Frank Miller on Push the Wall, Batman, and Having No Plan B

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
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**James Altucher** (0:32)
Go.

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**James Altucher** (0:36)
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**SPEAKER_3** (1:32)
This isn't your average business podcast and he's not your average host. This is The James Altucher Show.

**James Altucher** (1:49)
There's only been three or four times in the 10 year history of this podcast that I had the opportunity to sit down with one of my heroes. And in this time, it's the legendary Frank Miller. I've been a huge, huge Frank Miller fan since I was a kid. When I first picked up Batman, The Dark Knight Returns back in 1986, it completely blew my mind. It wasn't just a comic.
This was a revolution. On every page, my eyes were wide open. I couldn't believe it. I mean, Frank took Batman from the campy, colorful character I grew up with and turned him into something dark, mythic, obsessed, terrifying. He basically split the entire comic book industry into before Dark Knight Returns and after Dark Knight Returns. And every Batman movie you've seen since then carries Frank's fingerprint on it, whether the filmmakers admit it or not.
He didn't just change Batman. He changed all storytelling in comics forever. He brought mature, painful, epic arcs to the medium and showed us that superheroes could be real myths for adults. And just from a storytelling perspective, like I love telling stories, whether it's comics or writing books or writing articles or I don't know, just the way I live my life. I love good storytelling. Frank Miller is the master of storytelling. So getting to sit down with Frank, talk about the art of storytelling, his incredible career, his new book, Push the Wall and the Art of Creativity, this is honestly a dream come true for me.
Today, I'm here with the legendary, iconic Frank Miller comic book legend. And first off, Frank, do you feel funny when people just call you a comic book legend? Because you said earlier, like, oh, I'm always stuck with this one. I'm holding up in my hand, Batman, The Dark Knight Returns. Like you said, you're stuck with this one. And also I'm going to stick you with it too, because- Sure.
I feel like when you wrote Batman, The Dark Knight Returns, and this was around 1986 When you wrote Batman, The Dark Knight Returns, there was the whole comic book industry divided in half. There was before The Dark Knight Returns, and there's after The Dark Knight Returns. And just to say a little bit what I mean, every single Batman movie, whether you like it or not, everyone has your fingerprint on them. It has that Dark Knight fingerprint on it, or attempts to at least, I will say. And comics in general went from being almost like vanilla in their storytelling, like every comic was a full story from beginning to end, and then the next month would be a new story. You created like an arc, an often painful arc, whether it was Daredevil, Batman, Ronin, Sin City, and so on. You changed every aspect of storytelling in comics, art in comics. And so now you have your new book, which is sort of an autobiography, but sort of also a guide to your creativity. It's Push the Wall, My Life, Writing, Drawing, and the Art of Storytelling. Such a great book for me to read as such a fan from way back when. The first thing I want to ask you is Batman himself. I got to go to The Dark Knight Returns. I'm sorry.