Frank Miller on Sin City Future and Drawing TMNT Comic

Frank Miller is in one of the most prolific periods of his long comics career right now. The creator of iconic stories like The Dark Knight Returns and 300 is spinning up new projects and revisiting classic franchises, all while maintaining his own publishing company, Frank Miller Presents.

We were lucky enough to attend a roundtable interview at the Lucca Comics & Games Festival in Italy, where Miller reflected on his career and the current state of the industry, while also giving some updates on upcoming projects like Sin City: Blood & Dust and Invasive Species. Read on to see the highlights from that fascinating conversation.

The Status of Sin City: Blood & Dust

Miller released a number of Sin City comics in the ’90s and early ’00s. But even with the Sin City movies drawing wider attention to the franchise, it’s been quite some time since Miller has told any new stories in this seedy, noir-infused universe.

That’s finally going to change soon. Miller has spent the past several years working on a new book first announced as Sin City 1858 and now called Sin City: Blood & Dust. As the title suggests, Blood & Dust is a prequel set in the Wild West era and detailing the original founding of Basin City. It’s a massive undertaking for Miller, as unlike many of his current projects, he’s writing and drawing the entire thing himself. But it’s one that seems to be coming along nicely.

“I’m not sure exactly when the release date is planned for right now, but the project is very well along,” Miller said. “I mean, I’m most of the way through it, and it’s certainly all planned and plotted very carefully. And I’ve drawn, I’d say, about two-thirds of it. And so everything else should flow pretty quickly.”

When asked how he’s feeling about the project so far, Miller said, “Very good. Very good. It’s certainly a departure. If you’re going to take a break from a series for a long time, you might as well come back with a very different one.”

Teasing Invasive Species

Sin City: Blood & Dust is just one of several projects Miller is currently developing. He was asked if there were any particular books in the works he was especially excited to show to readers. Miller singled out Invasive Species, a new Dark Horse Comcis project that was announced at SDCC 2026 this past summer.

Invasive Species is a sci-fi comic that pairs Miller with artist Ryan Benjamin and colorist Alex Sinclair. Details about the book’s plot were scarce before now, but Miller shed more light on it during the panel, revealing it to be a microscopic invasion story inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Invasive Species is what I’m particularly charged up about,” Miller said. “It’s a project I conceived during the height of the COVID pandemic where everyone was afraid to sneeze within a hundred yards of anybody else because everybody was so afraid and everyone was wearing masks. I think people were showering their masks. It was so paranoid. But what it reminded me of was those wonderful 1950s alien movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Invaders From Mars and so on. They were all fear of a Russian invasion.”

Miller continued, “But I thought we had biological warfare talk everywhere every which way now we’ve got viruses that we’re all afraid of and as guys all locked inside not talking to each other. And I thought what perfect metaphor for our times. And so I made up a story where we were being invaded not by a bunch of spaceships, but by a virus, by little aliens that got inside, came in our ears.”

Drawing TMNT

One of the more interesting developments in the comic book world this year came when Miller was among numerous artists tapped to draw a cover for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #300. Miller is famously credited as a huge source of inspiration behind Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s original TMNT comics, so it was a fun case of life imitating art.

We asked Miller for his thoughts on finally contributing to the TMNT franchise in an official capacity. He revealed that IDW didn’t exactly have to twist his arm to get him on board.

“There’s no agenda to all this stuff,” Miller said. “They were kids when they were doing it in their clunky black-and-white comic. No one dreamed they would turn out to have this amazing property, which I think one of the main things they had was one of the best titles in history. So when they asked, I said, ‘Sure.’ I mean, they were big fans of mine and I thought that this will be fun. And then I sat down and said, ‘What do I do with these guys?’ I said, ‘Well, look, stack them up.’ I did it and they were real happy.”

As for which Turtle is Miller’s favorite, the artist replied, “Well, I have a favorite Renaissance painter. I say Michelangelo because the Sistine Ceiling is one of the best comic book pages I’ve ever seen.”

Will Frank Miller Direct Again?

Miller was able to make the leap from creating comics to directing films thanks to 2005’s Sin City. Miller directed a segment of the film in collaboration with Robert Rodriguez and later did the same for the 2014 sequel. The Sin City movie paved the way for Miller to fully direct 2008’s The Spirit, based on the classic Will Eisner hero.

The Spirit wasn’t exactly well-received, critically or commercially, but it certainly brought a unique visual flourish to the property. We asked Miller if he had any desire to return behind the camera and direct another film at some point.

“Sure. Yeah. I mean, come on,” Miller said. “It’s an amazing field. It’s an amazing form and it’s like nothing else in the world.”

Miller added, “I mean, that’s like asking a kid if he wants to fly the Millennium Falcon.”

For more, learn about the major revelations in Absolute Batman #25 and see an exclusive preview of The Infernal Hulk vs. The Avengers.

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.