Kazuo Koike is a prolific Japanese manga writer, novelist,
and entrepreneur. Early in Koike's career, he studied under Golgo
13 creator Takao Saito and served as a writer on the series. Koike,
along with artist Goseki Kojima, made the manga Kozure Okami (Lone
Wolf and Cub), and Koike also contributed to the scripts for the
1970s film adaptations of the series, which starred famous Japanese
actor Tomisaburo Wakayama. Another series written by Koike, Crying
Freeman, which was illustrated by Ryoichi Ikegami, was adapted into
a 1995 live-action film by French director Christophe Gans.
Goseki Kojima was a Japanese manga artist known for his
collaborations with Kazuo Koike. The team was often referred to as
the “Golden Duo.” Kojima’s best-known work was Lone Wolf and Cub.
Other titles attributed to Kojima are Samurai Executioner and Path
of the Assassin. In 2004, Kojima won an Eisner Award.
Frank Miller began his career in comics in the late 1970s,
first drawing then writing Daredevil for Marvel Comics, creating
what was essentially a crime comic disguised as a superhero book.
It was on Daredevil that Miller gained notoriety, honed his
storytelling abilities, and took his first steps toward becoming a
giant in the comics medium. After Daredevil came Ronin, a
science-fiction samurai drama that seamlessly melded Japanese and
French comics traditions into the American mainstream; and after
that, the groundbreaking and acclaimed Batman: The Dark Knight
Returns and Batman: Year One, both of which not only redefined the
classic character, but also revitalized the industry itself.
Finally able to fulfill his dream of doing an all-out,
straight-ahead crime series, Miller introduced Sin City in 1991.
Readers responded enthusiastically to Miller's tough-as-leather
noir drama, creating an instant sales success. His
multi-award-winning 300 series from Dark Horse, a telling of
history's most glorious and underreported battle, was brought to
full-blooded life in 1998. In 2001, Miller returned to the
superhero genre with the bestselling Batman: The Dark Knight
Strikes Again. Frank Miller continues to push the medium into new
territories, exploring subject matter previously untouched in
comics, and his work consistently receives the highest praise from
his industry peers and readers everywhere. In 2005, with the hugely
successful Sin City movie release, codirected with Robert
Rodriguez, Miller added a director's credit to his already
impressive résumé and introduced his characters to an entirely new
legion of fans worldwide.
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