Product Description

Just one hour to go. Hartigan's polishing his badge and working himself up to kissing it goodbye, it and the thirty-odd years of protecting and serving, tears, blood, and triumph that it represents. He's thinking about his wife's smile, about the thick, fat steaks she's picked up at the butcher's, about the bottle of champagne she's got packed in ice, about sleeping in 'til ten in the morning and spending sunny afternoons flat on his back. But with one hour left to go, he gets word about that one loose end he hasn't tied up: a young girl who's helpless in the hands of a drooling lunatic. Just one hour to go ... and Hartigan's gonna go out with a bang.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24181 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

icomics.com reviews 15 March 2005
"If you're going to read just one Sin City book, That Yellow Bastard is a great choice to make."

Comics International, March 2005, Issue 182
"Why go and see the film? Because..there's nothing wrong with a revisit when the material's this good."

The Times Magazine, 21 May 2005
"In the world of comics, Miller is regarded as the very best working today..."

Customer Reviews

Thrill a minute
What can I say - brilliant.

I chose to review this one and not the others as

a) people who read the series will suspect review the first one only, and
b) this is is my favourite of them all (personally)

Buy all of these books, 1-7, they are all truly great stories. Some people have knocked the graphical style of these books - to me, they are one of the high points - they has a superb style all of their own. Millers dialogue, jokes, slang and story are all superb - great film noir, and add in his sound effects (SPAK! HEFF!) and he really has made this series unique Miller.

Finally, I'm not a fan of comparisons with films - usually graphic novels are changed dramatically (often for the worse) in the movies. Sin City is different. I thought it was a cracking film and is incredibly faithful to the books (although in differing order). Therefore, for once I can say, if you liked the film you'll love the book, as opposed to if you hated the film dont be put off by the book.

Cinematic, thrill a minute series.

Hartigan saves little Nancy Callahan in Miller's comic noir
Although I still have a preference for Marv and narrative of "The Hard Goodbye," the first of Frank Miller's "Sin City" graphic novels, I think that artistically he hits full stride in the fourth, "That Yellow Bastard." It is just mildly ironic that this becomes the first volume in the series to add any color to Miller's black and white world. But whereas "The Hard Goodbye" had an almost kitchen sink approach with Miller pretty much trying everything he could come up with for black & white (or white & black) illustrations, I find there is much more of a coherent artistic vision and a rhythm to way in which Miller goes from predominantly black to predominantly white pages, and back again.

"That Yellow Bastard" begins with tough cop John Hartigan, whose good heart is going bad on him, trying to stay alive long enough to do one last case before he dies. Somebody has been raping and murdering little girls for some time and now they have taken 11-year-old Nancy Callahan. Hartigan is able to save Nancy from Roark Junior, the son of Senator Roark, but takes four bullets in the process. Junior is in worse shape, having an ear and both of his "weapons" removed by Hartigan's bullets. If an old man dies and a little girl survives, then Hartigan considers that a fair deal. But this bloody encounter is but the first act in this particular comic noir.

The first episode sets the rules for Hartigan's world, where protecting women is hard-wired into the psyches of tough guys like him. Even when Hartigan finds out that Nancy grew up and filled out, that does not change his mission (just complicates it a bit). Granted, the age difference would make more sense if he was her grandfather, but then there is a consistency to what Hartigan means when he says that he loves Nancy, even if she is inclined to read it a different way. There is a leap in the narrative at one point that you might find a bit hard to accept (i.e., confession leads to immediate release), but you have to admit it is a lot easier to be a pariah out in the world than stuck in prison (and I think Junior would have wanted it that way).

Again, the art work here is Miller at what I consider to be his best, but attention must also be paid to the sense of pacing that he shows in several scenes (most notably when Hartigan pulls himself together for the final confrontation with Junior). There are easily a dozen great looks at Hartigan's grizzled face, and a 15-page sequence, spanning two chapters, of Nancy dancing at the club, consisting of not only full-page shots but also two-page spreads, as she mesmerizes her audience. With "That Yellow Bastard" readers who were introduced to the graphic novels by the film that incorporated three of the first four volumes will be heading into new territory with "Family Values." It will interesting to see when and how Miller tops artistically what he came up with for this one.

Not The Best.......
That Yellow Bastard....does exactly what it says on the cover. That is, he's yellow, and my, what a bastard he is! In typical Sin City stylee, this is a tale of revenge and redemption. The main character, Hartigan is every bit as lovable as Marv, and the other regulars, but the story does not twist and turn as the previous episodes do. It all seems like a very long-winded way of telling a short, but heart rendering story of what is basically boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy goes crazy-ape-bonkers and kills everyone. This has already been done by the solo Miller in the eponymous debut and 'The Big Fat Kill'. Still this series has got legs, and if anyone can keep it going it is King Frank.