff and dying, hence the beginning of hell and back. Hell and back is considered by Frank Miller a sin city love tale. Probably because the story is based on Wallace's love for esther, aka the jumper. Hell and back is a good read!

This is a change of pace for Sin City in that Wallace joins Hartigan as one of the few heroes in the series. This book has plenty of fine artwork and some nice twists. It is a bit underwritten in terms of dialogue but the ending is the best of any Sin City graphic novel and is another triumph for Miller.

This is the latest Sin City title from Frank Miller. Although I personally don't think he's topped himself as far as the story since the first one, his art has gotten more and more polished in each title. The story here is pretty standard Frank Miller fare: dangerous, unhappy loner meets the woman of his dreams, complications arise, he kills lots and lots of underworld types to save her. This story ties in to several of the earlier Sin City tales with peripheral characters: Delia, Colonel, and Manute all appear in other tales. Like the other tales of Sin City, this is done in black and white; like some of the later ones, color is used sparingly to great effect. The use of color is more extensive here, but is very effective when used, always intentionally to call attention to a character or scene. If you've never read anything by Frank Miller, do yourself a favor and buy any and all of the Sin City titles, as well as Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.PS Several of the earlier reviews aren't talking about this story. Any references to "Marv" or "the handcuff scene" are talking about the original Sin City book, which I also highly reccomend.

Set in Frank Miller's dark world of "Sin City", his latest epic, Hell And Back, is to graphic novels what film noire is to the cinema. The dialogue is terse, the artwork is as powerful as it is gritty, the story is of an ex-soldier who aspires to be an artist becoming tangled up in the nightmare of a beautiful woman he saves from suicide only to discover that she is the target of an immense, powerful, and corruptive conspiracy populated by a pantheon of memorable (and sometimes surprising) villains. Forcefully illustrated in black and white, Hell And Back, is enhanced by a vividly colored segment totally appropriate to the story line involving a drug induced hallucination. Of special interest at the end of this outstanding, highly recommended graphic novel dedicated is a gallery of Frank Miller's work inspired by this particular story, and a second gallery showcasing the art of a number of artists inspired by, and in tribute to, Miller's "Sin City" world of death and desire, the horrific and the heroic.